Safe Speed Forums

In a way - linked to Wildy's s post of the literally hands free driver... and the make- artist of the other week...

As you know - I reported that the "Bolton Evening" is on a mission over mobiles and driving..

Well - this week they had the chronicles of Sgt John Brennan of GMP (Traffic - based at Leigh)



He cites mobiles, eating sandwiches, swigging water from LARGE 1 litre bottles and drivers reading their notes as they drive...


These - of course are the "norm" of 's - we've all seen it.. some on here admit to doing so on occasion. Personally - I don't nor does my wife - and as far as we are aware - no one in the family does...

But there's worse...



Um .. my mind just cannot cope with this mental image...

Crikey - am a married man - loads of kids.. deal with HIV cases too... but even so... blimey... am a little "innocent"

Never occurred to me that... No-o-o- oh -oooooooohhhhh!- ooooo!

How can you mix two pleasures which require close"attention to detail" anyway



Not with a Remington or Braun either .. but with the foam and the Wilkinsons...

There is a photo....



Ah - so when he gets a NIP - Jack Russell was driving.. Onloy Jack is not licenced .. so.. ..Jack Russell gets a dummy provisional to register the points.. .. Ahhhhh! .... I see that one...

Sure cams work...

NOT.....


Sgt Brennan goes on to say something everybody on this board and PH has said ...words vary but the song remains the same...





Yes You can say it with COAST ... with LOOKOUT.... with the overall basic safe speed stuff on the site too...

Hah - still COAST .. does not really matter how you say it ... does it?

He continues and Observer said it... Paul's said it .. Ern's said it .. Gatsy's said iot.. Riggers, MPaton... even basingmate, mosis and jec said it...

We all agree on many issues then... with most on here seeing throught the SCPS and the odd person supporting - and yeah - on some things we just have to agree to disagree..

I want more Not because they may use discretion .(which helps } . but because they saw what happened and are professional and knowledgeable. Also - admit to some subjectivity - not because of ties within a large but close family - but because I think I owe my wife's life to them and my sanity to the Cheshire who really helped my wife and his colleague who was a rock to me that day...

This is why I believe and trust policemen....and want more ... many more...



Yes - he does say Mobiles are the worst and people blame the caller.. ]]

Look.. There is answer phone... there is a list of missed calls... You can always call back..

Why be a slave to a phone or someone else?

Neither my wife nor self can understand this.... perhaps because we are basically sociable "felines" and like real contact more...

Not alone in family ... we are all united in opinion... and we do disagree on things professionally and politically and opinion-wise... There are some heated arguments when "we set the world right" betwewen us



Of the two men sharing the driving ... literally sharing the driving .. the says they were foreign and the car was Right hand drive... They were charged with undue care...

Not dangerous

Oh [sarcastic mode ] foreign.. yeah .. your guide book .. figures then .. /sarcastic mode off ]



The sergeant recalls the delivery man who thought the good sergeant would give directions ... he did not even know he was being stoppoed for reading his notes ...

Oh.. by the way Sgt Brennan does say in the piece

not one of the characters actually broke the speed limit


Um ... so cameras instil good and safe driving practices and driving within or at sped limit makes one a good driver by default?

Hah! Pah!


And Paul - Lucie Mcfall was the reporter - Tuesday's paper - page 3.

I think the piece does ram home some home truths about the dangers of automation ... and the need for police.

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Hi Mog,

I suppose those who study the psychology of driving could produce volumes of work discussing why supposedly normal, responsible, intelligent people sometimes behave so incredibly stupidly when behind the wheel of 1 ton or so of kinetic energy carrying metal. I would imagine that most would have a mental disconnect between their actions and the idea that they might be the cause of a large pile of smoking wreckage.
We're very good these days at making (what an old boss of mine once called) clucking noises; excuses in other words. Often, these amount to little more than an absurd assertion that its either...
<Insert stupid thing someone gets caught doing whilst driving here>
Or
<Insert some ridiculous greater evil postulated as the only possible alternative here>
Ultimately its an issue that has to be managed in the real world. Everyone knows how they should drive, the simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority don't conform to the ideal model they managed to reproduce for some 45 minutes perhaps 20 years ago. Thats why we need real police officers in real cars creating a real presence on the roads.

Ideal model? Surely not... Learners are barely coping because they lack experience.

Surely the 'ideal model' is the behaviour of a highly trained, highly experienced and highly practiced driver?

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I don't see why they're complaining about drinking from a bloody bottle of water, surely the momentary distraction (to people who haven't learned how to do this without thinking yet) is not as bad as the long term distraction of being thirsty while looking for a place to safely pull over. (hint: you're not allowed to use the hard shoulder)

Now a 3 litre bottle I can see the problem. Those things collapse under their own weight when full so require two hands. If it's half empty who cares.

yeah, you could to die of thirst in the 5 minutes it takes you to get to the next services.

Well OK then, the approved model or <insert term/phrase which best satisfies the idea that learners are taught to pass a test during which they are expected only to drive the vehicle> perhaps. Whichever way we choose to split the semantic hair, nobody would use a handheld mobile or open a can of coke whilst on their driving test. And not doing such things in the first place has to be better than doing them and messing it up.



Like I said, the suggestion is offered as if there are only two alternatives, one being the lesser of two evils therefore its the only solution. A little bit of personal planning whilst on a journey would see one stopping for a rest every now and then, which is advised anyway, during which some suitable refreshment can be taken We therefore negate the need to distract the driver whilst he/she is in control of the vehicle.

