Safe Speed Forums

I've no doubt that cars can kill if they strike somebody at 20mph or 10, or 5, I've argued before no such thing as a safe speed.

This would be a pretty dull place without some discussion a?

And applies equally to folk on bicycles I can also refer to bicycle accidents.


Which means we come back as always to C O A S T as the real safety policy

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And really, this is the main problem which makes peer review actually pretty pointless. Even if we paid for an independent review of Paul's work, would the fact we paid for it render it useless?

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

Yes, but only if the discussion is a valid one.

The position of some speed camera proponents is little better than "two legs bad, four legs good" and does not add to the debate in any meaningful sense.

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www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

When it comes to the more tricky subjects - brain surgery, rocket science and the like - us none PhD types have to pretty much take what we're told by clever sorts at face value.

Thing is when it comes to road safety we're all, to a degree, experts through experience. Driving and road safety isn't a foreign language to us. And that experience means we don't always believe what we are told. I couldn't come up with a single well informed question for brain surgeon but put road safety expert in front of me and I could ask lots.

To my mind which ever side of the camera fence you're sitting research and statistics are never going to give a satisfactory answer because it's surely tricky to prove the effect of a device that has no immediate physical effect on the road users driving (unlike say a chicane on a really bad bend), your trying to count the number of times something didn't happen.

27 years of driving and riding experience tells me is that speed cameras have a limited use in very specific places and that sticking all and sundry with 3 points and £60 fine isn't doing very much at all to increase general road safety.

Barkstar

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The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has limits.

The same happened when the police under reported accidents to justify a fall in SI’s. It was only when the BMJ brought it to light that there were more road injuries being recorded by hospitals than by the police. I bet they match up better from now on. I could be wrong but, didn’t the guy from the BMJ retire not long after.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

I drive according to the conditions, it's that simple. COAST says it all.

Peer review aside, I don't need someone to tell me speed kills because I know it does - in the wrong place or situation. It's obvious isn't it?

I think people who want ever more speed cameras are trying to look at an elephant through a magnifying glass. It really isn't rocket science. How can the same stretch of road be safe at 30 mph when it can be: wet/dry, uphill/downhill, children present/no-one around, night-time and foggy/sunny daylight etc.? The 20 mph sign that flashes me 24/7 and yet the only time someone is around is for an hour in the morning and again in the afternoon five days a week. Ah no, it's 20 mph 24/7. That makes sense too does it?

So what is very obvious to me is a posted speed limit cannot, will not, has never, will never, represent a safe speed for the conditions.

Scientists created atomic energy but it takes a government to abuse it. I wonder what they would be doing to 'make our roads safer' if the speed camera hadn't been invented? Well, they might try better training and education for a start and put more traffic police on the road and get us back to the safety record we had in the 1980s - before the cameras.

I don't understand anyone who believes that the government have our best interests at heart, especially a government who would happily send our brave soldiers out as mercenaries. Oh but they care about the speed of traffic because it kills (yeah right)

I think it's incredibly naïve!

It feels like we get trolls who hang around here for longer the life span of a Volvo 340.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Can't the same be said of most other "limits"? Will 16 ever represent a safe age for starting to have sex?!? Will 1.6 millimeters ever represent a safe depth for a tyre's tread? Will 18 ever represent a safe age for boozing? Is at least once per year a safe limit for conducting MOT tests? Is a 13 amp fuse safe enough? There must be a long list of such "limits". Should any or all of them be only "ADVISORY" , and which ones? And is a limit that is ADVISORY a "real" limit, or just some words on a sign? What do you think, Big Tone?

But "they" don't want the roads safer, as such.
They want the roads emptier.
Making life difficult for drivers will do that eventually.
I know two elderly males who have stopped driving, although neither have had any accidents. It is just getting harder and harder to understand the way things are now. Post offices closing (yes, but you can tax it online)(and how many times have you failed because the site was down, the mid was down, the mid didn't have your details, the vosa mot database was down/up/up-the-chute etc etc)
I carry my ins certificate with me on the bike, since the ins company can never bother to put the details on their mid....and the police regard their electronic info as religion.
All this crap has the effect of making owning a vehicle as pleasant as smallpox.
Some people think it is accidental....I prefer to be paranoid. Nothing is accidental now, as far as the gov goes. Except keeping our personal info secure, which is accidental.
Don't bother asking what the gov can do to lower or prevent accidents, because it just doesn't give a shit about them anyway, or about people.
Cameras = cash
Obviously they are not going to prevent accidents, since there are not cameras every 100 metres. So, while they may (arguably) lower the accident rate at the camera sites, they make little difference to the rates at sites remote from cameras. They bring in several tens of millions of pounds though. And enable some to have good jobs that they would ot otherwise have.

