Safe Speed Forums

To put it another way; hardly anyone agreed / supported me. Hence the comment about "most".

It’s simple. You can’t remove bad driving if cameras are present – the cameras are causing bad driving. All my points are valid!


I said KSIs, not fatalities. KSIs are used to justify speed camera placement, not fatalities.

Just for you, let’s remain with just the fatalities for now, even though this is not applicable to my first conclusion.
Yes, being over the limit is a factor in these 12%, but not the only factor (not bad when you consider just how many limits have been reduced). Weighed up against the total number of ‘non-exceeding the limit’ factors means that exceeding the limit is 5.4% of the overall picture. Again this figure will include those who remain untouchable by speed cameras who can ‘speed’ with impunity: the unregistered, cloners, joyriders.....

Can I make an observation here?

Many of the threads on road safety over at C+ degenerate into something like this:

a) "You said x, but I produced a link that says z. Can you explain this?"

b) "I have already addressed z. Can you please answer my question about w?"

a) "Stop evading the question. For the 3rd time, can you explain why z differs from x?"



Analysing every single little thing that everybody posts doesn't lead to any amazing revelations. It just polarises opinions and puts people off posting anything meaningful. Theres a certain poster over on C+ who does exactly this, and whom Paul is quite rightly ignoring (after death threats, name calling, and relentless attacks).

OK. Some more component facts.

- The speedo isn't any real help to the process of safe driving. If it doesn't work it makes no difference. That's because drivers MUST continuously judge speed relative to circumstances in order to manage risk. But the speedo measures absolute speed and can tell you nothing about risk.

- The speed limit is always wrong. If it's right for a Porsche, it's wrong for a Transit. If it's right in the dry, it's wrong when it's raining. If it's right when the road is wide, it's wrong when the road narrows. If it's right when the road is busy, it's wrong when the road is empty. If it's right for a novice it may be wrong for an experienced driver. I could go on all night, but you get the idea.

- Few crashes involve speeding vehicles, and many that do involve extraordinary bad behaviour (racing, showing off, drunkenness, stolen vehicles, unlicenced drivers, recklessness and so on). It follows that the proportion of crashes involving 'speeding' and 'otherwise responsible' motorists is pretty tiny. Our best estimate is about 2% of crashes.

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

Your points are only valid if it is accepted that an experienced and safe driver cannot drive safely past a speed camera. This is clearly untrue.



OK. So you saying is that you believe that there are bigger risks to road safety than speeding. That's a fair enough proposal. But an argument against addressing one issue because another issue is bigger is a weak one. Especially if action is also being taken in the other areas that you list. And it is. What's wrong with addressing all of the issues?

Right. So we're down to the bones of it now. Your battle isn't against speed cameras, but speed limits.

You suggest, quite rightly, that in accidents involving speed there are other factors. The factors that you list can be addressed, but not completely, by education, and by removing certain drivers from the road. Without exporing it too deeply, there don't seem to be any more obvious solutions.

You are not going to change speed limits overnight, if ever (and realisitically Paul you know that you are not in with much chance of getting any change). Your chief concern is with safety. So why aren't you campaigning for changing driver attitude within the current conditions, campaigning for more education, campaigning to get the most dangerous and untrainable drivers off the road permanently? Forget the speed limits for now. As I see it, when you can show clearly that driving standards can be improved to a point where it can be suggested that speed limited should be revisited, by implementing the required steps and showing a successful result, then, and only then, will you be taken seriously.

At the moment there is enough evidence on the roads that speed limits are necessary. You need to be able to prove that your alternative is workable. Campaigning against speed cameras is not going to do this.

Its the authorities' fixation with strict enforcement of limits that's the problem though. When I get in my car I don't think 'I must reach and stay at every speed limit I encounter', I simply think 'I must drive safely for the conditions. In fact I would go as far as to say that its not even a conscious thought - its a subconscious process thats happening in the background all the time.

So for instance. This morning was extremely windy. It wasn't safe for me to travel at 70mph along the dual carriageway out of town. In fact I was travelling at around 55 - 60mph. However, the decision wasn't 'its windy therefore I will slow down by 15mph' it was ' its windy and the car wants to go all over the road. I will slow to a speed where the car feels stable and I am in control'. I didn't need to look at my speedo to tell that I was safe and at the appropriate speed for the conditions.

Likewise, on the same bit of road on a nice clear warm morning in summer I will go through the same process of 'am I travelling at a safe and comfortable speed where I am in control of my vehicle?'. So long as the answer is 'yes' then I'm happy. The decision isn't 'am I doing 70mph', its 'am I safe'. Focussing on 'I mustn't go over 70mph, speedo check, speedo check, speedo check etc' is taking valuable focus away from the road.