I don't think it's semantic at all - I think there's a real challenge - and not a few surprises - in understanding what an ideal driver is. And whatever it (he) is, and with all due respect, he's absolutely nothing like the bag of nerves sitting a driving test.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

What motorways do you drive on that have services every 5 minutes?

I usually have an open bottle of water in a cup holder on long trips. Taking a sip takes about the same amount of time as changing gear. I suppose I could get a long straw or something though.

Sure, I see what you are saying but I think you're missing my point Paul.
When someone sits their driving test and passes they have demonstrated a minimum level of competence at the discipline. If they were to subsequently use this minimalist model as a basis upon which to build their driving skills then I believe we'd be in a much better position than we are today.
But they don't really do this do they, well not in the sense that you or I would like to see anyway. Freed from the shackles of having their instructor or examiner watching their every move they begin to relax and to start enjoying the freedom that their newly earned licence gives them. No bad thing thats the whole point, but they also begin to adopt bad habits and begin to fall in with the national psyche that their car is also their office, bathroom, dining room etc etc.
I'm a firm believer in the 'thin end of the wedge' syndrome, i.e. once we begin to ignore small transgressions then we will inevtiably get folks pushing their luck just a bit too far. In sum, I believe the overall message should be that drivers should just drive their car and leave their refreshment, ablutions, dictation etc to the proper place. And if tempted to engage in some activity with distraction potential they should be urged to ask themselves..."Would you have done that on your driving test?".
End of sunday sermon

Most of them have services at least every 30 minutes.

20 years ago people weren't constantly drinking water from bottles, yet I don't remember thousands dying of thirst.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I wasn't missing your point. We disagree over these issues.

The whole idea that 'if you have two hands on the wheel, you're driving properly' is wildly wrong in my opinion. It stems for the idea that safe driving can be adequately described in terms of a series of actions - it can't - safe driving is more a state of mind.

Sometimes the things you describe ARE evidence of sloppyness. Sometimes they ARE the thin end of a wedge. But sometimes they are not. Actually it's very much like the speed limit debate. Eating or drinking at the wheel (for example) can be dangerous, but they aren't necessarilly dangerous.

I think it's high time we moved far far away from safety proxies and started concentrating on the real safety parameters. Concentration, observation, anticipation and planning for example.

At the end of the day safe driving cannot be defined in terms of what you are doing with your hands and feet. Instead it must be defined in terms of what you're doing with your eyes and brain.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

at most they're what, every 20 or 30 miles? So unless you suddenly get thirsty having just passed one (sounds like the kid in the back seat ) then it's never going to take long to get there is it?

but it should start with your hands and feet. What happens if you get a blowout while unscrewing that bottle top or if the car in front loses it while you've got the bottle stuck to your mouth? Sure you *might* have had a 2 second gap and you might have been keenly watching the road but you're going to find it pretty difficult to thread your car through that hole with only one hand on the wheel and the rear end doing the mambo.
Safe driving needs to be built on good foundations. If you can't get the basics right I don't think there's much hope of getting the more difficult COAST bits right.

The chances of that happening are so infinitesimely tiny that I doubt that it has ever happened to anyone, anywhere.



Also, not much chance of that. But you don't take a swig from a bottle or anything like that unless you've got a fairly clear space around you, do you?
And, on the off-chance that something like that did happen, I'd simply drop the bottle and plant both hands on the wheel without giving it a second thought.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

I agree. In which case I'd argue that a good starting point would be to foster (in drivers' brains) the idea and safety prioritised attitude that when they are driving their cars they should not engage in a distracting activity. We have to deal with the limitations and dodgy attitudes of the drivers we have in the real world, not the ones we want to create.



Don't make the mistake of believing everyone gives as much thought to when and where they undertake a distracting activity as you do Pete. Whilst a passenger in a minibus I've seen a driver taking a swing from a bottle of coke which proceeded to fizz up all over him This whilst on a DC; he either braked or at least let off the accelerator very sharply, fortunately there was nothing coming up behind him.
If you let humans be stupid, and don't discourage it, then the less discerning will be stupid when you least want them to be.

Which is precisely the reason we need more intelligent policing and less rules by which people are nicked for purely technical infringements. You cannot legislate against stupidity, and the 'one size fits all - lowest common denominator' approach does less than nothing for road safety.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

We'll just disagree about 'what is basic' then. I don't think the hands and feet thing is basic - I think the skills/attitudes/responsibilities thing is basic.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

so are the odds of actually dying on the road but the 3000 or so who will die this year might have a different opinion on that to you. "if only..."

I agree, police with common sense and discretion by all means. But road safety messages cannot be personalised like your insurance quote or loan interest rate. In this sense, road safety can only be adopted at a system not an individual level and thus some 'lowest common denominatorism' is bound to factor in.

The point is though, some people can do things safely, others cant'

So if a policeman observes someone taking a swig from a bottle AND that they almost wibble into the other lane every time they do so, then it's time for a tug. This isn't like the camera debate where people argue there isn't enough policemen. You need a policeman there to obsserve the bottle use anyway.

Oh, and in response to the comment about what if you have a blowout while opening the bottle, my response would be "oh, how lucky that it went pop now, rather than while I was moving", possibly followed by puzzlement over what would cause a tyre to pop while stationary.