Safe Speed Forums

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Had some very valid points clearly made but ultimately beaten down by government biased, left-wing anti-motorist factions too obsessed by speed speed speed!
Ok slap on a blanket 50mph limit, the drunken / drugged up / no license / no ability drivers will still screw it along too fast for the conditions, not thinking about their driving, yes a speed camera / lower limit will really prevent these people cocking it up won't they!

Beaten to it!

That was actually a very fair programme (I watched from about ten past).

There were plenty of examples/stories/filmed RTAs, and none of them were attributed to exceeding the speed limit. The only people who parroted the 'speed kills' line were talking heads from interested parties, and there were plenty of opposing views. Reassuring to know the IAM are dead against NSL 50.

Brake covered themselves in glory as ever, trying to suggest that 50 was still too high, and that 40 or even 30 as rural NSL would be better. Crazy people, which is probably why only ten people have signed their petition supporting NSL 50, while 34,000 have signed my pet one.

EDIT: make that eight, two are clearly joke sigs.

I don't know why Brake even played a part in that programme, they certainly didn't show themselves to be anything other than an organisation with nothing scientific or useful to add. The Isle of Man proves that having no speed limit is just as safe as a 50MPH one. We should be following their example and training young drivers better.

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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.

As most people know speed alone doesnt kill its, inappropriate speed at certain locations coupled with certain other factors like,in experience, alcohol and drugs, weather etc etc. It makes me piss when they start attacking the speed limit for all the short comings on our roads today. If speed kills then I should have been dead a long time ago. Speed is only as safe as the surroundings its being used in.

A colleague of mine said the other day at work when they heard that there had been a reduction on the speed limit on a dual carriageway where we patrol in, " OH GOOD WE CAN GO AND GET SOME SPEEDERS EDONE " well I laid into them typical attitude,reduce the limit on a road that is perfectly capable of maintaining the higher limit,just because one or two pedestrians cross the road at places other than the designated cross over areas and get wiped out, it becomes the drivers fault,if thats the case I said why not reduce the speed limit on the motorways in case as happens pedestrians walk on there.

This is just my opinion and as I have always said we need to educate the young children of today in road safety and continue through to they are learning to drive and beyond with driver education that is aimed at the ones who need it and want.
Stephen

Well said, Stephen.

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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.

Speed, Space, Surprise. The 3 elements that make an accident. Steve Haley is spot on. If you just focus on one you never deal with the other two but try explaining it to these muppets that can't understand 'going too fast' is exactly the same as 'running out of space'. Bah. Never watch 'tonight' as it is always irritating!

As Johnnytheboy said, none of the examples would be "improved" by a mandatory 50mph (or less) rural NSL.

In the program, examples included...

• Fraudster, trying to get away from the police, speeding (on dual carriageways), for which any speed limit would have zero effect on his actions.
• Young lad doing 100+mph on a dual carriageway - not the single carriageway rural NSL that is being discussed
• Young lad killed on his motorbike, but he ran wide and hit a car head-on at 34mph. This was a s/c rural NSL, but a mandatory 50mph limit would not have helped.
• 80 year old clipped the side of the road and turned their car over - highly unlikely to be speed related.
• Paramedic clipped kerb, crashed bike and hit a wall - but was only doing 40-odd mph at the time

It was good of the program to get an IoM perspective though. You really do respect the "speed limits" over there, because where they exist there is a clear and proper reason!

mb

I was heartened to a degree, with some of the more sensible comments made about education, conditions and guidance benefits.
Shame we didn't get to comment ! At least it had some balance viewpoints.
I still wish they would dig into the facts a lot more and do less about specific deaths, although the lady interviewed had a very balanced approach to her tragedy.
I will have to review in more detail (recorded it), as a friend called me to let me know ! It can be re-watched on the online iplayer facility (I believe).
Edited to add ...
Yep I agree boomer ... one 'rural' accident was in a built up area, albeit a narrow road, that in many places would have been a 30mph potentially (no street lamps). If researchers find it so 'hard' to find the 60mph accidents that would benefit to 50mph then just why cannot the authorities provide this ?
Hard to get everything in just a 30 minute program, i.e no RTTM or 85%ile or TRL595.
Good to see people being stopped by what appeared to be, sensible police officers.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

I too am keen to see the enthusiasm encouraged into good driving behaviours than try to keep squashing this interest and desire to learn more.
It only takes good psychology to put in place training aids and patterns, to achieve the right direction. It is involved but not rocket science.
It must be the desired behaviour that has to be the focus, not some specific numeric target.
Do you still have specific targets to meet to retain the faster Forces cars ?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

I think you'll find that police officers are unfairly represented in RTI statistics, and this must be in part because they utilise high speeds.

I think you'll find that is completely untrue, police officers are massively less likely to be involved in an accident despite doing on average 10's of thousands more miles than the average road user.

State you source or retract the statement.

It's been in the news quite a lot over the years, we're not talking about police pootling round council estates here:

http://www.carpages.co.uk/news/police-c ... -01-05.asp

http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/westmidl ... shes.shtml

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-storie ... -21330169/

http://www.shropshirestar.com/2008/06/0 ... 3-crashes/

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/disp ... gedies.php

Reading one of your sources:

OK, so if we are generous, at 3,000 deaths per year on the road, so in a 4 year period that is 12,000 deaths, of which 126 were due to police involvement, I must say I am apalled at your maths if you think that 1% is a majority!!!!

Please Weepej, tell me you can do better than that!

Weepej, I have now had time to read all of you links, which put police involvement in accidents stats at 1% or less, thus proving my statement that the police are much less likely to be involved in an accident as true.

I await for your retraction of your grossly inaccurate statement.

To both weepej and odin,

To keep things fair: what needs to be determined is a rate, say the rate of KSI for a given exposure (within and above the limit); quoting numbers in absolute terms cannot really show anything.

Even then it's not as simple as that. There is the significant factor of speed variance to other traffic: emergency responders usually go much faster than surrounding traffic; we already know those who travel outside the envelope of nominal speeds [faster and slower] suffer the greatest risk.
In some cases, the high speeds used by emergency responders are beyond defence or reason (like that 94mph cop).
You'll also have to account for people doing funny things when simply hearing a siren.

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

My wife has peeped over my shoulder.. she's "fallen in love" with you

She used to say she wants more "Dibbles". I think she may start up on "she wants more Stephens"

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KEEP SMILING
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Indeed. Wildy now muttering Over Kellett, the 120 mph aquaplaner "officer" - as well as the 94 mph cop as beyond defence.

But we agree the other factor is "panic on hearing a siren"

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

Is it just me that finds this attitude a little frightening?

When you come across a pedestrian that has been "wiped out" do you say to the driver "don't worry mate, crossing the road in the wrong place, carry on"?

I think his (obvious) point was about focussing on speed as the remedy to the problem.
Motorists pay more than enough in road tax and duty to cover adequate pedestrian education as well as the the installation of over/underpasses if necessary (and barriers if need be), but some people apparently want to actually deprive other foot/cycle users of these fair and incredibly effective safety measures - don't they weepej?

Taking the example slightly further: do you believe it is right to drop motorway limits to 40mph or less in case pedestrians walk out across them (crossing at places other than the designated cross over areas) ?
I would find such an attitude to be very frightening!

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