Safe Speed Forums

The big problem here is that an 86mph driver won't either (and so on, 87, 88, 89, 90...) if conditions are suitable to support the speed.

Yet, on the other hand, sometimes 85mph will be suicidally fast.

I'd go further and suggest that a speed of 130mph in perfect conditions will normally be safer than 70mph in bad conditions.

I agree that we need to find a balance between safety and practicality. We need to warn novices (etc) against excessive use of speed. I agree we need speed limits.

But I don't agree that there's any useful threshold where we could start enforcing entirely without discretion as a camera does.

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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

Well, that was the only thing I could think of that was nearly as dangerous as cars, but it still a ways short. If I had to choose between getting nicked by a chain saw or being hit by a car, it's a close call.



Speed limits couldn't help with those things. Except, perhaps, alcohol. There should be a limit of 5 pph (pints per hour), and a 6 month ban if you exceed the limit four times.

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Five pints per hour? I can't manage more than two nowadays, and then only for the first two hours.

And if I had to choose between touching a car and touching (the business end of) a chainsaw?

The chainsaw anaology is false, let alone alone entirely unhelpful, and I'm not going to go anywhere with it.

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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

Well there are plenty of others. Let us imagine a factory where people work. A delivery aisle runs down the middle of the manufacturing floor, and periodically, without warning, large blocks of metal streak along the aisle at 35 mph. There are no guards or barriers between the workplaces and the aisles, and periodically, one of the workers is struck when he is crossing the aisle or when one of the great blocks goes out of control and runs amok among the machinery. If such a business existed, it would be shut down out of hand, and everybody would say 'good riddance to that rubbish'! Yet the situation with cars in small towns and villages is even worse, because people aren't paid to take that risk and many of them are children. It is only familiarity that allows this, and familiarity has happened only because the traffic has increased slowly but remorselessly.

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If you want to promote an "anti-car" agenda then you're entirely in the wrong place. We're not trying to discuss if cars are good or bad. We're trying to discuss how to use them more safely next year.

Anyway, if we didn't have cars, what would we have? Horses? You think horses are safer? Buses? Buses are far more dangerous to pedestrians! Trains? What in every little village? And what about moving goods? No lorries? No vans?

The only way forward is to manage the present situation better and to allow it to develop with incremental technical improvements.

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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

Yes, I'm flogging a dead horse now! It seems to me though that the matter is in the drivers' own hands. If they (all) had thier act together, we wouldn't need this camera malarky anyway. Get your act togther, lads, and slow down/take care (delete as per your belief system).

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This also strikes me as a completely inappropriate and unhelpful analogy - as in practice the metal blocks can see if a person is crossing and stop in time, or steer out of the way, and the people can also see clearly when a metal block is coming. Considering the amount of potential conflict, the number of collisions is actually amazingly small.

Your argument also tends to lead to support for greater segregation - do you want railings down village streets to separate pavement from road?

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

It's OK for you to say that - perhaps you would be different if one smashed into you. I am.



I want less cars in village streets and I want them to be considerate. Failing that (and they do fail), I want them capped to 30. I want drivers to be fully aware of the power they have and to use it thoughtfully. Like I said, this is only been allowed to get this bad because it has grown over a long period. Now, the doors of perception are open, and non-driving road users (and some drivers) have had enough. If you want to roll back cameras, humps and obstacles etc., you drivers have to tow the line. If you can't get your shit together, I guess it’s tough luck.

By the way, I saw a smash on the way in today. On a slight bend on a dead straight fen road, two cars ended up in a field! No excuse for such foolishness. I hope nobody got hurt, though. Perhaps this will make them learn (I live in hope).

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The language used in this post suggests to me that this isn't Basingwerk. Did you leave your computer logged in?
AFter all, I'd expect you of all people to know that the expression is "toe-the-line" not "tow".

He's done it before!

But seriously I think it might be to do with the number of posts basingwerk's on at the moment.......

666!!

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

I pondered on that for a moment, before choosing the wrong word, but if we are being picky, I'd expect RigPig to know that a sentence starts with one capital letter, not two! I know what I’m talking about, RigPig! I may have failed my O levels, but at least I failed them at grammar school!

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Ooops. Next time I'll check for typos

Apologies basingwerk. It was just that the language used in that post didn't seem right somehow, as if someone else was using your log-in. I was trying to be generous BTW

What I'd like to see cameras do on the motorway is provide the safety net protecting the high speed speeding driver and others from his own momentum.

