Safe Speed Forums

What on earth makes it so important that we always stay within the limits anyway? So important that it overrides all other considerations?
Can someone offer up any well-substantiated safety reasons?

Steve, thinking about it belatedly, if you want to split this into a separate thread, please do so.


Have now split
This thread has been split off from this one. (Steve)

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Nothing substantiated, some positives might be-

If set correctly they give some indication of the character of the road

Provide a check for drivers that would otherwise drive far too fast in any conditions through lack of skill or wilfulness

The more one considers what kind of real measure of safety speed can be the less sense it makes, the only relationship it has to safety are its units based on space and time.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

I think you misunderstand. I'm not talking about the uses or intended uses of speed limits.
Neither am I talking about inappropriately-set limits, such as a 30 limit on a rural DC, nor about when appropriately-set limits are exceeded by a wide margin.

What I'm asking is why they should be considered to be inviolate - never to be exceeded by anyone at any time, even by a small amount.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Ahh, got you. There is always the last resort of the speed kills brigade, "because it is the law", which is true, but nothing to do with safety of course.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

OH - here we go again - another battle of the "the limit must be obeyed" vs "we should be driving at a speed commensurate with the prevalent road/hazard conditions.( in the blue corner , weepy and CO , RAPIDLY descending to vague truths of "because it is the law", rather than looking at whether the SAFE speed is a LOT LESS than the limit .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

The highway code is quite clear on this:

Indeed it is. But do many drivers read their Code regularly, even if they posses a copy? I rather think that the average motorists gets his road safety information from the media. And the message there seems to say that exceeding the speed limit, rather than exceeding the safe speed, is a major cause of accidents. The corollary to that is that if one is driving at less than the limit one is driving safely. And there is anecdotal evidence that that attitude is become more common.

There is also a moral question as to whether it is equitable to make it illegal to exceed an arbitrary limit when no harm can come from the action.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I think that the whole "safety camera" thing is partly to blame for this. When they were simply called "speed" cameras, people knew that they were to detect the hideous crime of "exceeding a speed limit" but when they became "safety" cameras people were then led to believe that they only detected people who were driving "unsafely", i.e. over the speed limit and so if people stayed below the speed limit, they were driving "safely" because the nice "safety" camera (and partnership) was "happy" and would leave them alone.

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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.

Yup, I very much doubt it. I think most drivers just want the car to drive itself (and obey the rules itself too). Not too many appear to be actually interested in the practise of driving well.



Well, you know me, I'd rather the media said there's no such thing as a safe speed, all speeds are potentially lethal in my book.




The only place I really see this is on boards like this where people who oppose speed limits (or the enforcement of them) like to make out that speed limits are dangerous in themselves (or more dangerous than having no limits or no enforcement).



The faster people go the more risk there is of crashes. People exceeding the speed limit are participating in the increased rate, so I don't see how you could say no harm comes of it.

Suffice to say if speed limits were dropped as a concept then we'd be looking at quite a rise in the KSI rates on the roads as many people would be thinking "ah look, there's nobody in the road, my way is clear, it's fine to do 70mph down this high street with cars parked on both sides".

The harm comes from exceeding the safe speed not exceeding an arbitrary limit. 30mph in a 40 limit can, and often is, more dangerous than 90mph on a motorway.


You have a very poor opinion of your fellow motorists, but you do cycle in London

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

For most people there is a strong instinct of self-preservation (and care towards others) that would override those instincts. And obviously there are thousands of miles of unclassified roads where it's rarely safe to travel at 60 mph, but which are not scenes of carnage. In general, the avoidance of prosecution is not drivers' primary consideration in speed choice.

If it became known that, in a certain local authority area, speed limits were not being enforced at all, then I think you would be surprised how small the resulting increase in KSI was.

(For the avoidance of doubt, neither I nor the Safe Speed campaign have ever argued that speed limits should be "dropped as a concept", or that they should not be enforced at all)

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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

Same ole argument which weepej keeps throwing at us and getting it batted back.

So a motorway is exponentially more dangerous than any other road then? Er, I think you’ll find they are not; quite the opposite in fact!

There you go again, relating a dumb posted sign to what is safe for the conditions. You are equally “participating in the increased rate” if you don’t slow down in rain, fog, parked cars, pedestrians, blind bends, drunk etc. etc.

Well this has not been shown to be the case in Swindon – fact!

Anyone who does 70mph down a high street with parked cars on both sides should not be done for speeding but Dangerous Driving IMO. It is not a safe speed for the conditions. TBH I wish I had the authority to do someone for speeding or DD because there’s a young who lives at the bottom of my cul-de-sac who regularly floors it from the bottom past parked cars. The day he kills or hurts someone he’d better hope I'm not at home

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Interesting that it stops short of saying that exceeding the speed limit is dangerous...

..there be wisdom in them there words!

I couldn't agree more. I've seen it too many times on a nearby road for it to be a coincidence now. It used to be NSL, but mostly not really fit for more than about 30-35 in the dry. It's now a 40 limit and I've seen too large a number of motorists to ignore, now doing 40-ish along it!

Yes, we know you ...but every time you say this and someone then comes back and says "OK, so what speed limits would you LIKE to see in force then?" you go all quiet on us!

For the record, I'd just like to state that this is NOT a view that I have ever held - nor, in my experience, have I any recollection of it being commonly held within SafeSpeed! I have nothing against speed limits per se (although I think some are too low in this country). Neither do I have anything against their enforcement - IF DONE APPROPRIATELY AND WITH DISCRETION! As ought to be blindingly obvious, speed limits are an incredibly blunt tool. One only has to see that the majority of crashes take place within the speed limit to see that speed limit compliance IN NO WAY guarantees safety. That being the case, there is little point in trying to enforce them as strictly and inflexibly as is currently the case!


Do you have any evidence to back this up, or is it just what you fear MIGHT happen?
Do you also believe that if a set of traffic lights goes out, everyone will tank straight through from all directions? That's the same mind set, and yet we all know that it's not actually what happens. In fact, I think you'd probably get a pleaseant surprise! What's more, I have a strong suspicion (though I can't prove it) that if you removed all speed limits AND speedometers, the world would be a safer place - but I accept that no government is likely to have the bottle to try it!

Come on, Tone, you know damn well that if you reply to one of weepej's many "speed, speed, speed.." posts by pointing out that motorways are statistically the safest roads, he'll respond by saying that "we aren't talking about motorways, we're talking about shopping streets", thus (in his mind) negating a perfectly valid argument.

It's known as 'having your cake and eating it' I believe.

A complete misrepresentation of what I've said.

What I say is you can't compare motorways with local high streets.

You also appear to assert that because motorways have the least incidents that travelling at motorway speeds in any environment is safe.

Nonsense.

*Sigh*, I forgot to add "in the same environment", do I really have to do this every time? Clearly I do.



Did I ever suggest one wasn't?



Mmmm, conflating speed camera being turned off with removal of speed limits, interesting...

Oh weepej,

Did you think I was going to let you get away with your repeat of one of your previously failed arguments?

Which effect wins 1
Which effect wins 2

This is all very much off topic, but not weepej's fault (this time).

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