Safe Speed Forums

When you say "quiet" conditions, do you mean "empty" or "several other users".

I'm assuming that you mean the latter. If so, how can the term "safe" be used when the user was doing up to 30 mph over the limit?

I'm picturing a driver using the middle lane, who is either relatively inexperienced or not a regular motorway user. He wishes to use the overtaking lane to overtake a slower vehicle. When he checks his mirror (which we all know is not a great aid for judging distance/speed), he sees a vehicle in the distance. Furthermore, he pre-supposes that the vehicle is within 2 mph of the speed limit and is thus not relevant to his overtaking decision. Maybe, he doesn't even indicate, thinking the vehicle in the distance is not "part of the overtaking equation".

My point is that if a limit is imposed (I don't care whether it is appropriate or not), other road users have a right to make driving decisions based on the fact that the limit is being enforced.

Don't talk to me about safe driving at 100 mph in a 70 mph area, it just ain't cool.

You really can't tell much from the number. What would you say about the safety of ACC Steve Thomas's offence?

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/stevethomas.html

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

If the quote:

"On the day in question, the driving and road conditions were good and I was part of a group of around 15 cars all doing around the same speed. "I considered that my manner of driving was safe.""

was meant to indicate that he and the other 14 drivers were the total universe of drivers using the stretch of motorway, my reply is "bullsh*t".

Unless he abused his position of authority and had the motorway shut down for a Gumball Rally, I'm willing to bet my house on the fact that there were other motorway users beyond the 15, who were complying the with speed limit - and as such had the right to take driving decisions on based on the fact that other users were within the acceptable margins of the speed limit.

As I said earlier, I'm sorry to be a fly in the ointment. I'm willing to be convinced that I'm wrong but no one's presented a coherent argument on this topic yet.

A safe driver will recognise in advance the potential actions of the driver in the middle lane and will take appropriate action (in this case perhaps slowing down) to allow the slower driver to complete their manoeuvre in safety and then pass them when clear.

It happens thousands of times a day, day in day out, at all speeds in all conditions, it's not exciting, interesting or controversial.

If I driver is not capable of making those decisions and acting appropriately then they are a dangerous driver, regardless of the speed. (all IMO)

That's the problem, EtoileBrilliant. The so called “SafeSpeed” campaigners don't have know how to communicate that. They say a limit isn’t a real limit, but a guide. But unenforced, a limit is a useless thing altogether.



Quite, and the would-be speeders are advised to fit in with that to avoid getting a ban.



Right on - Less Power to the People!

_________________
I stole this .sig

You didn't answer my exact question...



Don't be sorry - I'm always happy when someone comes along and challeges facts or beliefs. We can discuss the issues and both emerge stronger for the experience.

To get back to your point, one of the real road safety fundamentals is that everyone needs to take responsibility for their situation. We have to avoid causing crashes of course, but beyond that we also have to make substantial efforts to avoid the mistakes of others.

There are risks inherent in differential speeds. If I'm in L3 passing a vehicle in L2 I am potential vulnerable to the L2 vehicle making a lane change (planned, unplanned, careless, whatever). Of course if I'm doing 0.5mph more than the chap in L2 I'm going to be alongside and vulnerable for a long time. If I'm doing 150mph, I'm extremely vulnerable on approach because after he's changed lane I won't be able to slow in time.

Between these extremes is an optimal differential speed and with real world lane change time and motorway lane widths it's almost always in the range +15mph to +30mph.

But on a quiet motorway I might well be able to move out to L3 to pass a vehicle in L1 at +50mph with excellent safety margins.

I think it's highly important that we encourage people to manage risk better, and sticking to the speed limit (everyone doing 70mph, three abreast and side by side) increases risk dramatically.

Risk management can't be bad because our motorways are already the safest roads in the world. But if we're going to make it better we need to be smart about it. It isn't a simple problem.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

EtoileBrilliant, you need to read the description more carefully. was he said was that the vehicle was doing 100 or so when in clear road and that he slowed down to a 2 second gap when there was a vehicle in the way.

