Safe Speed Forums

Well, I've signed it but I have to admit to having very little faith in the process any more. Just think - if we get up to 2 million...

...they'll still ignore it anyway - they've got "form"!

Yeah, but that road pricing one certainly kicked it in to the long grass.

another 700 overnight, up to 3,000 now!

The big problem is, that even if they don't bring in a blanket 50MPH, councils like Lancs, Warwickshire and my local one are "sneaking" them in through the back door which makes it more difficult to overturn.

Very few roads these days which used to be NSL for miles and miles seem to be so any more.

Every time a drive through a "village" with a reduced speed limit, the speed limit seems to have been extended further and further past the "village" centre to the point where the one speed limit ends and in a few hundred yards you are in the next "village". ( I use the word "village" generously as most of these "villages" only have two or three houses fronting the roadside and don't fall into the criteria for a village in the 2006 Dept for Transport Guidlines) Even dual carriageways in rural areas are being reduced to 60 or 50MPH for no good reason.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

From a chap at the DfT:

I liked the readers coments on this article in the times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/drivin ... 864847.ece
90%+ against the proposal.

I also liked the BBC breakfast article where they draged in some chap who lost his daughter to a driver who was over the existing speed limit and drunk and showing traces of drugs.

I drove between romsey and winchester last night and I lost count of the number of speed limit changes. I stopped driving and became an android reading lollypops.

There is a new 30 limit through Ampfield. Apart from shcool hours I dont think I have ever seen a pedestrian , the pavement is set back from the road by 3m. it is a wide road with good visabillity and drainage more suited to 50-55.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

The limit in Ampfield is just plain daft. It should be at least 40mph (as it used to be).

I did see a letter to the local paper saying how much better everything was since the 30mph was introduced. I was surprised that they discerned any difference as nobody takes any notice as the new limit is so stupid.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Department for Transport quote....."In 2007 there were 2,946 deaths on our roads, with 1,973 of those being on rural roads. "

Dept for Transport figures (2007)
Deaths Built up roads....... 1160
Deaths (all other roads not inc. motorways) 1603....which I presume to be Rural.

Thats a 42% / 58% split, not quite the 34% / 66% split that they are suggesting. It makes you wonder what crap they will come out with next???

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Seeing that some form of speed (i.e. movement) is required in all collisions, this is a meaningless statement. If the "expert" meant excess speed for the conditions, then that still doesn't mean that a 50mph limit will "reduce casualties". Indeed, as anton mentioned, the (BBC Breakfast) girl who was killed was hit, i believe, by a van - aren't they subject to a 50mph speed limit on single carriageway roads anyway??

mb

I have had a couple of email exchanges with a chap from DfT: I was a tad cross when I wrote this so apologise for any factual errors or speaking out of turn etc. The ealier correspondence referred to was along the lines of the previous one posted here ie blah blah blah ..30% etc...blah blah.

HERE IS MY EMAIL:
Dear xxxxxx,
Thanks for your email.

Please consider that the collection of stats which result in your assertation that speed is a contributory factor in 30% of road casualties is generally disregarded by many people who take an interest in this topic. Speed enforcement can only address casualties where the speeds involved exceed a posted limit and the 30% figure does not compensate for that. The analysis is too simplistic and other factors in most accidents are in fact more important. DoT's own figures put the 'speed' factor at 5 to 12% (as with all data how the information is interperated can swing the result considerably).

Arbitary limits (and any blanket change) are ineffective in addressing the true accident causes which include inattention etc and specific hazzards at discrete locations (hidden exits, mud on corners) etc which are genuine problems in rural driving. At 50mph I suspect that most of these problems would be just a dangerous as is the case now.

All that 50mph would mean is slower progress between the hazards, so it won't achieve anything.

A serious approach to this issue requires investment in driver training, (on-going possibly?) and road engineering at hazard areas. Maybe signage can contribute? Much technology exists but imagination seems to end with the 'speed camera'. Why is that?

On the subject of emmissions: if the vehicle fleet is showing an ever improving per mile performance in that area, a long term policy such as speed limits should not concern itself with that as a factor. Only safety should be considered, and I think that the disconnect between arbitary speed limits and casuality reduction makes is plain that another weapon is needed now.

Modern vehicles can travel in safety at far higher speeds than the limits set allow at present for the majority of the length of the road network. The issue is with specific points of the road and the problem is driver hazard perception. Technology can help but training I think is key.

Regards


HERE IS THE REPLY:

Thank you for your further e-mail about speed limits. Your comments have been noted.

The Department’s road safety policies are based on a large body of evidence from research and from evaluation of interventions in the field. The evidence shows a strong link between speed and road collisions. Reduction in speed reduces the impact of a collision (and thus reduces the likely severity of any injuries resulting from it), as well as the probability of a collision. The evidence also shows that speed cameras are highly effective in reducing speeds, and shows substantial reductions in casualties at camera sites.

