Safe Speed Forums

But are you man enough to pick it up if it falls over? All power to you, bmwk12!

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Sounds reasonable, but it also sounds like plain excessive speed rather than speeding. Granted, the situation you describe would often occur at illegal speeds, but consider the same situation on a similar section of road that has no speed limit. Or if you prefer, imagine the same conditions but suppose that the government had gone a little bit mad (which it probably has already IMO ) and had deristricted all the roads (which it probably won't, but wth it's only a thought experiment). Would the fact that the speed is now legal change anything and prevent the crash. Nope, course not. The crash will still occur, but it just won't have anything to do with speeding since the offence of speeding wouldn't exist. So in the presence of limits surely that means the crash, although caused by driving at a reckless speed, is not actually caused by speeding. Ultimately it's down to the reckless behaviour of an individual.

I've been thinking about the original question along the lines of how can driving at a speed at which you would get an SP30 (or whatever) cause an accident? All I've come up with is that another motorist might be taken by surprise and lose control or collide with the speeding vehicle. Even then that's at least as much a failure to judge the first vehicle's speed on the part of the other driver. Call it 50:50 speeding:failure to judge speed? That might even be a bit generous since we could argue that in the absence of the second driver no crash would have occurred.

I wonder if politicians all think about what the best way forward is over the life of a parliament? I'd be happier if they thought a bit longer term than that.

About your slogan... accurate, but not as snappy as they seem to like 'em these days. How about just "Bad driving kills"? Yeah, I know, it's still just a soundbite and not entirely accurate, but "Bad driving is more likely to get you killed than driving sensibly" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue either.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

I was rather thinking of human nature in general not necessarily in the context of speeding. You know - 'work with it, not against it' kind of thing. Sometimes you hear 'if only people did so and so everything would be great'. Well that may be true but getting people to do the right thing may not be as straightforward as it seems. Incentives can be ineffective and threats can be counter-productive. You can pass any number of laws against adultery on the basis that it is damaging to children but in the end you find that you can't stop people from falling in and out of love so efforts are best directed at mitigating the ill-effects. I am not saying that speeding is like falling in love but that we shouldn't assume that it is so different that we can just tell people what to do and they will do it. Politics can lead up blind alleys because of this refusal of human nature to be mallable. That is not to say that in the particular case of speeding the law is without meaning. I rather like to think of it as something that we can resort to as a means of getting rid of dangerous drivers who happen to be speeding . Proving dangerous driving is not as simple as proving an absolute offense that can be detected with an approved bit of kit. Think of this analogy - your employer keeps an eye on your weekly hours and you know you're bound by your contract to work no less than a certain number of hours a week. In theory if you do not do your contractual hours you are in breach of contract and should be sacked (eventually after due process etc). In practice the employer will overlook breaches as long as you are seen as an asset to the company but will not hesitate to use breaches of contract against you if you are not seen as an asset. Proving that you're not pulling your weight is not as easy as proving that you have worked 36 hours instead of your cntractual 37.5.
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DO NOT PANIC

Completley untrue, i have 9 speeding convictions versus 0 accidents



Getting into the tight spot, is your failure. Not the speed you were travelling at



What speed do you think is required to cause a vehicle to flip




As over 95% of accidents happen at or below the speed limit, we can argue that a lower speed has no impact on accident rates.




I have seen no one advocate that very high speed is acceptable


and how can you judge an individual case in a sea of accidents and emergencies, and what is the most cost-effective way forward with millions of accidents over the life of a parliament?



Why not call it what it is

Accidents Kill, their is no 2 ways about it.

So why do we not prosecute drivers that cause accidents

Ah yes, too much paperwork & investigation involved.



We do not have a speed limit in place to avoid death from a collision.



It is the only form of evidence that can be used against a driver to gain revenue.



That would be with equipment that measure a metro at over 300 mph, how does that work.

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Steve

I have heard that certain insurance companies (who arrange for drivers to share risk among themselves) overlook speeding offences to some extent, although I can’t verify that. But most don’t, so surely it can’t be completely untrue?

