Safe Speed Forums

Sorry if this recollection is a bit hazy...

Report at ~0740 saying most of Britain's A-roads are not up to the required (EU) safety standard.

There followed an interview from the side of the A-road from Buxton to Macclesfield (is this the Cat & Fiddle?) with a chap from the IAM explaining how the problem was down to the roads not being up to modern standards, especially wrt crash protection. Apart from mentioning enforcement in a list of potential improvements, numerical speed was not blamed . As the interviewer put it, cars have improved but roads haven't.

All good stuff, but then the inteviewer rounded off by saying confidently "authorities have already made a start improving road safety on this A-road: 12km (why km ) have been reduced from to .

After an interview about how engineering is the key.

And this was done in 2001 on this particular road

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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

Saw this too: Experts warn over A road safety

It finished in a predictable note

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

To summarise:

Experts say do one thing, DfT says they will do something else.

You couldn't make it up.

PS Why can I never find things on the beeb website?

I didn't like the IAM's suggestion of putting barriers down the middle of roads to prevent overtaking.
a) how does this stop people flying off and hitting trees?
b) with the 40 crawlers we have in this country you are effectively reducing all country roads to 40MPH unless you have a minimum speed but even then you are still going to be restricting perfectly good road to the lowest common denominator.....gawd helps us!!!

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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.

If you put barriers down the centre of the Cat and fiddle you wouldbe effectively reducing the speed to the speed of a pedal cycle, a pedal cycle on a 10% uphill gradient.

A road like this can never be as safe as a modern engineered road. It is one of Metcalfe's turnpikes built for fast horse drawn transport. To minimise the gradient it makes huge sweeping curves around the heads of cloughs. For some reason these bends are very deceptive - I think that they are built to a constant radius with no run out. If you try to take them too quickly they seem to tighten up on you. Advisory speeds for the bends would more appropriate than a 50mph limit as there are long straight sections where much higher speeds are manageable.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

A sign showing the bendyness of the bend would be most useful.

We do have some pretty shoddy A roads in Dorset.

Trouble is, you know they'll "solve" the problem by changing them to B roads, with the cost associated with changing signage, maps, etc.

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Andrew.