Safe Speed Forums

By the way greenshed, I am STILL waiting for you to explain to me how regulating speed can prevent accidents that were not caused by speed. The majority of accidents are not caused by speed, speed regulation is the primary focus of road safety policies, so how will this help.

Making the outcome less severe is totally unacceptable, preventing the accidents is what we need, or perhaps you disagree, that the number of accidents should remain the same, and the effort should be to limmit the severity?

You may find a few in the 30MPH limit but that may just suggest to any road engineer that the limit has been set too low, maybe it has been reduced to 30 MPH in these areas from 40MPH and it should have been left. I'm arguing more against your ridiculous statement of people finding mean speeds of 70MPH plus on NSL roads. I'm glad that you are happy to find the odd example in such a large sample.
It doesn't however, give any credibility to this absurd statement though does it?

"GreenShed wrote:Why then are they being reduced? Well for a start there is a problem with them being observed. Set a 60 mph limit and see the average or 85th percentile at 70 mph, set the same road to 50 mph speed limit and see that drop into the 50's or low 60's job done."

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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.

You either don't have a clue what you are talking about or you do know the truth but are afraid/unable to quote it because it goes against your ideas or job description.

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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.

I have to admit I am struggling with you as you seem to hop from one post to another in either complete denial or you want to change the goal posts.

I haven't found the "odd example" in a "large sample" I have found 14 examples of what you claimed did not exist at all in the first document YOU have supplied that represents a minute portion of the road network in the UK.

The figures also represent the average of what I would assume to be the 24hour traffic flow in a county that has a fair share of congestion. Contrast that against a detailed analysis of road surveys that have a detailed 24 hour profile and the problem areas come out. As you have said you are a lay man as far as traffic analysis is concerned you may be under the impression that this is the only type of analysis and report that is available; it is most certainly not. As I have said before, there are many places, including NSL A roads that display speed data that exceed the speed limit. Now you have seen a proportion in a document where you previously thought there was none perhaps you may accept that worse examples do exist and are common. Just because you ain't seen 'em isn't proof that they don't exist.

No you have found one and claimed 14 others, if they existed, you would have quoted them.

The fact is that the anomolies simply prove that the limits are much too low. If the mean speed is 35, the limit should be 40. The fact that the limit is 30 has no bearing on safety.

Apart from being rude and calling me a liar you are now accusing me of being a spineless bureaucrat, AIUI.

You really have no idea of my character or attitude to working with the establishment.

I have no interest in towing the line when I see that things are obviously wrong or misapplied. Try standing up among a large group of traffic engineers, council officials, contractors and police and telling them their traditional methods of risk assessment don't service casualty reduction; then several hours later coming out with a solution that uses completely new ways of using the data as well as getting total agreement to that...then say what you have just said.

Thankfully one of us is in an armchair banding around his own ideas...the other has changed fixed ideas and saved a few lives. F*ck the job description! You just don't realise how wrong you can be.

If you would care to provide a few more links to data I will have a look and show you others that don't quite match the thoughts of chairman graball

Oh really...and where would your references for that gem be?

The evidence doesn't follow your reasoning in all cases.

Highways agencies guidelines for the setting of speed limits, which state that the speed limit should not be set below the mean speed.

Any chance of any answers from you?
Nope, thought not.

Why don't you have a look trough the referenced document, find them missing and then come back and say that. Too hard to do and too simple to make the empty accusation.

And when you have done it, you'll be able to let us know what it is like. Please stop this charade, you're only making yourself look silly.

No I don't need to. Because you haven't quoted them, and make bland references to mystery anomolies shows that you have not found any such anomolies.
Still no answers I note!

That would only apply if the limit had been set after the mean seed had been measured. It may not be suitable to set the limit higher in that location so arrangements for the reduction in mean speed towards the limit may have to be made. Your assumption that because the mean is high the limit should be lifted is naive.

If you mean you want the answer to the collision question I have already given it in this thread; would you like me to come and read it to you? I have no intention of revisiting it for you if you won't read it where it has already been answered. If you have missed it then another explanation would be futile.

With regard to speed collisions, I have repeatedly asked you, and you have repeatedly failed to come up with anything resembling an answer, this leads me to believe that you cannot answer.

Also I asked you to state you maths qualification, I suspect none or GCSE but I remain to be unimpressed. Do be warned I intend to give you a question at the qualifiction level you choose, so it would be best not to make up an answer.

Possibly your most ridiculous post so far, and that is up against some pretty stiff opposition. So if on this road the limit were reduced to 10mph for example, and the mean speed remained at 35, what would this suggest to you - I know let me guess, a speed camera is needed. This attitude is the only thing that is naïve I'm afraid.

Can ALL, please refrain from the PERSONAL accusations that this Thread has started to descend into.
Please edit ALL posts to remove ANY possible Ad hominem.
Remember to attack the argument not the poster.
Once done I will then remove this post .... thank you, your assistance is appreciated.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Greenshed,

Your most glaringly absurd quote is the one where you say that you have seen MANy reports where the MEAN speed excceds the NSL of up to 70MPH. To gain any credibility from this argument, you really do need to prove this with some data, otherwise we can only assume this to be another "false statement" from the authorities who are supposed to know about road safety.

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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.

How can you "assume" that this is only a 24 hour survey? Anyone who knew anything about road surveys would know that an ARCHER survey takes place over at least SEVEN days to allow for differing days and times of day to be compared.

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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.

You will find that what I mean by the 24-hour traffic flow figure is that the average speed is taken on the data over the whole 24-hour period, NOT that the survey has been done for 24 hours.
This means that the data is collected for say, 7 days, 24/7. The speeds are then averaged using ALL of the speed samples from 0000 through 2359, hence 24hour Traffic Flow. NOT 24 hour data collection period.
You need to keep in mind which of us does his and which of us has read about it on the Internet, I am assuming that is where you r experience is drawn from.
The problem with the averaging of all of the data is that congested periods are averaged with non-congested periods; I have seen this mistake repeated often and this may have happened here; I have not read all of the notes to the tables; merely scanning through them for samples of what you said was not there.

O.K. , I will give you that one, you do know something about traffic surveying then.

I wouldn't call Chesire a county that suffers much from congestion compared to other parts of the country though and you still have to convince us that the elusive "yeti" (a NSL road with a mean of 70MPH) does actually exist although you claim to have spotted several. I think it is more likely to have been a more common "gorilla" (a NSL with a mean of about 50MPH) that you spotted and these are well know and easily verified.

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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.

Green shed, I have a few questions.

What do you consider to be an acceptable number of KSI's?

Why do you consider a person who is capable of judging his or her own safe speed to be arrogant?

How do you think the way road safety is researched, implemented and enforced compares with aviation safety methods?