Safe Speed Forums

Well said.

_________________
Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

the point is that a cyclist is ALLOWED to ride in the cycle lane just as a motorist is ALLOWED to drive in the left hand lane of a 2 lane road. Just because the traffic has stopped in the right lane doesn't mean the the left lane should also grind to a halt so every fool can cut across the traffic. It is most certainly the resposibility of someone turning right to ensure that the way is clear. It is also common sense not to wave someone in front of you if you're not sure that their path is clear. In my mind the person waving would have to share some of the blame for any ensuing accident.
One more point - the cyclist or motorist in the left lane does NOT have a far better view than the person turning.


fair enough but how often does that wagon/car pull up next to you, whack their indicator on and expect that that gives them right of way? That is by far the more common scenario in my experience (and that's if they even bother indicating). The highway code is quite clear about not cutting up bikes but nobody here seems to have read that bit.

There is some 'societal imbalance' in the distribution of responsibility.

But the right balance is built strongly into the laws and advice - and that's that every road user has a responsibility for his own safety and that of others. As such the responsibility for safety falls equally on all individual road users. As it should.

The fact that some road users fail in their responsibilities does not excuse the rest of us from ours.

Our responsibility extends to being ready to mitigate the mistakes made by other road users, and is not diminished when other make mistakes. After all they are only human and humans are error prone.

These observations are absolutely fundamental to road safety. We get the average crash after one road user has made a mistake and another road user has failed to avoid it. If we didn't get this 'second chance' to avoid crashes we might well have ten times the number of casualties.

We have to guard against policies and official information that tends to undermine this vital process of shared and equal responsibility.

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

that is true. If I didn't do this on the bike then I'd be a KSI stat multiple times per day - and there's the problem, and one I'm sure motorcyclists also share.

Does this 'courteous' driving cause more problems than it's worth?

Another example that's fairly frequent. Waiting to turn out of a t-intersection. A gap on the right. A car coming from the left and you figure you can turn behind them. Then they don't drive past you and you notice they're waving you through. Check both ways again, wonder if they're not going to change their mind and your opportunity is gone. Either that or if the person had just turned the !£%)*! corner then both you and half the queue behind you could have gotten out a lot quicker.

That's very true Johnsher and what is even more concerning, is that some people will pull out on other traffic because someone on the far carriageway has stopped short to let them out.

I think the reasons why people do this is many, two that spring to mind are as follows:

1. The driver pulls out because they fear it will upset someone who has been courteous enough to let them out if they do not pull out quickly.

2. The driver risks trusting the judgement of the 'courteous' driver, to the extent that one attempts to absolve their own responsibility and will pull out in front of an approaching vehicle, even though they may not, under 'normal' circumstance take such a risk.

What is this Tory-boy chip on the shoulder all about? Personal responsibility is all well and good, but I passed my test at the end of the Major era, and even then I had it drilled into me that it is very important to utilise extreme caution around cyclists and pedestrians, because there's a good chance that they've never read The Highway Code.

Yes, cars are an inherently selfish way to get around, and yes we should be finding ways to use them as little as possible - they simply cause too much damage. We've had it too good for too long and unfortunately, it's getting close to the time where we're going to have to pay the piper - it's simple fact and the Govermnemt have absolutely nothing to do with it. It'd help more for the car lobby to realise that they need to calm their usage down and find better ways of getting around rather than throwing their toys out of the pram and clinging to their cars for grim death.

Anyhoo, back on topic, I tend to treat duals as red routes, only stopping when traffic or signals demand it. Obviously if someone does wander out, to stop is imperative, but it';s certainly not fair to blame pedestrians for doing so, especially if they do not drive themselves.

What are you on about!!!!!!!! for your information i'm not a Tory boy and won't be until we have some effective opposition but then that's besides the point.

The plain and simple fact of the matter is that Government (and that includes local level), whether you like it or not have been pandering to self interest lobby groups and that many decisions have been made, not in the interests of road safety but for political gain.

