Safe Speed Forums

Thank you. I'm proud to have been of service.

That's one bit of good come out of the M4 Protest already. We REALLY need people taking much more sophisticated views of road safety matters. I guess that's the most fundamental reason that I put in all this effort.

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

It's a shame that the DfT don't take a more sophisticated view too.. I've just been reading "Tomorrow’s roads –safer for everyone. The first three year review. April 2004" which still insists in trotting out the usual PC claptrap about "35% reductions in KSIs", "70% of motorists are in favour of 'safety' cameras" and that "excessive or inappropriate speed continues to play a major factor in many accidents...".

The last one I find interesting, for as far as I can see there's no distinction made between inappropriate speed and speed in excess of the limit on the STATS19 form in use at the time. I believe it's been reintroduced for 2005 after the Hickford & Hall study - could IanH or another of you BiB enlighten me if I'm wrong, please?

Another worrying thing is a brief comment to the effect that "Circular Roads 1/93", which appears to be the last bastion of road-engineer-inspired sense on speed limits, will be revised after consultation with Local Authorities.

Still a long way to go chaps...

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

I think you'll find that the organisers are liaising with the police very closely re. next Saturday. The police are broadly sympathetic to the cause of getting rid of scameras and replacing them with more traffic police, and indeed it's likely that many (perhaps several hunderd) off-duty police will join us on the protest.


If you're familiar with safespeed forums you will know how many serving traffic cops are members of safespeed, and how strongly supportive they are of safespeed's aims.

Why should they want to 'outwit' us? They would be shooting themselves in the foot!

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'The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable person should be considered legal, regardless of the letter of statute'

Rioman, Herts

Welcome aboard Fred. It's a great credit to you that you persisted in this forum and were willing to be persuaded. The evidence is very compelling isn't it?

Shame you can't make it on Saturday. It promises to be quite a day out.

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'The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable person should be considered legal, regardless of the letter of statute'

Rioman, Herts

have just read through the complete topic, Firstly cant believe the hostilery towards the mini drivers, Also think its unfair of the mini drivers to expect the organisers to change the time/date of the protest, BUT, is this really going to change anything? did the fuel protests ever achieve anything? yes the goverment said they would enter into talks but nothing came of it, and todays "protest" went by with no effect, at the end of the day, laws are there to be obeyed, speed limits are set and we have to stick to them, I dont think they are set at the right speed and I often break the law, but if im caught then I would simply hold my hand up and have to admit I knew what i was doing,
I think the question to ask yourselfs is this, If your son, daughter, mother, father, brother or sister was killed by some one doing 50 in a 40 limit area what would be your feelings? I know what mine would be!
I agree the police should be out there patrolling the roads looking for bad/ dangerous drivers, and that speed cameras are not being used in the right places, but at the end of the day it comes down to the fact that we have laws and we should (try) to stick to them,
sorry for the rant, just my piece on the subject,
Phil

Ian

I remember reading the results of research elsewhere on the safespeed site which concluded that 90th percentile drivers are indeed the safest group, and those least likely to be ever involved in a RTA. The reasons for this are complex, but it's mostly about levels of skill and competence, and years of experience.

Paul could probably point you straight to the references and graphs etc.

This of course makes automated speed enforcement even more stupid and pointless, as the main groups it targets are the safest drivers who will never pose any risk, and the really dangerous maniacs remain free to cause mayhem. Even Franz Kafka couldn't have made up a system like this. As fiction, it would stretch belief too far.

But I'm speaking to the wise, so this is not news.

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'The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable person should be considered legal, regardless of the letter of statute'

Rioman, Herts

No.

The question is: "Does present policy make such tragedies more likely or less likely?"

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

Phil

It's not just about the M4, it's about raising the public profile of the whole issue of the stupidity and danger of automated speed enforcement by robot cameras.

The more media interest is generated, the more people may be motivated to investigate the real facts and discover the spin put out by the scamerati is in fact a pack of lies. People will then question why they are allowed to get away with this, when they are supposed to be acting in the public interest, and clearly they are not. Public awareness of an issue is aroused in stages, and you have to start public protest somewhere.