The highway code makes it very clear that the posted maximum speed is the maximum speed limit, and it might not be safe to drive at that speed: -

The speed limit is the absolute maximum and does not mean it is safe to drive at that speed irrespective of conditions. Driving at speeds too fast for the road and traffic conditions is dangerous. You should always reduce your speed when

the road layout or condition presents hazards, such as bends
sharing the road with pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders, particularly children, and motorcyclists
weather conditions make it safer to do so
driving at night as it is more difficult to see other road users

So the Highway Code does not believe in the ultimate validity of posted speed limits, either? How interesting.

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www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

In the case of all arbitrary limits, rigid enforcement often makes the law look an ass.

And it's funny that of the examples that you give, it's only the driving ones that are enforced with any vigour.

Good point and I've mentioned this in the past Valle in as many words. The difference between 1ml of alchohol spring boards you from 'okay sir ,on your way' to DRUNK DRIVER. I'm not interested in that for personal reasons BTW.

But with regards to road and traffic, I believe traf pols should replace cameras so that an informed decision can be made and better training of COAST etc. Back later, gotta see a patient...

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I want to agree with you but I can't because exactly what is safe for whom?

People vary - so is the speed limit a worst case scenario which has to drag everyone down to the worst driver on our roads? i.e.: old man/woman, poor eyesight, slow reactions driving a Morris Minor verses young healthy with advance driving experience - people like Hughes?

Exactly who is this model on whom the speed limits are based upon?

I keep coming back to the same argument when I speak with people like yourself, (and I really don't mean that in a derisory way), you are more bent out of shape over the letter of the law than what is actually safe IMHO.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I think it’s all based on the assumption that accidents become more commonplace and disastrous if no limits are applied. The reason why that happens is mysterious. My theory is that some drivers (perhaps mostly men?) use their cars in a basic, tribalistic way to assert dominance!

OK, racing around like that may seem very primitive to us “advanced types”, but some blokes always try to assert dominance when driving their car or at work, in the pub etc. It is more disastrous in some settings than in others, e.g. in the fast lane, instead of at the bowling alley!

So, without constraints, all road users are affected by the urge some drivers feel to drive at their maximum capacity, creating racers out of everyone - car makers play on that tremendously, by the way. So, also for obvious reasons, it is necessary to constrain these testosterone fuelled chaps until they mature enough and become more humble. That’s my theory of the “model of speed limits”, anyway.

Spot on. No-one could argue with you there. (Well, I'm sure some would)

I was just thinking… I may be persuaded that a camera is a good thing in a black spot, or high risk areas, if it could be made so that the camera is only active when there is a pedestrian in the vicinity; maybe linked to a thermal image camera or something which detects mammals, but not cars obviously, (I'm sure they can do this nowadays).

At least then I wouldn't have to crawl along the 20mph road outside the abandoned school at midnight or off-peak times. (Which is about 23 hours of the day)

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I'd tend to agree, except some (a lot?) of drivers cannot make an accurate or objective estimate of their maximum capacity, and perhaps confuse it with "everyone else" or "the maximum capacity of the car".

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

Or just don't realise the significance - thinking that 'feeling out of control' is simply part of driving...

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

It seems like a waste of time! I don’t think it necessarily is, though. Force of habit is powerful, and if the norm is to zoom by whenever it appears to be OK, soon the norm is to zoom along whatever(!), especially for the more cerebrally challenged amongst us. We set the expectations of others by our own actions, and our expectations are set by what other people do (which is a very long-winded way of saying that we are copy-cats).

Perhaps if there were enough slow-coaches around (creating the norm, so to speak), enforcement would be unnecessary. Being paradoxical for a minute, one way to rid the roads of cameras is to obey the speed limit, at which point they become unnecessary!?!