Speaker 1: 0:00

You are listening to the English Like a Native podcast, a listening resource for intermediate and advanced level English language learners. There are bonus episodes and transcripts available to plus members. I'll leave details in the show notes And if you're interested in English courses, then head over to my website, wwwenglishlikeanativecouk. Hello, there, you're listening to the English Like a Native podcast. I'm sure you've already gathered since you pressed play. This podcast is designed for lovers and learners of English.

Speaker 1: 0:40

I'm your host, anna, and today we're getting in our car and I'm taking you over the limit, over the speed limit, that is, not over the drink drive limit. Normally, if you say that you're driving over the limit, then you're suggesting that you are driving with an unacceptable amount of alcohol in your bloodstream. Basically, you are driving drunk And we call the person who drives while drunk a drunk driver. Oh, what happened to your garden wall? It's fallen down at one end. Yeah, a drunk driver crashed into it last week. I don't know why I decided to do that northern, but there you go a drunk driver. So legally, driving while drunk is referred to as a DUI offence. So DUI stands for driving under the influence. But I am not here to talk about drink driving. The focus of today's podcast is something that a lot of us are guilty of Speeding.

Speaker 1: 1:59

In the UK we measure speed in miles per hour rather than kilometres per hour. Our fastest roads are called motorways. These are the large roads. Often they have three to five lanes of traffic on either side, and motorways will always have some form of central reservation like a barrier that goes and separates the traffic travelling in one direction from the traffic travelling in the opposite direction. I am sure that the highway agencies learned very early on that if someone loses control of their vehicle, then less damage will arise if they drive into a barrier rather than have a head-on collision with a vehicle travelling at 70 miles an hour in the opposite direction. And 70 miles per hour is the absolute limit in the UK. You cannot drive legally faster than 70 miles per hour on any UK motorway or dual carriageway, and 70 miles per hour is about 112 kilometres per hour. Now I don't know about you, but if I'm driving down the motorway and it's an open road by open road I mean my progress is not impeded. There's no traffic or roadworks to slow me down. So if it's an open road, then I find it quite hard to stick to the speed limit, and this is exactly where cruise control comes in handy. So cruise control is a feature in many modern cars which allows you to set the speed, so it will keep the car going at that speed. So therefore, if I'm on a long stretch of motorway and I don't want my speed to accidentally creep up past 70 miles an hour, i can set my cruise control to 68 miles per hour and just relax.

Speaker 1: 4:09

But here's a question, something that's always puzzled me Why sell vehicles that are capable of speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour when our upper limit is 70 miles per hour? In excess of means more than greater than. So why sell vehicles that are capable of speeds in excess of 100 miles an hour when our upper limit is 70 miles an hour? Now you might notice I'm saying miles an hour rather than miles per hour. Hmm, what am I doing? Well, this is very common When we speak freely. It's common to change per for, and It just makes it flow. It's easier to say miles per hour, miles an hour. It's easier, so don't be surprised if you hear miles an hour. So my car, for example, is capable of doing around 110 miles per hour.

Speaker 1: 5:13

So if I decided to put my foot down. I could be zipping past all the law-abiding citizens trundling along at 60 or 70 miles per hour while I tear down the road at nearly twice the speed. Why give me that capability If it's against the law? why make it possible? And why make the top speed of a vehicle a selling point, something for marketeers to brag about when trying to encourage people to buy? It's like saying, hey, buy this Amazon hairpin, which can also pick locks, allowing you to break into someone's house with ease. Or, oh, this solid sledgehammer is so powerful that you could hammer your way into a bank vault in minutes. Advertising top speed is boasting about a feature that is illegal to actually use.

Speaker 1: 6:16

So in my mind, that's crazy, but maybe there's a reason. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe you need to have an open top speed to be able to have fast acceleration. I don't know, but I'm also sure that there's a way to limit speed so that people are unable to go past a certain point. Now, perhaps I'm being cynical here, but maybe the reason we don't have limits on our speed to prevent us from speeding, maybe the reason is money.

Speaker 1: 6:57

Now I recently read that speeding fine revenue, so money that was made from people paying fines for speeding. Speeding fine revenue brought in a whopping. Are you ready for this? £78.3 million last year, need I say more £78.3 million? I can't even really imagine that much money. That's so much money. So I'm sure the government are thinking oh wow, there's this device that can stop people from speeding. Should we bring it in? Should we make it mandatory for these things to be fitted to every car? stop people from speeding. But, governor, that would mean that we'll lose out on that £78 million that we make every year. Ah, yes, good point. No, let them keep speeding. Who knows, who knows what the real conversation is.

Speaker 1: 7:59

Anyway, more recently there has actually been a big push around London boroughs to reduce the speed limit within residential areas from 30 miles an hour, and this is standard. So in a built-up area like a town or anywhere where there's lots of houses and buildings and people milling around, the speed limit is 30 miles an hour. So there's this push to reduce the speed limit from 30 down to 20 miles per hour. Now, 20 miles per hour was always a thing, but only around areas where there were schools or vulnerable people likely to be around, so maybe outside a hospital or something like that. But now in lots of residential streets, including mine, we're waking up to new 20 mile per hour signs being erected and painting on the road.