Many of these 'fag packet' ideas and decisions aren't based upon logic, in many cases they are based on an anti-car agenda that serves noone but the vindictive asperations of those lobby groups involved.

In short, whether we like it or not, Government (at all levels) have a major part to play in road user behaviour whether it be by education or by law, they should be encouraging a cohesive strategdy so that all groups benefit from each other, not segregating roadusers into small self interest groups that invariably do more harm than good. If they are to continue their pandering of lobbying groups, at the very least they could include some with a little common sense, instead they use each other for political gain, falsifying a message that is counterproductive to ALL roadusers. Such cohesion will never happen with current policy, all i'm waiting,, before seeing all, is for Harry the Hedgehogs' animals are road users too" lobbying group to come online.

If you've managed to get yer head out of your arse long enough to read that, you may begin to understand it!!!!

PS, I sense that you haven't ditched your car yet!! why don't you set the example prior to preaching and show us how 30 million people should ditch their cars and go 'green', or could it be that you couldn't do without your vehicle?

you were doing so well until the last 2 paragraphs...

TC didn't say we should all ditch our cars he said we "should be finding ways to use them as little as possible ".

And the same was true in the days of the Tories - they just took the side of the car lobby a lot more often. Wasn't it Thatcher herself who said something along the lines of "Any man taking the bus to work after the age of 26 should consider himself a failure..."?



My point is that it's not an 'anti-car agenda', just people willing to wake up and smell the coffee - which most of the car lobby are blatantly not.

You seem convinced that there are an all-pervasive group of tofu-munching killjoys trying to stop you from exercising your God-given right to drive your car whenever and wherever you please. Don't get me wrong, these groups do exist, but they're far from hogging the ear of government planners - even under Labour, the government has caved to AA pressure to build and maintain roads just as often... it's just not the shoo-in that it was under the Tories to get a major bypass approved without good reason.



Come now, is there any need to get personal?



As johnsher says, I was not advocating we all ditch our cars, just find ways to use them as little as possible - sometimes, especially out of big towns, it's impossible to do - but sometimes it's just less convenient. We'd all be making our children better off if we cut down on cases that fell into the latter category.

J.

There is a definate 'car is evil' mentality and there is no doubt that there has been a general abdication of personal responsibility over the last eight years.

It was drilled into me that you don't run into the road etc etc etc you couldn't miss the tuffty club, green cross code and for that matter the frisbee in the pilon ad.

you don't see it now, now all you get is kill your speed not a child etc etc etc and all that trite crap!

If you cross a dual busy carriageway then you are putting yourself in harms way. The driver has a duty to mitigate the effects of your dangerous action but let there be no doubt that you are to blame!

Now whether new labour is a cause or a symptom of this I don't know but its a reality and its to the detriment of our society.

I was listening to five live today and a correspondent was sitting there saying that kids rob shops as a form of communication!!!! Its not their fault they didn't have father figures!!!!!!

I need to sit down, i'm turning into richard littlejohn!

That's not true, it's just that promoting personal responsibility is incompatible with the 'get everyone into obscene debt with the banks, so that all but the richest 5% are in indentured servitude for their natural lives' agenda that began with Thatcher and unfortunately has continued to an extent even since 1997... ergo it doesn't get mentioned as much.



Actually, the old ads are still shown, it's just that the Central Office Of Information can't afford to have them shown at any time other than BBC1 closedown, ever since the IBA was disbanded, again due to 'the needs of the market', so beloved by right-wingers.



That's not true - the 'Think!' ad shot on cameraphone was very much aimed at responsible road use by kids and teenagers.



This is true to an extent, but in my opinion if you see kids, the elderly or infirm by the side of the road and you're in any way unsure as to what they're going to do then you cover the brakes and stay extra alert until the hazard is past.



