Safe Speed Forums

http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/2010/10 ... ays/38039/

I like the bit about contributing to congestion, no doubt Brake believe, that if motorways were limited to 20MPH, they would not get congested.

_________________
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.

Did anyone read any further than "Research from Brake..."?

What did you think the conclusion was going to be?

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Since when was 80mph a "dangerous" speed, given that it is legal on motorways in most major European countries?

_________________
"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

Which, of course is equally true of driving below the speed limit.

_________________
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

True, in my experience, more flow problems are caused by HGVs, ( which strangely enough don't go anywhere near 80MPH) than people doing 80+MPH, explain that one, Brake!

_________________
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.

Latest figures on road fatalities published by the International Transport Forum (ITF) put the safest roads in the United Kingdom which had 3.8 deaths per 100,000.

The UK must be doing something right on it's roads. Its good to see that the UK leads the world in something other than teenage pregnacy rates.

Your point about our roads being among the safest is very important and gives the lie to a lot of the statistics bandied about.

The reason that stats. can be produced to back up any given point of view is that the incidence of accidents and deaths is so low here that statistical analysis of them becomes meaningless. Statistics is really the analysis of trends in large "populations" of things. One accident one year on a road followed by 3 years of no problems cannot be meaningfully analysed.

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Yes, we're doing something right on our roads, even with the considerable level of non-compliance

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

http://www.roadsafetyfoundation.com/downloads/Map.pdf

Have a look at the map above which colour codes all major UK roads by accident risk.

Oddly, all the motorways are in the lowest risk category.

Well they certainly like their graphs at ITF!

If I read this link correctly and understand the one graph, Mr Der Rote Baron, it proves the opposite of what I think you were trying to suggest and you have fallen for the classic snapshot argument instead of the trend.

Apart from the UK missing from many of their charts, the thing which is glaringly obvious to me is the graph “Figure 2: AVERAGE ANNUAL CHANGE IN ROAD FATALITIES”, nearly half way down the scroll bar, where it clearly shows that the UK had the safest roads back between 1980 to 1989 where the change was -1% for the worse but a much larger negative change for the worse of -4.5% during 2000 to 2009 when speed cameras became so prolific.

So what that proves is we actually had the safest roads back in the 80s before speed cameras! I'm sure I remember someone called Paul saying that years ago.

I hope you will engage with us some more so we can get to the bottom of it and what you were, or are, trying to prove? (And maybe explain that graph to me because it isn't very clear, but I think I'm right). If you look at Korea in the 70s and 80s, when they weren’t using private transport much and couldn't afford them as they can from 2000 onwards, the KSI seem to have gone through the roof over that period. This is how and why I interpret the graph as I do.

_________________
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.

Well Mr Big Tone, I wasn't suggesting anything, merely stating the current findings of the ITF.

If I recall correctly Mayalsia is the worst, about 8 times worse and they have never had speed cameras to my knowledge.

Interesting point that our roads were said to be safer in the 80's but do you factor in the greater volume of traffic and that cars have changed so much that some drivers under estimate the risk in a false belief that their techo-laden cars are invincible?

Why is it that across the world, if in an accident you are more likely to be killed in a car with ABS than without?

Are you suggesting that Speed Cameras are the cause of more accidents?

Speed cameras change drivers priorities from road and safety awareness, to penalty avoidance - at all costs.

If there were some strategy available to have drivers ignore the thought that they might be punished for straying over or ignoring the limit, and that cameras were there merely to remind them, then more drivers would become compliant - but there will always be those that would resist - and they will always have to be weeded out by law enforcement officers.
Meanwhile, a camera which did not punish would be seen as pointless extravagance - much as some councils are presently seeing investment in SCPs as pointless in the wake of cutbacks, as the road safety benefit has been overstated - by those same self serving SCPs!

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

The signs which measure and display your speed are effectively non-punishing cameras (Ok not cameras, but same principal) and are seen by many authorities as a useful contribution to road safety.