Speaker 1: 8:56

In fact, i witnessed the other day a sign being painted onto the road. It's something I've never seen before and I was quite fascinated. So I saw a big vehicle pull over on the side of our street. From the window I wasn't being a curtain twitcher, i was just upstairs making the bed, opening all the blinds And I saw this vehicle pull over on the side of the road And I was like, oh boys, so I call my children to come and take a look, because they love all industrial style vehicles.

Speaker 1: 9:35

And we watched as two men jumped out and, using their feet to measure and a piece of chalk to mark and a chalk line to mark straight lines, they created a box and an oval shape very quickly And I'm talking minutes. And then one man grabs a metal box attached to a pole, while the other man poured white paint into the box And in 30 seconds he very skillfully created a perfectly measured number 20, two and zero in an oval on the road. Now I can't even draw a perfect square or a straight line. I certainly can't reproduce perfectly measured numbers. So we were so impressed that we opened the window to applaud their efforts and then felt absolutely gutted to see an impatient driver in a van drive over the wet paint, smudging it and leaving dirty tire prints in the otherwise pristine paintwork. And the men who'd just done this painting also witnessed it. It must have been quite devastating, but I'm sure it wasn't the first time.

Speaker 1: 10:57

So my road and my wider community is now a 20 mile per hour zone, and of all the speed limits that I have to adhere to, i find 20 miles per hour really hard to stick to. It's not that I don't want to adhere to the rules. I'm not a speed devil or anything. I'm not in any hurry, i'm not in a rush. I just find that where my foot naturally rests on the accelerator, that natural resting place pushes the car closer to about 28 miles per hour. So to stay below 20 miles per hour means I have to constantly watch the speedometer and I'm pumping on the brake and I'm adjusting the pressure on the accelerator, and it's quite tiring.

Speaker 1: 11:50

Of course, speeding measures do help to keep your speed in check, and by speeding measures I mean things that make you slow down. Things are put in place on the roads to make you slow down. In the UK we have lots of these speed measures and they are things like speed bumps. These are also known as speed humps, like the hump on a camel and or sleeping policemen Though, if you saw a real policeman randomly sleeping in the middle of the road and you intentionally drove over him, then I think you'd be in a lot of trouble. But sleeping policemen this is what they have been called.

Speaker 1: 12:39

Speed bumps, or speed humps is what we commonly call them. They are unforgiving bumps placed in the road to make you slow down, and if you do hit them at a higher speed, then your suspension will not thank you for it. In fact, you will likely do some damage to your vehicle. Now, i once had a car that was quite low to the ground and a very nasty speed bump that I had to go over regularly would often scrape the underneath of my car if I didn't go over it at a snail's pace. Now, besides bumps as a speeding measure, we also have speed cameras. These are painted bright yellow so that you can see them and slow down in advance, and they're usually markers painted onto the road, so lines painted on the road so that the camera can measure your distance over time to know what speed you're doing. So spotting those in advance makes you slow down. We also have road narrowing Now I hate this particular measure.

Speaker 1: 13:45

They narrow the roads to be just a fraction wider than the average car And they place high curbs and big metal ballads on either side, and these ballards are always, without fail, covered in scratches and multicoloured paintwork from the multiple vehicles that were unlucky enough to misjudge their passage through this point. I always grit my teeth as I crawl through these things. I'm so scared to damage the car. I don't think it's fair at all. I mean, scraping your hubcaps or damaging your paintwork on the car is very expensive, but I do have to say that it is a very effective way to slow people right down. Now the other measure that you'll find around the UK to slow people down is flashing signs. So these are like digital displays that read your speed as you approach them, and they flash your speed at you to show you how fast you're going, and this number is followed either by a smiley face a green smiley face Well done you because you're within the limit, or a big red, sad face because you are over the speed limit. Now, for me this definitely works well, as it acts as a reminder and shows the wider world as well. So I'm not necessarily shaming or praising you, which, from a psychological point of view, is an excellent way to make people fall in line. So I do have to admit that I have been caught speeding.

Speaker 1: 15:33

Once I was very naughty. It was late one evening. I was driving home after a late shift with an open road ahead of me because it was so late. No one was out Which, in my defence, had recently been changed from a 40 mile an hour road to a 30 mile an hour road. So I was used to driving 40 down this road and the change had just come in. I wasn't even aware of the change. I was on autopilot, doing the same thing I did every night after work. Now, this was a route I'd been taking for two years, so you know my autopilot was well and truly on. So I'm doing 36 miles an hour down this road, as I always did.

Speaker 1: 16:16

And a policeman with a speed gun because they like to come out at the point where they just change the limit so that they can catch some people like me who aren't aware of the changes. This policeman with a speed gun clocked me going 36 miles an hour and booked me. I say booked me. He obviously made a note of my details and then sent me a letter. I got the letter that you never want to get. I had my knuckles wrapped, metaphorically, i think. I had to take some points and I had a fine and I had to do a speed awareness course where I learned all about the dangers of speeding. And from that point forward I have been a model citizen. I always drive, or I try to. I always drive within the speed limit. I'm a very considerate driver.