For most people, many convictions does affect the cost of their insurance. After all, other drivers want to have cheap premiums, not to subsidise bad risks! So they charge a lot to make it less unappealing. If it was completely untrue, other drivers wouldn't care and would not charge more to share that risk.

Of course, insurance brokers factor those risks on behalf of drivers, but the principle seems to be, at least right now, that convictions for speeding and other things indicate more risk, and justify higher premiums for most people.

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Insurance companies use two main criteria for setting premiums:

1) The risk
2) What the market will stand

I'm confident that in the past increased insurance premiums for convicted driver really did reflect an increase in risk.

These days, with speeding convictions, I'm pretty confident that it's largely market exploitation.

I've asked insurance companies for data, but they regard anything that goes to set premiums as commercially confidential.

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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

It is true that merchants are required by their shareholders to charge as high as the market will stand. But it is also true that competition in the insurance field is strong, and anomalies due to the gouging you describe could be exploited by other firms. For example if I knew that my competitors were exaggerating the risk of a certain group, I could offer cheaper rates to that group and acquire very profitable business. Capitalism abhors a vacuum!

That being said, branding, inertia and advertising are also used to set the rate, so there are always occasions when rates are slightly 'unfair' to some groups. All I can advise is to shop around, especially in Britain. Branding, inertia and advertising have made the UK one of the most expensive countries in the world to live in.

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Yes, speed is a property of physics, and as such, it is irrational to blame speed for anything at all. But that is not what we are doing, is it? Saying 'arsenic makes you very ill' does not mean that 'arsenic is very naughty and we all blame it for killing people'. It means that if a person misuses the poison, they will get sick and die. The poison should not be punished for that! How could you punish a poison anyway? The same is true for speed. We can't punish speed. So we can't blame speed! It is, however, part of the vernacular to say 'speed is dangerous' or something like that. It doesn't mean that 'speed is very bad stuff', it means that speed is dangerous if you misuse it or allow it to be misused. I think most people can see the difference and understand this.

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So, basingwerk, what is the legal limit for arsenic?

I'm not sure in Europe, but in the US it is 50 ppb http://ag.arizona.edu/AZWATER/awr/mayjune02/leglaw.html

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Actually, the more I think about your question, the more I think it is similar to the speed question. With arsenic limits in drinking water, it doesn't matter one iota if you drink a glass of water with 50 ppb or 51 ppb. Yet, for the overall matter of public health, a limit of 50 is set, and water companies are bound to that limit. We have similar regulations for food additives and smoke emissions from factories and what have you. We expect that.

Similarly, it doesn't matter much if you drive at 30 mph or 31 mph. Yet, for the overall matter of public health and safety, a limit of 30 mph is set and drivers are bound to that limit and ought to respect it. As a consumer of the roads, I would prefer drivers to honour their legal obligations, for my safety more than theirs. I am annoyed by drivers who break that limit for the same reasons as for the water company who provide supplies with two much arsenic - they break their commitments so they can have a free lunch.

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Presumably a bottle of arsenic wouldn't be considered illegal even though it would contain more than 50ppb.

Why are you annoyed at someone who breaks the speed limit, yet causes no danger to anybody (even themselves)?

And I'm much more worried about the alligators in the reservoir than I am about the exact concentration of arsenic. Another three people eaten last weekend.

Can't we concentrate on the alligators first? They're much more dangerous you know. In fact very few people die because of the tiny concentration of arsenic, but we're paying far more attention to arsenic than alligators - hell we're not even warning people about the alligators.

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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

Hurrah! Speed is dangerous if you misuse it. I agree completely.

So is 30mph misuse? Or 70mph?

If 30mph is misuse today, will it be misuse tomorrow?

Is 100mph misuse? How about in Germany?

If there's traffic stationary 1 mile ahead ahead on the motorway and I'm doing 70mph, how does use and misuse vary as I approach the traffic ahead?

What tells me how use and misuse varies as I approach the stationary traffic ahead?