The point I'm trying to make is that a fixation with the limit is a bad thing. A fixation with maintaining the limit is just as bad as a fixation with not exceeding it. Its the cameras that have introduced the fixation with not exceeding the limit.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

The policy does not create safe or properly skilled new drivers; worse still, it is also eroding skill of experienced drivers in the long-term erosion, as well as forming additional short-term distractions for drivers both experienced and novice.
The third point is addressed below.


It’s not a weak argument if more benefit is to be gained by addressing other issues. It’s about prioritisation of the resources and their associated benefits, resources we are paying for and we suffering the consequences of (accident rate as well as frustratingly and unnecessary low limits). What I would prefer is more effective allocation of resource to address the problem, that’s far from what we currently have: 2000 SCP staff focussing on ~2% of the overall problem, much of that they can’t solve anyway. It follows that if the other more significant problems were instead addressed, much of the ‘speeding’ issue would be solved for free (apart from the hardcore nutters) – drunk/stoned/unlicenced drivers would likely not be speeding.

I see your point, and agree with it. What I don't agree with is your suggestion that the hightlighted action is at all necessary. If so many people are able to drive within the speed limits without being obsessed with it or it being a distraction, then what is the problem with the others?

Jub Jub

I'd like to back Sixy up here.

Thereis no problem with "addressing all the problem" - except a) we can't afford to and b) we have put nearly all our effort into addressing a problem that doesn't exist.

SPEED is NOT a problem in itself - INAPPROPRIATE speed is.

Cameras focus on solving the wrong problem and send out all the wrong messages.

I (and Paul - who has said so on many occasions) am not against speed limits - but I'm against the way they are now enforced which is unintelligent and arbitrary. Prior to cameras limits were enforced with judgement by experienced police officers - this modified driver behaviour positively. Cameras enforce limits in a way which damages rather than improves the chances of improving driver behaviour.

You are nearly there Jub Jub. The problem is not speed limits as such, which as nearly everybody on the site agrees are a very useful guideline to a safe speed for a particular road (although the many reductions in limits on obviously safe roads are discrediting this), the problem is with the absolute and pedantic enforcement of limits and the exclusion of virtually all other measures.

Most people who join this site are very experienced thinking drivers, who like to pay attention to the real physical hazards on the road, but speed cameras (and just the possibility of them being present) force the drivers attention away from the real hazards and onto monitoring their absolute speed - something which reduces their ability to observe and anticipate the reals hazards, and which makes them feel like they are driving more dangerously than they otherwise would because they are not allowed to drive in a style which they know is safe. The un-spun numbers from the DfT and everywhere else support this opinion.

The general driving population does obviously include people that don't apply this level of thought to driving, but the messages being sent to them for the last 10 years or so, has been the simple one track message - keep to the speed limit to be safe. This is wrong, because keeping to the speed limit is not safe - you have to adapt the speed to the conditions. For many however the translation of the "keep to the speed limit" becomes the primary concern, and in complying with it they fail to Concentrate, Observe and Anticipate, and as a result the general standard of driving has fallen. What we want is a relaxation of the pedantic enforcement of speed limits, which will free up the concentration of the thinking driver, and positive encouragement of a more advanced driving style where training doesn't end with the ticked boxes of the initial driving test.

We used to have this - there used to be regular safety campaigns about how to spot a child about to run out from behind a parked car or ice cream van, etc. But once politicians got into bed with the enforcement equipment suppliers they all stopped, and it was nothing but speed, speed, speed. We have had it for 10 years, and in that time it should have become obvious to anybody without a vested interest (including saving face by the politicians/civil servants) that it has failed, but all we have had is spin, spin, spin - and many people believe it because they naturally trust those in authority. Like the Weapons of Mass Destruction spin that took us to war in Iraq the truth is slowly emerging, and it should be obvious that we have been badly misled with a real cost in peoples lives.

Smeggy

You have slewed the argument away from a simple question, and brought it sideways on into another. I asked what the problem would be with speed cameras if everyone drove within the limits, and safely. You responded several times that that they would be a problem if drivers drove safely, because drivers wouldn't drive safely. I think we can leave that one there can't we?

So to continue with your preferred argument about resources. Your responses would suggest that the other issues are not being addressed. Is this what you think? What is the evidence to support this?

I would say it is the unnecessarily low speed limits and the methods of enforcement of them.