This means that the driver was paying close attention to what other drivers are doing and would have noticed first the cluster of vehicles and would have slowed. He would then have observed that your middle lane driver was closing on the vehicle in front and would have anticipated that the "pulling out without looking or indication" manoever could happen and therefore would have slowed down even further until it was obviously safe to pass. He was clearly correctly observing the two second rule and was making sure that he had a safe stopping distance.

These are the essential aspects of good driving that the current fixation on speed is trying so hard to eradicate: Observation and Anticipation. This ability is severely compromised if you are forced into watching the speedo all the time. From everything in the description I find it very hard to believe that the speeding driver will ever get anywhere near to having even a near miss. In the type of car he was driving, and in the relevent conditions even 100 mph was well within the limits of safe driving, and it is much more likely that your speed limit obsessed, middle lane hog that doesn't observe, doesn't anticipate, doesn't treat other drivers with consideration will crash first.

I could talk to you all day about safe driving at 100mph. I could show you how it's done.

And you're right, it ain't cool .

But I have had good training and good experience of driving at those speeds and much higher.

The average speed of cars on our motorways is over 70 mph. The 85th percentile speed judged by many to be the safest speed for a road is somewhere around 85mph.

From my own personal experience speeds much more than this (eg 95+ in good conditions) can cause closing speed issues eg SMIDSY impacts eg sideswipes etc due to failure to see something and the impact speeds are likely to cause more problems. It is more and more important that the driver at these high speeds is fully aware of the likely behaviour of the road users ahead and is aware of how to anticipate and plan his drive. The balance between this exhibited ability and the speed driven, taking into account conditions and volume of traffic are the factors we have to consider when deciding what action to take.
The camera's discretionary inability, coupled with the fact that it can't identify the careless or incompetent sub 70 driver, is one of the main reasons why they are not likely to be effective on the motorway epsecially if the enforcement threshold is 10%+2.

The other issue which must be considered is the problem of bunching if motorway limits become widely and rigidly enforced. We'll end up overtaking each other at one or two miles per hour differential which is really not very good driving practice. A reasonable range of safe passing speeds is ideal. Discretionary policing provides a framework of enforcement for this. The motorway camera can't.



Motorways have a minimum view of around 1000 metres ahead and behind. 25mph differential would allow about 90 seconds minimum potential view of an approaching car. Plenty of time in my view to assess closing speeds.
The big risk really for sideswipe impacts is the loiterer who is somewhere in your blind spot, overtaking your 70 mph vehicle at 70.5 mph.


Driving behaviours and attitudes have developed over the years, and the motorist/police/speed limit interaction has developed with it. It's probably one of the reasons why our roads are as safe as they are.

Not many people will enter the motorway and make driving assumptions based on all motorists complying with the limit. That would be a foolish careless and incorrect assumption.

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

Ian

I suspect that if everyone was capable of driving "safely" there would be no need of speed limits, as everyone would drive appropriately for the conditions. It is the people who dont know when danger is imminent who force the need for speed limits, and a raft of other rules and regulations.

How many vehicles do I see between Staveley and Windermere (3 3/4 miles) after sunset, without lights? Dont need them - lighting up time is 1/2 hour AFTER sunset! Yeah!! Read the Highway Code!

EtoileBrilliant's 30 mph over the limit is represented by ANY 30 mph differential in speeds - 40/70 30/60. What changes is potential for collision to cause loss of control, but often a 90 mph driver is more alert to the conditions ahead.

_________________
Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Without wishing to trawl through 8 pages, therefore hoping to not repeat what someone else has said:
I regularly rode my motorbike (when I had it) on the M6 between Penrith and the A74 into Scotland. If the traffic was light, which it often was, I would ride at an indicated 90 mph or so (with dipped headlight on at all times).
Apart from usual observation and awareness of other traffic I would keep a close watch for traffic approaching from behind, and slow down to the 70 mph limit if another vehicle was going faster. The one thing that you can't allow for is an unmarked police car, though there are signs like number plates with no advertising material on them and certain types of cars like Subaru Imprezas, Volvo T5s and Vauxhall Omegas to be careful of.
Not surprisingly I think Ian H did the right thing, but the lad pulled over shouldn't have kept going at 90-95 (his speedo will probably have read 100+) with another vehicle approaching or keeping station - that's asking for a pull, in my opinion.