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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

Of course, and the speed of a passing comet wouldn't be considered illegal even though it would be passing at considerably more than 30 mph! It is illegal for the water company to provide water higher than the 50 ppb limit, and it is illegal for the road user to break 30 in town. These are for public health and safety reasons.



I am annoyed at someone who breaks the speed limit, yet claims that it causes no danger to anybody. That is for the same reason that I am annoyed at the drink driver that has blood at 81 mg, not 80 mg, and claims that it causes no more danger to anybody than it would have if he had only 80 mg. It is for the same reason that I am annoyed at the water company that provides water at 60 ppb limit, and claims that it causes no more danger to anybody than 50 ppb. Everybody that does a bad thing claims that it was really OK, but that is not what we decided. We all decided that 30 was the limit in town a long time back, yet now some don’t like it. Tough luck, Jim, write to your MP. Meanwhile, stay under the limit, and save yourself some money.

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How could it be otherwise? "Speed" has no sense of purpose, only drivers have that.



That depends on many things, such as the time of day, the light levels, whether it is raining or snowing or they type of road, or traffic density or the limit in force on that stretch. Now that last one will stir you up, SafeSpeed, we both know that. How can a political limit affect safety? Well, the last time we argued over this, I came up with a notion of actual risk and legal risk, I seem to recall. They are different things. Actual risk is hard to measure, but legal risk (i.e. the behaviour that is sanctioned by the law that we all agree to in a democracy) can be assessed to some extent and offenders can the punished. In any particular instance, legal and actual risks differ, but aggregated, we hope the measures work. Also, we have the notion of an excellent driver who influences other, less drivers, to zoom along as well. This rots the driving culture to some extent.



That depends on what we, as a nation, decide, after all, the legal system only mirrors society's wants. I can see your point that we are two faced on this (i.e. we, through parliament, want low speeds in town, yet we, on the way to work, want to go faster) but the law takes precedence over our personal whims.



I quoted the US limit on arsenic. I dare say it's different in Germany, and I expect standard to differ on absolute top speeds. That is for each political system to set.



Yes. We all know the rules. 70 mph is the absolute top limit, but in all cases, adjust to conditions.

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Meanwhile, while we're all arguing about arbitrary limits expressed in miles per hour, the alligators are multiplying.



That's not only rubbish - it's offensive rubbish.

The true key component of the safety culture is individual responsibility. That's almost the exact opposite of your imaginary copycat behaviour.

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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

[I missed this post - until now]

Agreed. But in most cases these accidents take place irrespective of the speed limit. We slow for a bend and if we don't slow enough we crash. If it isn't fair to cite exceeding the speed limit as the cause of a crash on a 40mph bend on a 60mph limit road, then I can't rate the cause as different if we crash on a 70mph bend on a 60mph road. The error is the same - the speed limit does not define the error.



That's true, but again it's inappropriate speed. But this time the actual CAUSE has to be something else - someone pulls out or whatever. Even inappropriate speed does not CAUSE (think: precipitate) a crash when coupled with high hazard density.



Agreed. So exceeding the speed limit as such cannot be regarded as a cause. Agreed?




Yes. But the speed is a direct consequence of the recklessness. It's the recklessness we need to deal with.

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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

We've had pretty creative ideas, but I've not seen any convincing examples in this thread where we would properly say that a crash was caused by exceeding a speed limit.

So, basically, by way of this intellectual exercise we've pretty much refuted and destroyed a part of the foundation claims for speed cameras.

There aren't any accidents caused by exceeding a speed limit.

Whenever anyone says "speeding causes accidents" I think we can pretty safely say: "No. It does not!"

We'll have to look elsewhere - and carefully - to get rid of the claims about "speeding makes accidents more likely" and "speeding makes accidents more severe." The problem with these two is that sometimes they are true.We need to find out how often they are true (not very) and we need to find ways of improving the situation without dangerous side effects. Or we could just concentrate on making the genuine most common causation factors less likely.

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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

I agree - and a part of individual responsibility is to obey the law. If we did that, we wouldn't neeed this discussion, would we?

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