Father figures are overrated - at any rate mine was, but I didn't steal, act violent or generally try to screw things up for people. Willing and dedicated parenthood is the key, and regardless of your wealth or social standing you can still be a bad or distant parent. Sticking 'problem kids' in borstal, or over-using corporal punishment only created hardened criminals and taught them that violence is acceptable. Putting them in the shoes of those they've done wrong to should be more than enough if they've been brought up with any sense of empathy at all.



You want to watch out for that... he's as hard to take seriosuly as David Icke...

If the tufty club is on late at night then I really should stay up late.

So what your saying is that the government doesn't see fit to committ resources to putting adverts targeting kids and their own personal responsibility at a reasonable time.

say for example in the middle of x factor? why the hell not?

They seem to find plenty to stick up posters telling me to not eat more that 6g of salt and how the DVLA will fine my if their tax records are up to date. How much do they spend on TV licence ads? what about my local police who forked out £16,000 on a matrix sign that tells all those coming out of tesco that our local division is 35th best in the uk?

Yes there is the mobile phone ad I concede but a small gesture against the imense tide of anti driver nonsense.

demonising drivers will not safe lives, our kids are being brainwashed into becoming risk blind.

Don't even start with the Thatcher cr4p.

What does this mean?

I am basically apolitical. In the context of this site I just believe in road safety. I criticise governments of any hue if I believe they are wrong. Your comment above about someone being a "Tory boy" seems to indicate that you do have some party political stance on road safety.

I do detect anti-car bias in government thinking which has nothing to do with "the environment" and everything to do with control freakery and social engineering. I believe in personal responsibility for our actions - not state control. Does this make me a Tory?

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

Actually I think that cars are an excellent way to get around. You say they do 'too much damage', but I don't see it. We have a wealthy highly mobile society and I see that as a good thing. I don't see that cars are significantly worse than trains, buses or planes. They are a transport mode that real human beings making real personal choices choose for 85% of passenger miles in the UK.

I make the choice proudly and without guilt. And so should we all.

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

We're going waaay off-topic here, but the damage is there for everyone to see in terms of climate change, increased incidence of respiratory disease in town and cities, and constant wars to preserve oil supplies.



I don't, because it is at the expense of other people in differnt parts of the world. We need to learn to share our resources more equally, and if that means sharing transportation and moderating our use of the private car, then so be it.



But don't you think that's wrong? We've been using coal and gas fired power stations for over a century now, but we have to mitigate that because of the environmental danage it is causing - we're causing untold miery in other countries by placing our oil corporations there who exploit the local populace, just so we get to pootle around in private vehicles, probably mostly for unnecessary journeys. We're getting obese as it is, surely we want to reverse some of these trends, not encourage them?



I respect your opinion, but firmly believe that it is a fundamentally selfish one. On the other hand, I do have some fairly outre beliefs - such as personal wealth should be limited to the amount that one can comfortably live off the interest and the rest donated to help the people Western governments have screwed over for the last three or four hundred years. I believe the West needs fewer billionaires and more conscience.

Malcolm - can you prove that it's all about social engineering? What could they possibly hope to achieve?

And Civil Engineer - would you mind them putting your taxes up to pay for coroprate advertising rates? Thought you might. Pretty much every government department is still grossly undedrfunded due to the horrendously wasteful Thatcher tax cuts of the 1980s, and no-one wants to pony up enough to get things sorted again.

And I'm sure that matrix sign will get something useful on it soon, but there's no point in blaming central government for a funding decision made by your local police authority.

Hear Hear Safespeed, and common sense prevails!!!

and with regards to the Green Cross code versus harry the hedgehog cinema ads.

What is interesting about the Green cross code, is that it used human beings and more importantly, we still talk about it, which meant that the message got through!!! There were no contrascending lines, no wavy expensive cartoon which don't bare resemblence to the real world, just a clear "STOP, LOOK, LISTEN" follow the geen cross code. A simple message with a decent role model.

How on earth can children or adults assimilate with a bloody hedgehog? who on earth under the age of 6 can young children or young adults look up to a hedgehog like you could with David Prowse? even before we knew him as Darth Vader.