_________________
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 saw those too, but I think those figures are dangerously misleading. They quote the road deaths per 100,000 of population, NOT "driving" population! If you had a very sparesely populated country, just a few road deaths would give the impresion that it was a very dangerous place to drive. If you had a desely populated country, where not that many people drove, you could get away with lots of road deaths and it would still look safe. It should be patently obvious to the statisticians that if you're not on the road, you're pretty much guaranteed not to die in a road accident! IF we took the figures per 100,000 "person-kilometres" (or maybe vehicle-kilometres), I think we'd get a much more accurate picture of the risks involved.

You have to take into account that non-drivers use the roads too as pedestrians, and are often involved in road accidents. In this country, if you look back before WW2, a lot more pedestrians died on the roads than vehicle occupants. Therefore deaths per 100,000 of population is a useful measure too - the two are measuring slightly different things.

_________________
"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

I think what the research also shows, is that about 3/10 drivers are liars!

I must just drive on different roads to the people who do the research! There is NO WAY that if I drive the Northern reaches of the M6 in everyday traffic conditions at 80, I will be overtaking 40% of the cars on the road!!!! 3-5%, MAYBE....

And I'm puzzled by this bit:

"Many drivers believe motorways are safer than other roads because there are fewer hazards such as pedestrians and cyclists. However, although fewer crashes happen on motorways because of the way these roads are designed, motorway crashes are more likely to result in multiple deaths and serious injuries because of the high speeds involved.

If a driver crashes on a motorway, there is a 40% greater chance it will result in death or serious injury than a crash on other types of road. One in five fatal crashes on motorways involves four or more vehicles.

Recently released casualty figures show that there were 132 deaths and 858 serious injuries on Britain’s motorways in 2009 – that’s nearly three people killed or suffering serious injury on motorways every day"

I thought motorways were safer, because there was less chance of getting hurt on one for every mile travelled? In fact, all we've been hearing in the last few years, is how disproportionately dangerous rural A roads are! (which I find much easier to believe)! I think the question that needs to be asked is "40% greater...THAN WHAT OTHER TYPES OF ROAD"??? WE NEED TO BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THESE WEASLY WORDS!

Finally, there's the "132 deaths" bit. How many die on the roads each year? 3000? 132 seems like quite a small percentage if you ask me!

Point taken, but then it still needs to be "per 100,000 of road-using population" or something like that - maybe even weighted relative to exposure. OK, I accept that in the UK, and most parts of the Western world, that means pretty much everyone "uses" the roads in some way, but it still doesn't give a fair representation. It means that the houseridden old lady has the same 8.3-in-100,000 chance of dying on the road as the 50,000 mile a year rep!

Just goes to show statistics can be used/abused to say almost anything. A considerable number of people get killed each year by hippos and falling coconuts but I don’t expect anyone in the UK fears that too much. It comes down to circumstances and conditions; talking of which..

I think others have replied to your other points but on your one above I'd just quickly like to reply..

You make a very fair point and I think drivers do feel invincible in modern vehicles, although IMO drivers have always felt that way in their 'armoured tanks'. Cars have become better with far greater safety features and the roads themselves are safer with different Tarmac and better layouts, protection and accident-severity limitation measures.

So although you're right that the driving population has gone up, even with all these initiatives and innovations etc. it is still an inescapable fact, and one which 'they' don't like, that our roads haven't become safer as a direct result of speed cameras. They ignore RTTM and BOS, for a start, so I am always very careful when looking at statistics because the devil is so often in the detail - especially when 'they' have a hidden agenda.

To address the thread title I would simply ask what would you rather have, someone following you at 70mph 600 yards behind or someone following you at 60mph just 20 feet off your tail? Once again, speed is not the major dangerous factor in that scenario and one I’m sure we can all relate to. Speed IMO would be way down on the list of dangerous conditions behind: safe driving distance, driver’s sobriety, distractions, vehicle condition, weather etc. etc..

EDIT: Interesting that my earlier link to the ITF comes up with "Oops! This link appears broken". I was only going to see if they use the terms BOS and RTTM anywhere

_________________
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.

Is brake STILL banging on about this speeding stuff??? Get a life dudes!

_________________
Enjoying the twilight years of personal freedom in the UK (and my M3) :)

Yep ! and they are based here in Huddersfield
http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/local-we ... -27548320/

Check out the comments, the village_ idiot likes to give them grief (i wonder who he is )

_________________
nigel_bytes