Quote:
People are "designed" to travel at running speed, perhaps around 10 mph, but we drive at speeds of up to 70 mph, so have to learn to adapt our thinking and reactions. If our driving is usually sedate, but we then take a sick person urgently to hospital we will probably want to drive faster. Our potential life saving journey may then become a life threatening one!
This appeals to me.
The first suggestion is that although we are only evolutionarily predisposed to deal with speeds up to a fast run (I would like to think that I can run a little faster than 10mph though!) we can be trained and conditioned to cope safely with much higher speeds. Nowhere, perhaps, is this better illustrated than in the case of my colleagues of a more 'streamlined' workplace (plank-wing tossers
). Of course each individual's potential is unique, but it lends weight to the seemingly obvious, and yet oft ignored, standpoint that greater speed is by no means automatically unmanageable, and therefore dangerous, and that each case is massively subjective, and thus incompatible with automated enforcement, from a road-safety, as opposed to revenue, perspective.
The second pertinent point is the implication that a habitually 'sedate' driver will be less well equipped to deal with higher speeds. The counterpoint might be that people are free to drive as slow as they like, on non-restricted roads, and that emergency driving is seldom necessary for a private individual. This is of course quite true, but it might well be suggested that if an individual's capabilities do not stretch to maintaining a safe, compliant and expeditious speed for given conditions then they need improving! Here I am picturing those who'll potter along at 45-50mph on NSL Lincolnshire SCs on a beautiful summer's day, creating 'plugs' that result in long queues, risky tailgating and somewhat 'ambitious' overtakes!