Speaker 1: 17:11

Now I'm going to explain to you some of the vocabulary that you have just heard. So one of the phrases I used was to put my foot down. Now you'll hear this in different context. When we're talking about driving. To put your foot down means to it's like putting your foot hard down on the accelerator. You are going to speed up. So if I say to you, come on, put your foot down, we're going to be late. I'm saying to you speed up, let's go. If you're driving too slow, put your foot down. Or if I'm heavily pregnant and having contractions in the back of the car, this baby's coming now. I know darling, but the speed limit is 30 miles an hour. I don't care, the baby's coming out, put your foot down. So it means to hurry.

Speaker 1: 18:01

In other contexts, to put your foot down means to put a stop to something because you have authority. So a father might put his foot down when the teenage son says Dad, i'm going to take the car this weekend and I'm going to put my foot down, i don't care, i'm going to drive as fast as I want to drive. And then Dad says Oh no, you're not. I know we said you could use the car whenever you wanted to, but this time you just told me that you're going to be speeding. So this time I'm putting my foot down and I'm taking the car keys. You're not having the car. So the next phrase is to tear down the road. I said that I might decide to experiment with the speed of my car and see if I could do what is advertised as being able to do as a top speed, and I might put my foot down and go tearing down the road. Now, in this context, to tear down the road is to go down the road very fast, or it might suggest that you do it very noisily.

Speaker 1: 19:07

One of my biggest bug bears is those really noisy exhaust pipes that people love to put on their vehicles. I'm sorry if you're listening and you love noisy exhausts and you've got too big exhausts on your bike or on your car, but I hate them. I don't hate many things, but I get really angry when I hear these things tearing down the road. They make so much noise and often where I live there's a lot of them and they go down my street, which is a residential street. I'm not near a big town or clubs or pubs. This is just where people are sleeping and there's lots of children, lots of old people trying to rest and enjoy the peace and quiet of the evening, and these very noisy exhausts can be heard at midnight, one o'clock in the morning, and I just think it's really unpleasant and really what's the word Inconsiderate? It's very inconsiderate. So I hear these things tearing down the road, or it might also indicate speed going down the road very fast.

Speaker 1: 20:19

My next phrase that I want to share with you is I said if you go over a speed bump too fast, then your suspension will not thank you for it. Now, if something will not thank you for it. It means that it won't be very good for that thing or that person. So you would normally say talk about an action or something that you might do and then you follow it up with. But if I do this thing, or when I did this thing, it negatively impacted someone or it might negatively impact someone or something. So, for example, if I jump off this six foot wall onto a concrete floor 10 times a day, i might feel really cool but my knees will be negatively impacted. So I can say but my knees won't thank me for it, okay. Or I might say to my friend hey, i can jump big jumps, i don't care that the floor is concrete, i jump off that wall 10 times a day. You might say to me well, i'm sure your knees won't thank you for it in the future when you can't walk because your knees are just a mess, all right.

Speaker 1: 21:43

The next phrase I use that I want to share with you is to creep up. To creep up Now, if I'm talking about one person creeping up on another person, it means you approach someone and get very close to someone without them knowing that they're there. So, for example, in a horror film, often the baddie, the monster, whatever it is, will creep up on the unsuspecting victim who's just standing there looking pretty. Oh, what a beautiful night. Oh, look at the stars and the moon. Oh, this is a wonderful night to be alone in the middle of a forest. Oh, i'm glad that I'm safe here. When creeping up behind them is you know someone who's got some terrible plans in mind. They've crept up and this poor unsuspecting victim has no idea until they pop up and go got ya.

Speaker 1: 22:47

But we also use the phrase of a creep up for talking about anything that takes us by surprise. Usually, age is one thing. So, oh, it's my 60th birthday party tomorrow. You're 60. Yeah, yeah, i am. Wow, it feels like only yesterday you were turning 40. What? You're 60. Yeah, i know, it's really crept up on me. I, yeah, i don't know where it's come from either. I don't feel like I'm turning 60, but I am. I've got my birth certificate to prove it.

Speaker 1: 23:22

In this case, i was talking about my speed, and often when we are driving along the street, we're aware of the speed limit and we feel like we're doing the speed limit, but then, when you look down at your speedometer, you realize that your speed has incrementally crept up just one mile an hour, two miles an hour, three, four miles an hour. Oh, my goodness me, i'm doing 25 and a 20. Quick break, break, break, Pull off the accelerator. So when something takes you by surprise, and the last phrase I'm going to share with you is a snail's pace. This is a nice little idiom.

Speaker 1: 23:58

To do something at a snail's pace, i'm sure you can guess the pace of a snail, the speed of a snail is very slow. So if I do something at a snail's pace, then I'm doing it very, very slowly, possibly a bit too slow. Okay, so it's time for me to do an emergency stop on this podcast. If you are a podcast, a podcast, if you are a podcast plus member, then look out for the bonus episode, which will deep dive into lots more vocabulary that was covered in this lesson. Thank you so much to everyone who is listening. Until next time, take care and goodbye.