Safe Speed Forums

Nice to hear a high profile point of view on the dangers of encouraging the driving public to stare at their speedos through presumably high risk areas to maintain a legal average speed. I think he concluded that "these will kill people".

Having driven through the temporary SPECS on the A2 recently I was amazed at how often I had to glance down at the speedo to ensure I hadn't crept over the limit. Having noticed that at one point I had drifted a bit over the limit I then had to calculate how much I would have to slow down by to avoid an NIP.

My psychology degree taught me that from a cognitive point of view we have limited processing resources, much like a computer. If you increase the cognitive load on non task-specific processing you decrease the available resources for carrying out the task.

The trigger speed for SPECS won't be set below +10%+2mph, so you don't need to be quite so precise with it.

The basic point about speedo-gazing still stands, of course.

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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

The reason these things will kill people is that some people will deliberately end up taking a huge risk when approaching a SPECS camera to avoid being in the frame. If it is the first SPECS camera they've seen they will not know if they have been exceeding the speed limit (why would they? They've been driving by instinct not the needle), and so will have no clue if they are reaching the start or end of a SPECS zone.

How will they avoid getting in the frame? Simple. They'll find a tall vehicle and get in its slipstream for the next mile, risking life and limb, but saving a prospective fine/points.

What does psychology teach about a musician who does not think about his or her fingers when playing? Is the task-specific processing of the musician concerned with the music, and are the finger actions 'automatic'? It certainly feels that way when playing.

It could be that a skilled driver can habitually drive at or under the limit with almost full available resources for carrying out the driving. A driver who spends 2 hours a day on the road spends a lot of time practising this. Of course, musicians are not concerned with playing as fast as possible, but as well as possible. That could be the difference.

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I stole this .sig

Music Psychology is a large dedicated area of the overall subject and not one I feel able to discuss with any authority. However, at a cognitive level, muscians are so skilled because they develop incredible complex automaticity in their physical movement, leaving their cognitive load relatively low, allowing visual processing (reading sheet music/ conductor/ attractive audience member) and auditory processing relatively free. We have the hardware to make complex movement automatic with practice. However, most of us cannot perform as well as normal when there are conflicting demands placed on our visual processing.

The very skilled driver may be able to use visual flows (the changing visual array which is presented to us as we move along -a bit like your windows "starfield" screen saver) & engine/ road noise to estimate speed but this may not be as accurate as we would like. In addition, there could be trade-offs. The brain is very quick to take resources away from crucial functions such as peripheral vision where there is an increased need to focus on specific elements of visual processing. This is called perceptual narrowing and it is a real problem particularly when drivers face an emergency situation.

But we're not talking about skilled drivers, we are talking about the driving public who will check and re-check their speedo for fear of getting an NIP. Until we all have HUDs displaying our speed within our useful visual field, we simply have to expect an increase in SMIDSYs. Even if the risk of SMIDSYs could be reduced with increased driver skill, this is the public we are talking about here!



Thought so, but it doesn't say that on the signs does it?