The Department recognise that safety cameras are not the only tool for casualty reduction, nor are they always the most appropriate one to use; and it is left to the discretion of individual safety partnerships what combination of measures they use to address the problem of casualties on their roads. The Department’s Road Safety Strategy ‘Tomorrow’s roads: safer for everyone’ focuses on a range of issues including driver behaviour, driver training and safer infrastructure.

Full details of road safety policy – including the strategy, research reports and guidance to local authorities - can be found in the Road Safety section of the Department for Transport web site at:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/

Statistical information can be found at:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/

Yours sincerely,

xxxx xxxxx
Speed Policy
Road User Safety Division
Department for Transport
2/13 Great Minster House
76 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DR

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Enjoying the twilight years of personal freedom in the UK (and my M3) :)

I also got a reply from my conservative local MP and he assured me a future conservative government would not impose any blanket NSL reduction....

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Enjoying the twilight years of personal freedom in the UK (and my M3) :)

Need to edit via: s/evidence/highly selective interpretations/whole

...if you say a lie often enough, people will start to believe it

It would have been nice if "xxxx xxxxx" had actually specified some of that "evidence".

mb

I would politely request to have him cite these sources. If the body of evidence is so large, he should have no problems.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

...beyond the one that Labour have probably already decided to impose...

It's a lovely politician's "non-answer" isn't it?!

Maybe you should go back and ask him if they would REVERSE any change that the current government might see ft to impose?

Rural roads must surely represent the vast bulk of the total mileage of roads in this country, although I admit I don't know what the exact percentage is, but it is surely much more than 58% of the total. So with 58% of deaths in road accidents occurring on rural roads according to the DfT, the arithmetic is simple and shows that rural roads are actually safer in terms of fatal accidents than towns.

It should also be noted that the Government are being very disingenuous here in referring to "rural" roads thus putting people in mind of narrow twisting country lanes along which safe speeds are usually far, far, less than 60, whereas the truth is that "rural" roads also covers all single carriageway trunk roads and A roads. We are also told that councils will be able to set a higher limit of 60 mph on the better roads if they want to, but frankly I cannot see this ever happening, in fact a lot of councils are putting arbitrary 50 limits on most A roads in their county like Derbyshire for instance. This is being done to make the county roads unattractive to motorcyclists at weekends, but the limits apply 24x7.

If the lower limit is forced through, journeys will become very lengthy, as no safe overtaking of slow vehicles will be possible at all, we will just have to follow the trucks and tractors along at 40 mph, (yes, tractors can now go at 40 mph and on red-diesel too, so why bother buying a lorry!!). The other point to make is that by making the main roads so slow, there will be no point in using them, they will effectively cease to be main roads, so one might as well go across country using the sat-nav.

I see the hand of the sinister Robert Clifford of PACT in all this, and probably David Begg.

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Good manners maketh a good motorist

Probably not, as rural roads carry a lot less traffic than urban ones. I think the statistics are clear that in terms of accidents per vehicle/km, rural roads are actually more dangerous than urban roads.

That is of course not to say that a blanket limit reduction would do anything to address the issue.

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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

Using the RCGB2007 figures:

Rural roads account for 35603km + 213641km (A roads and minor roads) out of a total of 394879km, that’s 63.1% [table 1a, d]

Rural fatalities account for 60.2% of all fatalities (1653 for all rural against 2714 for all roads). I don’t know where the original 69% figure came from.

All in, in terms of road length, rural roads are under represented. However, on their own that might not be a fair benchmark; traffic exposure should also be considered.

In terms of net distance travelled, rural traffic accounts for 41.9% of all traffic (2165 / 5172) [table 42].

All considered, rural roads certainly aren’t as over represented as it is made out to be.
However, If we are to apply only the net distance travelled as the sole benchmark: motorways account for 5.6% of all fatalities and 3.7% of all KSI, even though they hold 19.5% of all traffic (net distance travelled) and with their higher speed limit – that’s extremely good going. Can those limits be increased and can we have more of these roads?


An important note:

Rural KSIs account for 23.0% of all KSIs (6210 for all rural against 27036 for all roads). Yet in total, there are about 9 times more seriously injured than there are fatalities, so why the focus on only fatalities with the total dismissal of the much more numerous seriously injured?
Because the fatality ratio on its own gives a bigger number – typical spin!

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Petition is up to 10,000!

I fear it will be immaterial what a future Tory Gov would do. England's councils are reducing limits as quickly as they can get the signs up. With the exception of DCs we will have a blanket reduction by default by the next election. And even if we stop El Gordo and his mates we sure as hell won't get anyone to put a single limit back up even if the stats proved it hasn't worked. It's all a bit depressing

Still going to give my MP both barrels mind

Barkstar

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The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has limits.

Roadpeace have put a counter petition supporting the reduction:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ROADPEACE/

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to support Jim Fitzpatrick in the establishment, at the earliest opportunity, of a National 50mph speed limit on all non-motorway and single carriageway roads, policed by average speed cameras, throughout the country, except where lower limits already exist.

Submitted by Ian Robinson – Deadline to sign up by: 19 December 2009 – Signatures: 2

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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