Oh dear, I hope we haven't scared EtoileBrilliant away.

I think we got this one wrong chaps - we've jumped all over a new user and he might feel pretty overwhelmed. I noticed he came back on for a few minutes and disappeared again without posting.

EtoileBrilliant, if you've come back to read some more, please don't be intimidated - we're nice really

Anyone got any ideas how we can manage ourselves better in the future? It's important that we make new users feel welcome and especially so if they don't share 'our' ideas.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Given that this was on the M6Toll, it is highly likely that there were no other cars doing significantly slower speeds anywhere near Steve Thomas's car

_________________
"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

IMHO that's a pretty weak excuse.
I can't imagine that there are many people on the motorway who are naive enough tho think that everyone else is tootling along at the regulation 70mph. Five minutes on the motorway should be enough to convince anyone otherwise.
Furthermore, any driver worth his salt should be able to anticipate that someone behind a slow-moving vehicle in lane two just may decide to pull out in front of them - and adjust their speed accordingly.
I have never had a close call because of someone doing just that, whether or not they indicate. The couple of close calls I've had in my entire long driving career have both been people who have changed lanes in front of me, without indicating, for absolutely no reason whatsoever - the road was clear ahead of them.

Cheers
Peter

Apologies for the delay but I had to go home from work and feed the kids. I'll see how much damage I can do in the next hour before the football starts.

First of all, I do have a personal agenda and that is speed kills - in whatever form you look at it. Coming to a site like this, I really didn't expect much sympathy, but so far I have been overwhelmed by the decency and respect I've been afforded.

There's no point preaching to the converted, my aim to just to sow the seeds of dissent and see if I can troll a little with a subject close to my heart.

Here goes:

Gopher says:

Q:
A safe driver will recognise in advance the potential actions of the driver in the middle lane and will take appropriate action (in this case perhaps slowing down) to allow the slower driver to complete their manoeuvre in safety and then pass them when clear......

If I driver is not capable of making those decisions and acting appropriately then they are a dangerous driver, regardless of the speed. (all IMO)
UNQ

I agree, however, no matter how capable the driver is in determining whether he is acting safely or not, he can only anticipate "likely" and "possible" outcomes in other driver's behaviour. Put another way, if the passive driver does an irrational manouver, say, pulls from L1 to L3, whilst the passing driver may have done everything "reasonable" in the eyes of safe driving he will still suffer the accident.

Now I hear you say, it doesn't matter, whether the passing driver was doing 70 or 100 the accident is bound to happen. Sure, but if you need to break down "accident loss" into the following elements: "accident probability" and "accident severity", where accident loss is the product of the two.

I will (for the moment at least) concede that accident probability is more or less the same in the above example whether you are driving 70 or 100 - I talk about reaction time later.

What I will never concede is that accident severity is much greater at 100mph than 70 mph (2.04x) assuming you subscribe to the basic Newtonian physics that kinetic energy disappated into other objects (driver, central reservation, other car, etc) = 1/2 mv2 (mv squared).

more soon

I think you're going to have to qualify that comment to be taken seriously here.

On its own, devoid of context, "speed kills" is a meaningless platitude that is also demonstrably untrue. Why is it that 100 mph on the M6Toll is "unsafe", while 600 mph in an airliner is "safe"?

_________________
"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

Glad to see you back.

At this point I will agree that the higher the speed of impact the greater the severity of damge, no one here is going to disagree with you, but it is not the whole story is it?

In your example the safe driver would not be doing 100 at the time of impact, in nearly every case ever s\he would have slowed down to the point where either a. the colision does not occur, or b, if it does occur it happens at a lower speed.

You could argue that there is less reaction time, but if the safe driver is comfortable with their speed their concentration and reactions will be higher. I know Paul has done a fair bit of work in this area, hopefully he can supply a link.

So to my mind the problem with your example is that it assumes a collision speed which is the same as the initial speed difference which in reality very rarely happens, and if it does it is either something highly unlikely that caused or very bad driving - again regrdless of the speed.