I see no safety or road courtesy benefit to be gained by pinging speeders at 80mph on a quiet dry motorway. As you say even 70 mph can be thunderously fast in other conditions and that cannot be dealt with by cameras. I do believe when you start to raise the speed by one mph then another, you eventually come to the stage where the speed even on a quiet dry motorway is perceived by the vast majority of road users as unacceptable for numerous reasons.

• The closing speed is often intimidatory, which can put some drivers off using the motorway, the safest road.
• The law adhering car driver or wagon driver may not get the essential view of your approach because of the high closing speed, causing a sideswipe.
• Wagon drivers also can 'encourage' lane two dawdlers to move into lane three to facilitate their progress at a steady speed. The wagon driver may not have fully considered the third lane high speeder, who in turn might not have noticed the developing circumstances.
• The momentum of the higher speed impact is clearly an added danger to other road users, and will cause significantly more crossover collisions.
• A high percentage of motorway obstructions are in the third lane, (either vehicles spinning and coming to rest there broadside on, or wagonwheels / tyres etc which have been shunted there by other wagons.) Often these obstructions are very hard to see, and are almost totally unexpected by the majority of drivers. High speed drivers spend a much higher percentage of their drive in lane three, and consequently are at higher risk of the 'late view hazard'. Again the momentum is the major factor in the resultant severity of collision.

I think that even on 'safe' roads these factors start to be more of a consideration at speeds in excess of 90mph, and I believe that for the use of cameras on the motorways, that is where their enforcement should start, and I think we should all know the threshold. Our concentrating higher speed drivers (slightly over 90mph ) would easily see the detection point and should be able to trim their speed accordingly providing them with a concentration dividend. I think that any enforcement below these speeds should be by us as we can assess any aggravating factors.

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

It may be policy, but it should not be public policy, because drivers will soon assume that they are 'OK under 90'. I would suggest that you can set many cameras to work this way, but seed the motorways with a spread of different settings so that no driver can feel absolutely safe from being pinged when driving above the limit.

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This is rare, but I partially agree with basingwerk. I think a tacit policy which turns a blind eye to speeding on motorways and good quality d/c traffic up speeds up to 85-90 mph, if the standard of driving is otherwise good, is sensible. This would require an appropriate camera threshold or exercise of discretion in the case of handheld units and trafpol. However, if there was an increased motorway speed limit, or a public policy of no prosecution under (say) 85mph, there would (possibly) be two adverse effects:

(i) drivers who presently select a cruising speed of 70mph would select a higher speed;
(ii) prosecution of drivers exceeding the 70mph limit and NOT driving well would be more difficult.

The reason I would argue (i) is undesirable is my belief that a reasonable spread of speeds is conducive to safety on motorways. Why - because it helps to reduce bunching and provides a measure of mental stimulation for drivers - assessing closing speeds and distances, checking mirrors etc. I acknowledge this is a subjective observation. I make it because I personally feel more comfortable when I am not caught up with the majority of traffic but steadily passing most (with some faster traffic overtaking me). Therefore, my preferred cruising speed is 85mph (which I set on cruise control where traffic density allows) because I find that provides what I find is an adequate but not excessive speed differential (for unstressed driving), meets my desire to 'make progress' and gives good fuel economy. I will occasionally accelerate to 90 mph to make some space or complete an overtake more quickly but invariably settle back down to my personal 'optimum' speed.

I don't see the problem with the concept of making something like this public. Up until 4 or 5 years ago, all motorway speed prosecution was in our hands. There would be just as much risk to the 70 to 90 speeder's licence as there was before, perhaps targetted more effectively to the aggressive careless driver, whereas the higher speed speeder would get the more general targetting I feel is deserved.
FWIW I don't think it'll be too long before the motorway limit is 80mph. Most Bib I know are in favour of that. The ACPO guidelines will probably suggest prosecution at 90+.

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

Basingwerk .. if you are worried about notseeing metal blocks ... might I recommend a good optician? Sounds like you need one! .



Less cars in village streets? How do villagers get out and about then?

Cap all cars to 30 mph? Er... why? Most people drive very competently and safely on the whole. Mistakes happen - to err is human and not every mistake ends in a tragedy - but the difficult bit is learning from the mistake.



micro -climate! Happens all the time there and we have our bits which are prone to this. You cannot know what caused the accident....little frost, black ice, mobile phone use.... even a sneezing fit could have caused this.

Not for you to decide if they were speeding ... but the investigating officers!

Whoo-OOOOOo-ooooo! Grammar school boy! Well, I went to a grammar school and managed to pass mine! nanananana!

Hated English Lit though

Agreed mate. Most can cope with 80 mph safely now. The trade off would be 20 mph around schools in term time and residentials and somehow ... I do not hink too many would object to that.