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'The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable person should be considered legal, regardless of the letter of statute'

Rioman, Herts

No different to my feelings when two close relatives were killed by someone below the speed limit.
It's not speed - no matter how they try to dress it up.

Cheers
Peter

reasonably dressed having washed behind your ears and combed your hair plse !!!

rgds
bill

I've had a look at some stuff Rioman, there is some research, but it is old and not much is on t'internet.

I'd like to see more which incontrovertibly stated that 85th to 90th percentile was the safest speed as this link tends to suggest that such research is in short supply.


Here's a bit of a starter. There's a page of discussion papers listing some research which is worth reading. IIRC some chap called Soloman did some research over 40 years ago.

In any case I'm quite happy to rely on what my work experience has taught me.

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

Ian

Pogo wrote



"Part of the secret of being believed lies in the size of your lie, since the broad masses of the people will more easily be taken in by a big lie than a small one." - Mein Kampf

Mind you he also said:

"If a people is being led to ruin by the devices of governmental power, then rebellion is not only the right but the duty of every member of such a people." - Mein Kampf, p.104

There never will be good research - the problem is that we're looking at average sums of a great many bathtub curves. The Solomon research is about as fair and reasonable as it'll ever get.

But we barely need research - we can logically determine that few vehicles are exceeding safe speeds because if they were they couldn't avoid crashing. By extension, and by logic alone we also know that vehicles travelling much too fast have an elevated crash risk. - That's the right side of the U or V established.

I think we also know that very underconfident drivers tend to drive slowley and also have an elevated crash risk - these incompetents give us the left hand side of the U or V. If we need confirmation, just throgh a slow vehicle into a fast flow and see the effects. Elevated crash risk.

So all we really need to determine are the slopes and position of the minimum. The Solomon research, repeated many times, does give the minima at about the 85th percentile speed.

Read about averaging bathtubs here:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/speedlimits.html

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

I have seen a graph, may well be on safe speed, or linked from it, It's like a hocky stick in shape , One of the uni's was paid vast amounts to do the research.

the 85-90th percentile is safest, and the corner of the hockey stick. The long handle of the hockey stick is a slower speed , but is just a bit more dangerous than the 85th percentile , In the other direction danger rises sharpley after 90th percentile..

at a rough guess only to give an idea of the reasononing , the 95th percentile is about the same as the other end of the hockey stick, thus a 20mph car can be as dangerous as a 80 mph car at the 95th percentile.

rgds

please can I ask?

If it is so difficult for many people here to keep an eye on their speedometer how are you going to manage to stay below 56 mph?

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freedom is knowledge of one's necessity

if you overtake a truck, you are going too fast

are you only protesting from one services to the other? if so, what happens then?

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Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

they all drive home really fast feeling like they have achieved a great stand against the wrongs in the world but actually having achieved nothing!

but lets face it - it ain't gonna happen because it's impossible to keep your eyes on the speedo and drive safely.

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freedom is knowledge of one's necessity

Like all drivers I am sure they will be exceptionally carefull & if that ends up at a long way below 56 mph , so be it.. With a lot of traffic about it's better safe than sorry all be it at 36.287 miles per hour.

As u are a driver, I am sure u are used to a balance between keeping up and a safe distance from the driver in front .

why not turn up and watch ? The more the merrier.

rgds

Surely the point is not that the 85th percentile speed is the safest speed but that the speed which the 'safest' (not sure how that's defined so let's assume it is "least crash involved") group of drivers tends to select in free flowing conditions is the 85th-90th percentile speed. (I'm sure you realise this, Ian, but thought it worth clarifying for others.)

We don't want drivers whose 'comfort' speed is at (say) the median speed thinking they must drive more quickly to be safe(r).

There lies the paradox.
When and where there are no hazards nearby then it's safe to look at your speedo, but when there are no hazards it really doesn't matter what speed you're doing. And when there are hazards you really don't need your speedo to tell you whether or not you're doing a safe speed.
In fact, the only reason to look at your speedo is to ensure that you don't fall foul of scameras. And you don't want to do that if there are potentially hazards around.

As to keeping to 55, the easiest way would be for those in front to set their cruise controls, and the rest will just follow at the same speed.

Cheers
Peter