My answer I think reflects real life as I experience it on the road - I have never seen an accident occur the way you describe, a number of close calls I agree, but the driver reduced speed enough in each case to avoid

I certainly wouldn't regard your posts to date as 'trolling'. To me trolling means posting dishonestly to provoke an argument. Your posts look honest enough to me so far. You have an opinion and you're perfectly entitled to it.

I'm pleased we didn't scare you off.



Of course the physics is correct. But the energies exist all the time and the deadly forces are only unleased after a road user makes a critical mistake.

We concentrate on 'how crashes are avoided', looking especially at how psychology must be the root of road safety in the real world.

There's far more danger in the psychological domain than the physics one. For example, latest national figures show 214,000 injury crashes per year amongst a licence holding population of 32 million. Do the division and you'll see that the average driver goes 150 years between causing injury collisions. (far far more than that on motorways.).

What happens during those 149.999 years is more important than what happens on the fateful day. During those 149.999 years our average driver has spent much of his time speeding yet he's avoided millions of potential deadly conflicts. Let's plan a road safety strategy that builds on the proven strengths...

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Highway code -http://www.highwaycode.gov.uk/23.htm

Maybe the modern version of the highway code has removed the usefull phrase " if in doubt - don't, " - but it is still very relavent to driving today.
The old fashioned Highway code did refer to " the overtaking lane" on motorways. --238: You should drive in the left-hand lane if the road ahead is clear.I believe that all reference to the "overtaking lane" ( Lane 3) ( in the very early copies of the highway code) was found to be a mistake and replaced .

The bit about seeing a vehicle in your mirror - "Maybe, he doesn't even indicate, thinking the vehicle in the distance is not "part of the overtaking equation"." - why not indicate - any vehicle you can see is part of the equation - you remove the doubt
And stop him or you having to take drastic avoiding action .

Rewolf Writes

Q:
EtoileBrilliant, you need to read the description more carefully. was he said was that the vehicle was doing 100 or so when in clear road and that he slowed down to a 2 second gap when there was a vehicle in the way.
UNQ:

I reply (and I'm sorry to labour the point), what I'm concerned about is not "the vehicle in the way" but the one "just about to move in the way" based on the infomation, in the driver's rearview mirror and his knowledge of local speed conditions (i.e. 70 mph).

No one doubts you and the other "safe driver's" ability to deal with likely and probable outcomes of other driver behaviour. What, I contend is that in the event of an accident caused by unlikely/unintended driver behaviour, increased speed will have only have the effect of increased accident severity

more soon....

Just to try and put this into context:

In the example under debate we have a trained Police driver who was travelling at speeds of up to and over 100mph, but by all the evidence we have available we have every reason to believe that he was driving responsibly and carefully, affording all due respect to other road users. As far as we can tell, the only aspect of his driving that caused an issue was the illegal speed he was travelling at.

Allowing for all this, lets say that this gives him a risk value of X.

Now lets say we drive along a bit more and we come across another motorist who is travelling along the motorway at 60mph, glued to the bumper of the car in front, changing lanes without proper observation or signalling, and basically employing about 1/4 of the level of observation of the first driver. What risk value do we associate with him?

Or to put it bluntly, which one is most likely to cause an accident and injure or kill someone?

I think we can all pretty much agree that our second driver is far more likely to cause an accident than the first. I'm sure that if we put the question to our resident TrafPols they will agree that if they were policing the motorway and simultaneously spotted two cars, where the drivers each matched one of the above profiles they'd pick the second one every time for the "tug".

The bottom line is that enforcement needs to target the highest risk drivers on our roads, if it is to be most effective in terms of reducing casualties. And whether drivers are breaking the speed limit by 10%+2mph is not a reliable barometer of their likelyhood of causing an accident.

This is why it's all going wrong with the fatality rate on our roads, despite speeding prosecutions growing at a rate that is damn near exponential. We're using the wrong yardstick to measure driver safety and it seems the result is that we're killing people by the thousand. We need to go back to judging drivers by how well they're driving, not just how fast.

_________________
CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!