Safe Speed Forums

whats-his-name


I can appreciate that.
I've been looking at the national accidents stats today. I note with interest that 'failed to look properly' (already the largest contributory factor in all accidents [35%]) was one of three significant fatality factors that increased from 2006 (517) to 2007 (546); all others went down (the other two were 'Failed to judge other person’s path or speed' and 'swerved')

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

All of which (except the latter) could be related to the speed of the OTHER driver... If the OTHER driver was going slower maybe the contact situation would never have happened.

I doubt it. I would mark the fault onto the party(s) that did something wrong. Those who fail to look properly only have themselves to blame if the other party is behaving within legal boundaries ('too fast for conditions' isn't relevant because conditions change and all road users must be able to judge speed up to the limit for when conditions are good - that wipes out a large chink of the potential correlation pie).

Those who were driving outside those boundaries (exceeding the limit) deprive others of being able to judge events (not the ‘speed’, certainly not the ‘path’ which is also included in that factor) correctly, even if they do look properly – they may not even be in line of sight. There may well be an overlap between ‘exceeding the limit’ and ‘failure to judge speed’ and ‘failure to look properly’, but it cannot be a perfect overlap: there are many, more 'failure to look properly' and ‘failure to judge speed’ (each) than 'exceeding the limit'. People can fail to judge the speed of another, as well as fail to look, regardless of whether the speed is or isn't within boundaries; hence that overlap will be small. Unfortunately this isn’t quantified.

If the other road user has looked properly then the great majority of accident would not have happened (as opposed to ‘maybe’ not happening).

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

Steve, are you really saying that a driver on an icy road, approaching a hump-backed bridge on a 60mph limit road who is driving cautiously is at fault if hit by a driver coming the other way at exactly the limit?

Here and on the other thread you rely on highly dubious claims to back up your apparent assertion that speeding is always safe, 'excessive' speed plainly sometimes being within the limit.

The broad rule is that the higher the speeds the more likely an accident and the more likely serious injuries are inflicted- your citing of MOTORWAYS to disprove this just demonstrates how truly deluded you are, the interactions with vulnerable road users on motorways being, by definition, limited! It's a staggeringly simple point to grasp.

Here's some data:

Higher speeds reduce the amount of time any driver has to respond to the unexpected and that higher speeds increase the force of any impact. The importance of reduced speeds to crash prevention and reducing crash severity is no mystery. In fact, the TRL study acknowledges the overriding importance of speed:

‘Virtually the only factor that road accidents have in common is that all would have been avoided if those involved had known with certainty, a few seconds in advance, that an accident was about the occur.’

Lower speeds provide those few extra seconds.

TRL 421, ‘The effects of drivers’ speed on the frequency of road accidents’ published in March 2000. This study was designed to discover the speed-crash relationship. The authors looked at 300 sections of road, made 2 million observations of speed and got 10,000 drivers to complete questionnaires. They found that

* the faster the traffic moves on average, the more crashes there are (and crash frequency increases approximately with the square of average traffic speed)
* the larger the spread of speeds around the average, the more crashes there are


Have an opinion by all means, but your argument's looking increasingly desperate.

Yes, too fast for conditions, cannot stop in distance known to be clear. What a silly question to ask.


No I didn't, that's a blatant misrepresentation. I said it can be, not it always is.


No it isn't. The fastest roads have the lowest accident rate; of course this is a bit simplistic but it does prove an important point - engineering hazards out of roads.
Actually, the broad rule of thumb doesn't take account of driver arousal; there are already many accidents caused by fatigue. Forcing drivers to go slower gives less arousal - for longer. Then there are the effects of unpredictable behaviour arising out of needlessly low limits.


How is it not valid? Much of the traffic flow is concentrated on motorways. It was only an example - there are dual carriageways which fit the description too.


The lack of arousal increases the amount of time any driver responds to the unexpected. Lower speeds increase below a reasonable level can also increase stress and frustration, leading to unpredictable behaviour.


"on average" - that's way too simplistic.
Of course crashes could well increase during rush hours when the roads are exposed to many more drivers, but is that so much a factor during the small hours when there's little traffic and conditions are clearer?

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

The fastest roads have the lowest accident rate; of course this is a bit simplistic but it does prove an important point - engineering hazards out of roads.

Nope, it's wilfull dishonesty.

By citing roads with zero pedestrian, cyclist, pensioner, schoolchild, horserider, corner shops, hospitals, zebra crossings, schools, pubs or houses interaction as proof that speeding near roads with the likelihood of encountering a pedestrian, cyclist, pensioner, schoolchild, horserider, corner shops, hospitals, zebra crossings, schools, pubs or houses is safe is staggering, bare-faced dishonesty, as I've shown.

I've no idea why you seem unable to grasp this elementary fact.

"Lower speeds increase below a reasonable level can also increase stress and frustration, leading to unpredictable behaviour."

It's the third time you've made this claim, this will be the third time I will ask you to offer a shred of evidence for it.

If lower speeds induce a catatonic stupor among drivers, how do you explain the radically reduced KSI rates on 20 mph roads?

What, please, optimistically, is the evidence that lower speeds cause frustration or stress among drivers?

Anecdote, remember, is not the plural of data.

Because it's not a fact, it's an opinion. They're not the same thing you see. Opining something and 'showing' something are slighty different.

It's not 'wilfull (sp) dishonesty' to say that getting long-distance vehicle traffic away from the huge (and faintly emotive) list you go on to write of potential hazards and road users is a good safety objective.