What is being forced upon us is ineffective, a pain in the ass and dangerous to society, even without an alternative. I’m not advocating a free-for-all; speed limits and enforcement have a place, but what we have is extremely disproportionate, below the point of net effectiveness.

I don’t think it has slewed; perhaps the argument is more complex than people want it to be?


I’m not saying the others are not being addressed, I am saying that the distribution or resource isn’t proportionate (or even effective).
2000 SCP staff (my estimate) for ~2% of the overall problem, much of which they can’t tackle (let’s assume half). This would equate to 198,000 people should be allocated and dedicated to address the other issues.

How is it that an experienced thinking driver is expected to tick all the boxes of awareness and appropriate and driving, but is incapable of/does not have to have an awareness of speed cameras without suddenly losing his driving skills? All of the other hazards can be managed perfectly adequately, but not speed cameras? Unless, of course, he is driving outside of the speed limits. Are you really suggesting that you can manage to drive safely through erratic traffic, past motorway sliproads, under bridges, through traffic lights, and can cope with all of this, but not speed cameras?

It is only a problem if they are driving at a speed which, to use your own words, they are not allowed to. You know full well that you are more than capable of gauging your speed and remaining under the limit without a constant obsession with your speedometer.



And that's one of the real problems with your ideas. You have accepted that speed limits need to be there, as some people need them. So how do you make some conform, but allow others to do what they like? It doesn't work does it?

It might work in the classroom, where you either have to all go at the pace of the slowest, or stream the groups so that the needs of the slowest and fastest can be catered for separately. But the roads cannot be separated. Of course, people need to be educated that the speed limit is not something to aim for, and anything less than the limit is safe, but we are never going to get there completely, and so they need to stay. And that's just unfortunate for those who would be able to drive faster and still remain less likely to be in an accident than a poor, slow driver.

Is it really such a problem? All it means is that it is going to take you longer to get somewhere. Once you have accepted that the limits are there and moved on from that, a speed camera is absolutely no risk to a good driver.



I can see your point, and agree that perhaps other areas of road safety need to be addressed.

Smeggy

I don't think the argument is complex at all. You have admitted that you don't like being made to drive slower than you want to. Anything that comes after that is just reasoning to allow you to be able to drive faster.

The problem is that the limits are being set so low that people can't drive within them without being obsessed.

If, say, you're driving along a narrow residential street, lined with parked cars and frequent side roads, a normal competent driver would be travelling at maybe 15-20mph. Again, the speed is not set by 'these conditions dictate a speed of xmph', but 'I know that I can safely stop in the distance I can see to be clear.' This would be a case where the speed limit (PROBABLY 30mph) is not artificially low.

However, take an empty motorway with a temporary speed limit of 40mph. 3 lanes, straight, very low hazard density and excellent visibility, and for the sake of this argument, NO road workers present and no other specific hazards, such as the central barrier removed. A normal competent driver may naturally set his speed to 75mph or more as that is what the conditions, information flow and good judgement allow. HOWEVER, by setting the artificially low speed of 40mph, you are forcing the driver to override his natrual instincts and judgement. This leads to obsession with the speedo, distraction and boredom as the brain isn't fully occupied by the rate of information flow. In this situation a fixation with the speed limit is a major hazard.

In normal driving conditions, a competent driver is capable of travelling over the posted limit on certain roads, employing the same judgement and processing at work in my first example. By setting a limit lower than this threshold comfort speed, you are forcing the driver into example 2 with constant speedo and camera checks.

The above are obviously extreme cases but I hope they highlight the conscious and sub-conscious processes at work. There are certain instances where having a seemingly artificially low limit may be necessary in order to warn of a hidden hazard, but these are few and far between.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

When I learnt my driving skills, and even when taking my test, I was told quite clearly that rigorously following the 30mph speed limit would almost certainly get me a fail. As a result, where appropriate, I drove at 30-35mph. This was in 1989.

Again, I see what you are saying. But I don't agree (funnily enough ). In the scenario you describe you have two options-

1) Think that the limit is unnecessary, get wound up about it, and keep looking for the END sign. Get wound up by those taking no notice of the limit and shooting past, and thinking that this is unfair. Of course, this attitude can be a major hazard.

2)Think "Well I don't think this is right. I know that I'm capable of driving faster than the sign says, and consider myself to be safe. But never mind, it will soon end, and then I'll be on my way again." Then you have removed the hazard completely, with the added benefit that your slower speed has indirectly given you longer processing and response times.

So it is about conscious processes. And in this situation making conscious decisions that will remove the hazards and result in much safer driving.

Hello Jub Jub,

I don’t know how old you are but, have you ever driven a car above the posted speed limit?

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.