Safe Speed Forums

Presumably then you are prepared to put children in harms way in other respects, like wanting them to be able to play on minefields, shooting ranges the lion enclosure at longleat etc. etc.

Or perhaps you should realise that somethings are too dangerous for children to be trusted with, if you can't accept this, I assume you have removed all electical and gas aplliances from your home, and ensured that your home contains no square corners, because heaven forbid little Johnny may have an accident, and they can't be to blame, so you have to remove all risk.

Or perhaps a better solution, teach kids safety! That way kids behave responsibly.

Like cars? Frankly, the mentality of the people that speed down my street must be that of a 10 year old.



Hmm, it's the car drivers that need teaching saftey IMO.

Whether people like it or not, the transport system in the UK has been built around the car. Cars need roads and we have a comprehensive road system that covers every building in the UK.

But now all of a sudden we shouldn't use this particular piece of infrastructure and if we have the audacity to do so we will have the price increased out of reach or new laws brought in to break to stop us using it legally.

If the transport system was built around the train and rail lines served ever building in the country, would we think it acceptable to play on the railway lines?

I live on a village high street, it's a 30 limit, but it is no place for kids to play, that's what the playing fields are for. I don't want the speed limit lowered further, and I'm not sure I am bothered if it is even enforced. I'm far more concerned that people don't prat about and keep the noise down. But if it must be enforced, because some busybody has complained about al the locals "speeding" passed their house, then I want it enforced by a man, or a woman at a push, not a camera. I certainly don't want any automated male bovine excreta that tracks my every move so some unelected pillock can keep their eyes on me.

Or perhaps you should realise that somethings are too dangerous for children to be trusted with,[/quote].
Some things are indeed too dangerous for children, or even adults to be trusted with. But crossing an urban street shouldn't be one of them. Unfortunately, at the moment, it often is. Measures, such as shared space schemes, which reduce that danger should be encouraged.


It has. But there is no reason why it should remain so car centric for ever. Motorists are going to have to come to terms with the fact that they share the road space with non motorists and that owning a car does not grant them special rights over those other users


Unarguable. But your idea of pedestrian safety sometimes seems to be that pedestrians should accept their second class status and defer to the mighty motor car at all times.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

If that is the impression I give, then I must apologise, it couldn't be further from the truth.

My idea of pedestrian safety is that ALL road users must take responsibility, not just motorists. We seem to have a culture that whenever a pedestrian/cyclist etc. is injured on the road that we automatically assume that the driver was at fault. In my experience it is usually the reverse.
For example only yesterday a man ran into the road in front of me without once looking in my direction (of course since he hadn't looked my way I had already anticipated his stupidity, and was already slowing down, oh and just for reference I was only doing 20ish to start with). That man owes his life to me looking out for his welfare! I'm sure he went home with tales of a speeding motorist who nearly hit him. This is my problem with the current state of affairs.

That's a ridiculous extrusion.

Most people use my street to in their car/motorbike/cycle perfectly responsibily and I'm perfectly happy for them to do so.

Sorry. I didn't mean you personally



But the greatest responsibility must devolve on the person with the greatest potential to do harm. And that is applicable beyond motoring. The surgeon accepts a greater responsibility for his patient than does the porter.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

My first thought was..." poor anology" but the when I got thinking about it.....If you are assuming the "surgeon" is the motorist and the "patient" is the pedestrian then you are right.

BUT, most of the time when the Surgeon is working, the patient is asleep and when pedestrians are asleep, no harm will come to them from the motorist BUT if the patient were awake and allowed to interfere with the surgeons work by introducing dirt into the incision or interfering with his scalpel work, would the patient then, not be at most to blame? It's just the same if a pedestrian decides to put his life at risk by foolishly interacting with a motorist by running into the road without looking. The patient(pedestrian) should accept and respect the surgeons(motorists) skill and at the same time not do anything to put his own (patient/pedestrian) life at risk by doing something that he knows would be foolish.

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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.

It's evolution at work.
Good pedestrians live long lives, bad ones don't.
A bit harsh.....but life is often like that.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

A surgeon is paid a bit more...
More seriously, a surgeon has had just a bit more training (than a porter) directly involving life and death; there's not much to teach a porter, certainly about handling life and death situations anyway.

Applying that to road users:
Yes a driver has had a level of training (nowhere near as much as a surgeon), but the issue here is that the pedestrian have practically none, yet their situation involves their own lives. There's no reason why pedestrians shouldn't have had regular education, such as:
- in school, where such things should be taught, and
- at home, where such things should be taught by parents (and where efforts fail, ensure there is supervision).

I think it was Thursday when I saw an incident when walking across a T-junction. Someone was following close behind me. Before I walked into the carriageway I looked and saw a car indicating and manoeuvred to turn in, so I decided to turn in and walked down into the road (position myself better for crossing, well I had to wait anyway). I looked back to see that the person following patently hadn't looked because he walked straight into the path of the car (who obviously had to stop). He apologised!

