Safe Speed Forums

Short life "listen again" link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/progs ... latest.ram

The programme was presented in three segments:

Segment 1 suggested that allowing the number of traffic police to reduce was dangerous, and most offences couldn't be detected by camera. Hurrah!
But the clear implication was that all our accidents are caused somehow by criminal and dangerous driving. Clearly this isn't the case. Most accidents are caused by road user error and cannot be prevented by enforcing laws because they are not caused by a specifc previously detectable "offence". At least 80% (and probably over 90%) of all our accidents fit this category.

Segment 2 showed us the antics of recently qualified drivers, but failed to mention that young drivers have their accidents because a) They fail to anticipate the actions of other road users and b) because many are overconfident.

Segment 3 talked about the dangers of older drivers continuing to drive past the age where they (as individuals) are safe. Some good points made.

All in all, they narrowly missed the chance to advance the debate. Yes we need more traffic police, but we also need to feed the right road safety messages to all drivers and encourage them to improve, and we must urgently stop distracting them with tangible threats of pointless enforcement.

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

Reasonable program I thought.



Don't think that implication was made at all, in fact there was a clear statment asserting that 20% of accidents fall into this category. However, don't we all want to believe that it's other dangerous drivers that cause the deaths and serious injuries




Again, the message that came through to me loud and clear was one of overconfident youngsters who tend to be absolutely cock-sure of their own abilities (and invulnerability) And one of the parents made clear mention of the fact that other road users play a part too.



Yep, no aruments here. My MIL is regularly driven to the shops by an old chap who has absolutley no road sense or awareness of the danger he is causing to others. Fortunately she moves soon and will be able to get to the shops on her own.