Personally, I think it's an insulting message.

This is getting far too political for me personally. (I'm not worried about the topic drift, and others should feel free to post.)

I don't blame cars for wars (I blame America.) I don't blame cars for inner city air pollution - buses and lorries may contribute something significant, but modern cat-equipped cars are clean clean clean. And I don't believe in anthropogenic global warming, and even if I did, cars would be a minor contributor.

I did believe in AGW until I saw so called climate scientists saying extremely unscientific things and asked myself: "why?". And I've seen so much junk science since I've been doing the Safe Speed work that confidence in real-world practical science is running at an all time low.

And no - my transport choices are not selfish. How can they be when 85% of passenger miles in the UK are backed by the same choices. Selfishness is relative. I have a right to my life and don't exploit anyone.

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

Paul's right, this is diverting attentions away from an important topic on road safety and as such will be my last take on the matter.






The is also evidence contrary to Global warming in equal amounts. Where there's an argument for, there's an argument against.

Who does nothing whilst oil companies buy out small companies who are investing in alternative energy, why the Government of course (oh and that includes former Governments too, not bad for a 'Tory Boy eh)



Tell that to China and India, do you think they give a hoot about global warming??? while we play at being global friendly, the Chinese and Indians are catching up and up. " we should all share equally", that's a wonderful socialist utopia that doesn't exist i'm afraid (not that i'm calling you a socialist of course), didn't work in Russia, never will, get over it.



errr, I think you'll find that those same oil companies breath much life into those countries, whether it be through employment or medical facilities. Ask someone who works for the oil company, who can now afford to feed and treat his kids, build up a home etc, whether we as consumers are doing him a disservice. Better still, go and tell them that you want to close down the oil well or refinery and see how long you last.






Selfish, yes I work my butt off so I can benefit others, sorry mate, call me selfish but I work my butt off to support and feed my family. If I can, i'll donate to local charities who do some good with the money. I don't give it away so that the Directors of Oxfam can swan around in Rolls Royces, or to suppressive 3rd World countries who wish to waste money on private jets whilst their people starve. Same as many homeless people in the UK, you could give them 30 grand and the money would be squandered, in fact it would probably do them more harm than good. The people who make it out of the trap help themselves and it can be done whatever the circumstances.





Social engineering, hmm, I only yesterday had to withdraw my son from a class at his school due to the content of one of his curriculam lessons, "the European Union", which having looked at the content is exactly social engineering. Telling primary school children that the EU is wonderful!!! or how about the SPEED KILLS policy which is in itself a form of social engineering, reason!! cos it get's loads and loads of people believing that if you stay within the speed limit you'll be safey wafey. crap!!




I was going to use some very nasty language to define what I thought of this paragraph but I won't, instead I'll just say "chat a wock"



Hmmmm, I wonder who makes policy? I wonder where ACPO get their brief?.............you don't sayyyy, not the Government, surely not!!! not in this devine utopia that we live in,

anyway, must go, the cavewoman next door has just told me that some lovely fresh nuts have naturally fallen from the tree down the road. Must get them, otherwise the lovely furry squirrels will get them first.

You make a lot of questionable assertions here. You state several things as facts when they are not. If you believe the above quote then should we in the West, stop the populations of India and China getting cars at all costs - maybe by invading them - to save the world before its too late? Well, after all, we are right aren't we. We must impose our factual views on everyone for their own good.

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

Safespeed said"There is some 'societal imbalance' in the distribution of responsibility.

But the right balance is built strongly into the laws and advice - and that's that every road user has a responsibility for his own safety and that of others. As such the responsibility for safety falls equally on all individual road users. As it should.

The fact that some road users fail in their responsibilities does not excuse the rest of us from ours. "

Exactly Paul - totally agree - as road users we all have a responsibility to look out for each other, and IMHO thats what is wrong ,not with the road safety policy of today, but Britain as a whole.