Are you saying the nation's old A-roads would be safer today if the motorway network had never been built? I know we should all be going about on bikes and the train, but it's not going to happen - in my opinion.

Dishonest or not, it is fact!


Because speed enforcement is usually done on roads where it is safe to exceed the limits, mostly because the limits are set too low, and are going lower. This is what we're arguing against.


Oh, I noticed how you selectively quoted - you left out arousal and fatigue, and NSL roads.
In fact I mentioned arousal and fatigue more than stress and frustration
Little useful research has been done on stress and frustration, but it is obvious that a needlessly low limit would lead to it.
Plenty has been done on fatigue and sleep related crashes (on non-20mph roads, plenty there for driver arousal. It is obvious practically all drivers experience very little fatigue occurs in cities and residential areas).

24% of fatal and serious RTCs are SRCs (sleep related crashes)
(DfT Road Safety Research Report No. 52, table 1.1, based on a selection of non-residential roads)

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

This is the exact same glaring error that Steve made above.

Steve announces that since he has never collided with a pedestrian whilst Steve is driving at speed on a motorway, then speeding in the proximity of pedestrians or other vulnerable road users must be safe.

He even stated baldly : 'Roads with the highest speeds are often the safest'.


Respectfully, nobody could be this stupid.

Could they?

Similarly, comparing 30mph roads with 20mph roads is at best disingenuous, at worst a wilful, dishonest manipulation of the stats that would make any statistician tear his hair out in frustration!

You make zero allowance for vulnerable road user inter action! I cannot believe I have to spell this out to you!


You also, unforgivably, completely ignore the fact that fewer crashes occur in 20mph zones in the first place- you are, in other words, twisting the data to conceal the fact that overall injuries and deaths fall dramatically.

Can this mistake really, honestly, be a genuine error or a deliberate evasion?

At face value the above assertion would indicate that 20mph zones are more dangerous to those most at risk from injury or death- the exact opposite of what the findings are.

Can you explain this anomaly please?

Sorry, you are saying it's only my opinion that there are no shops or zebra crossings on motorways?

Sorry, I don't get you.

Are you saying there should be?

Excuse me? Are you a trouble maker? I have never said any such thing. That's continued misrepresentation consistent with trolling behaviour. Please quote my offending text or retract your statement.


Motorways.

Using the RCGB2007 figures, motorways account for 5.6% of all fatalities and 3.7% of all KSI, even though they hold 19.5% of all traffic (net distance travelled) and with their higher speed limit – that’s extremely good going.

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

Maybe the fact that Motorways are the safest roads and urban roads are the least safe (where the speeds are , if I'm not mistaken, slowest), that this shows that pedestrians are the group where we need to educate and not motorists. You say earlier that speeding is such an antisocial behaviour and children are scared of speeding motorists. Now this is interesting because as a child and teenager (when EVERYONE walked to school), I didn't even know what a speeding motorist was, I didn't even know the speed limits on any given road until I was 17 and learning to drive. What I DID know though was....It wasn't safe to cross the road without looking and listening carefully. Now when you consider that I crossed the A442 (a very busy main road in my county) FOUR times a day and never worried about getting killed or had any close shaves and I NEVER heard of any school children getting injured on our local roads, then MAYBE we had a little more road sense in the sixties and seventies and maybe we didn't need silly 20 MPH limits then because pedestrian KNEW that WE were responsible for OUR OWN safety.

_________________
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.

This is utterly crazy. You can't compare crash rates on motorways, traffic only goes one way at sort of the same speed, no t junctions.

Do you really want all roads in and around towns and villages redesigned so they are like motorways, or even more like motorways?

In terms of hazards and the potential for them to run out into the path of traffic, yes.
Of course I wouldn't want pedestrians segregated from all roads, but some places are necessary (like Mile End road at the end of the M275 flyover, where there have been a few pedestrian deaths. I knew one of them - distantly, from school).
A good place to start is those silly traffic pinch points.

Oh, and I agree with graball (although not exactly for the reason he gave, but he does have a point). Pedestrians are at fault for 74% of pedestrian casualties, that figure rising to 85% for the 0-16 year olds. The lack of pedestrian education has had a big impact. Please think of the children!

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

The point I am trying to make, is that fast roads (the A442 was 70MPH in my day) don't have to be dangerous for pedestrians (or motorists)...all it takes is common sense and an awareness of what is dangerous and what isn't....simple really, but then the most obvious answers usually are the simplest!

_________________
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.

These last stats are utter, utter bollocks, victim-blaming of the most disgusting kind.

If Steve really wants the complete segregation of children from traffic then I despair.

I want to see children being able to cross the street safely, Steve expresses the sentiment that if they die doing so then it's their fault. On a par with judges saying rape victims deserve it for wearing short skirts. Look to yourself mate.

You see, I'd go the other way, if we really can't grow up about this and start accepting our responsilities as drivers of heavy and potentially fast licensed vehicles in a public space then don't redesign the roads for cars, redesign them for people.

Do you really want English villages and towns to be split asunder by armco and barriers? Seriously?

Being willing to blame non car users for being struck by cars in urban environments is a heinous deriliction of responsibilities IMO.

graball mate, you need to take your rose tinted specs off, 30/40/50 years ago road deaths and inuries amongst car drivers and pedestrians alike were monumentally high, much much higher than they are today, with far far less cars on the roads.