Jub Jub wrote:
Rewolf wrote:
... speed limits ... are a very useful guideline to a safe speed for a particular road (...), the problem is with the absolute and pedantic enforcement of limits and the exclusion of virtually all other measures.
Most people who join this site are very experienced thinking drivers, who like to pay attention to the real physical hazards on the road, but speed cameras (and just the possibility of them being present) force the drivers attention away from the real hazards and onto monitoring their absolute speed - something which reduces their ability to observe and anticipate the reals hazards, and which makes them feel like they are driving more dangerously than they otherwise would because they are not allowed to drive in a style which they know is safe. The un-spun numbers from the DfT and everywhere else support this opinion.
How is it that an experienced thinking driver is expected to tick all the boxes of awareness and appropriate and driving, but is incapable of/does not have to have an awareness of speed cameras without suddenly losing his driving skills? All of the other hazards can be managed perfectly adequately, but not speed cameras? Unless, of course, he is driving outside of the speed limits. Are you really suggesting that you can manage to drive safely through erratic traffic, past motorway sliproads, under bridges, through traffic lights, and can cope with all of this, but not speed cameras?
It is only a problem if they are driving at a speed which, to use your own words, they are not allowed to. You know full well that you are more than capable of gauging your speed and remaining under the limit without a constant obsession with your speedometer.
The safe driver doesn't normally look at their speedo except when hazard density is low, and
doesn't need a speedo at all in order to drive safely - if you go 5mph over the limit because of a slight down slope or a slight over-acceleration it doesn't matter because you know that you can stop before hitting any hazard. Speed cameras, and especially the use of hidden traps force a complete change of driver priority - that slight overrun is now an exceedingly high risk hazard - to the drivers' right to earn a living. The driver therefore has to spend time modulating his speed that he otherwise wouldn't have done. A simple check of the speedo, due to the change in visual focus takes about 1 second from start until re-established concentration outside (see main site), it is far worse when a reduction is speed is demanded by an artifical hazard such as a camera; I know several where the camera is deliberately placed on a steep down slope, so to be safe from the camera the driver has to spend up to 3 or more seconds on the speedo while modulating the brakes - time which is not spent looking elsewhere. It isn't a "constant obsession" with the speedo (except in highly watched areas), but it is significantly more than I think it is safe to spend when my concentration is better spent on the real hazards outside.
Jub Jub wrote:
Rewolf wrote:
... For many however the translation of the "keep to the speed limit" becomes the primary concern, and in complying with it they fail to Concentrate, Observe and Anticipate, and as a result the general standard of driving has fallen. What we want is a relaxation of the pedantic enforcement of speed limits, which will free up the concentration of the thinking driver, and positive encouragement of a more advanced driving style where training doesn't end with the ticked boxes of the initial driving test.
And that's one of the real problems with your ideas. You have accepted that speed limits need to be there, as some people need them. So how do you make some conform, but allow others to do what they like? It doesn't work does it?
It might work in the classroom, where you either have to all go at the pace of the slowest, or stream the groups so that the needs of the slowest and fastest can be catered for separately. But the roads cannot be separated. Of course, people need to be educated that the speed limit is not something to aim for, and anything less than the limit is safe, but we are never going to get there completely, and so they need to stay. And that's just unfortunate for those who would be able to drive faster and still remain less likely to be in an accident than a poor, slow driver.
Is it really such a problem? All it means is that it is going to take you longer to get somewhere. Once you have accepted that the limits are there and moved on from that, a speed camera is absolutely no risk to a good driver.
I am saying that speed limits should be guidelines. Absolute conformance to the guideline is not something that has to be enforced, except in the most dangerous of actions. Speed cameras however do the opposite because they punish the otherwise law abiding for minor transgressions of the absolute limt, while perversely doing nothing at all about the most dangerous outlaw drivers in their unregistered or stolen vehicles. Is this the way that it should be enforced? We want the properly trained traffic police that have all been sacked or reassigned as a direct consequence of the implementation of cameras to be restored, and they can use their experience and judgement to decide what is a safe transgression and what is not - based on what they see at that time.
Using the classroom example - what you are saying is that it is a bit unfortunate, but very correct, that everybody must be forced through threat of loss of licence to go at the pace of the slowest. Drivers should all be treated as if they are the lowest common denominator (as is happening now), and that by implication there should be absolutely no incentive to improve because no matter how good you get you will still be treated as if you are the most stupid child in the class. That is certainly the way the DfT are treating us with their new speed limit guidance based on average speed not the original 85 percentile rule. And that dumming down of drivers is already being seen on the roads. Roads that have been perfectly safe with NSL limits are being reduced to 30mph, and they intend to continue with this.
I also believe (from personal experience - search if you are interested about my entrapment) that the statement "a speed camera is absolutely no risk to a good driver" is naive. If in the ideal world everybody slowed down, then commercial pressures will force the limits and tolerances to be lowered and the traps to be made more sneaky. Many limits are already insanely low with 30mph limits on clear straight roads protecting nothing but fields, and we are getting to the point where limits will be set to the average speed of the most dangerous section, and then extended out for miles either side. As others have pointed out, completing long journeys at artificially low speeds then that little bit longer to get somewhere becomes significant - and concentration levels drift due to lack to stimulation.
Are you seriously telling me that you have never found yourself on a clear motorway (at 68mph of course) suddenly realising that your concentration has badly drifted and that perhaps you need a break - except that the next break is 28 miles away and nearly half an hour more of tedium. There is an easy way to improve the stimulation level - go faster, but obviously you cannot be trusted by Nanny to do this.
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). In the scenario you describe you have two options-