Next time you go out for a walk, take a note of how many pedestrians fail to look when they step off a pavement (off a kerb) into a carriageway when on a T-junction within a residential area - prepare to be surprised. Then there are the more idiotic pavement cyclists who not only don't try to look, but don't even bother slowing down. I saw that recently too: a mother and son in a busy residential area, 30 zone, brick walls and fences on all the corners

All this may be the reason behind the high rate of pedestrian error within the stats for pedestrian casualties (74% for all peds, 85% for 16s and under [RCGB2007]), where the major contributory factor is failing to look.


It's all very well claiming who has the greater responsibility, but where are we when we allow others to abrogate all their own? (something weepej is disturbingly fairly in favour of).
This lack of training shouldn't result with a lack of responsibility - it should result with training.
Whatever happened to parental responsibility anyway?

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

A disgruntled mechanic was working on a surgeons car.
Surgeon arrives to collect said car.
Mechanic says to surgeon - "Why do you get paid so much more than I do?"After all you rely on me to ensure that your car is safe for you".
Surgeon thinks for a second then say "but when you work on the engine it is off, try working on it when it is going".
The car mechanic says "Ah - OK". The surgeon leaves.#

Training for each of us to do our jobs and functions is one thing. Training to understand 'the world out there' is another. We travel by free choice. We learn how to travel well and within many rules and regulations. We all aspire to be as good as we can for our own safety and for those of others, as we are human and we all with the best will in the world, make mistakes. Looking out for each other is done to help society and is morally sound thinking.
We have to try and ensure that all the training and advice is given to all, however many areas no longer seem to have any community spirit. Some areas are too dangerous to go outside at all and these issues need to be addressed and solved. We need many more police on the streets to ensure all people's are protected with sensible and good rules and regs.
Every road user is aware that a few people will 'play' on the streets but it is not sensible and is not advisable as the risk is high than low. If local playing areas are a problem or gone then this needs to be addressed. No one says that all road users should not be aware and allow for all possibilities within reason. I do not for example expect to go along a road and find I that the local children playing hop-scotch refuse to move off the street and become a chicane.
I expect children to play away from the road, however a ball may stray or a young cyclist may not act in any predictable manner (by accident). So when we go down a residential road I may not expect children to actually play on the road but I will go slowly as there maybe unexpected and sudden unpredictable behaviour. At 3am however I will go at a higher speed as that unpredictable action/s is highly unlikely so the risk is far less, and so we can proceed at a higher speed.
It is nothing to do with one type or person or class or any specific area. It is about ensuring all people's are safe and behave in a sensible predictable manner. To encourage very low consistent speed 24/7 will give risk imbalance and those that want to, will or may, decide to act differently, because all vehicles have to go very slowly all the time. The perception of danger is reduced and that is very unwise.
It is also about 'default' safety.
Those familiar with certain environments may make a fatal mistake in similar areas that are not so restricted. Trying to patch a problem with a plaster never works you have to solve the cause.

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

I believe you are thinking of the requirement for gatso radar cameras not to be used in speed limits lower than 30mph. No other speed registration device I've read about has this restriction on its use.

Also, are we talking about 20mph speed limits, or 20mph zones? They are different things.
20mph zones are meant to be self-enforcing.

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Andrew.

Can you show me a single driver who isn't also a pedestrian?



What's the alternative to the car?
Public transport is a non-starter - fine for people who need it, but there's not nearly enough buses and trains to serve more than a small fraction of the travelling public. If there was enough to go around then it would be prohibitively expensive (for one thing, consider tens or even hundreds of thousands of bus drivers getting paid to sit twiddling their thumbs outside of peak commuting periods)
Walking and cycling - OK if your places of work, shopping, family, friends, entertainment etc are all within walking or cycling distance. The only way this would work for the majority is if we managed to cram cities of tens of millions of people into a few square miles.
Horse and cart - we had hundreds of years of that, before the car came along. Streets buried under a foot or two of horse manure (the streets were only ever cleaned in 'rich' areas) which got ground up by hooves and cartwheels and was breathed in by the great unwashed. And thousands of pedestrians met a grisly end under hooves and wheels every year in London alone.
Even Julius Caesar complained that one "couldn't move in Rome for chariots".

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Bring a pedestrian in the sense that you walk from the car park to the office isn't the same as being a pedestrian who does not use a car at all.



I am not suggesting that we should get rid of the car. Rather that drivers should be made to realise that they are no more important than pedestrians: that they have no more right to use the road than pedestrians. This is too big a topic for me to elaborate on at this time of night but I will do so when I have more time.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I'm sure you will.