Safe Speed Forums

If we make drivers a tiny little bit less attentive to a risk ahead with our national "speed kills" policy, it should be easy to see that average accident severity might well increase because the attention effect swamps the speed effect.

But there's no evidence that drivers who ignore speed limits have
fewer / less severe accidents than drivers who drive legally. The majority
of insurance companies treat a driver with a string of speeding convictions as a greater risk than a driver with a clean license.

Point one - this is a total change of subject, so I've moved your latest message to a more suitable forum.

Point two - Insurance companies are reducing the loading against drivers with speeding convictions.

Point three - The correlation between speeding convictions and excessive speed accidents no longer exists in any useful form. I believe it did in the past, but can't offer evidence. See http://www.safespeed.org.uk/wrong.html

Evilinky,

I don't think you have even begun to think this through.

Yes. Typical drivers with more speeding convictions have a higher annual accident risk. That's because of exposure - higher mileage drivers are more exposed to both speeding convictions and accident risks.

And there are plenty of nutters out there with massive accident risk and dangerous habits. Sadly, although they do get caught by speed camera, they are not the typical catch. However since their accident risks are very high - maybe 5 to 10 times higher than average - the insurance companies still have a chance to use this data to load the premiums of typical speeding convicted drivers.

The more we go on like this, the poorer the correlation will be between accident risk and conviction risk. That's bad for everyone.

We need intelligent Police patrols spotting the nutters and dealing with them. Just like we used to have in fact.

Tripe. High mileage drivers are exposed to more speeding convictions in the same way people who do a lot of shopping are exposed to shoplifting convictions. It's perfectly possible to spends hours a day shopping and never get caught stealing anything, just as it is possible to drive tens of thousands of miles a year, and never get caught speeding.

We still have traffic police you know. And if your beef is with the reduction
in traffic police numbers, you should campaign for more traffic police, not against speed cameras.

I hope and pray that drivers never stop speeding. There's no sign of it so far. If they did it would mean that the responsible majority had given up the task of selecting an appropriate speed according to the conditions, and that would be truly frightening. As we've tended to move in this direction, we've already lost the trend in the accident rates.

Your posts are bordering on abusive and libellous. Keep a lid on it, and discuss the issues please.

So, since I don't speed, I've "given up on the task of selecting an appropriate speed", have I ? Are you really suggesting that since I
stick to the speed limits, I'm a more dangerous driver than a boy racer in a souped-up old banger with nine points on his license ?

And by definition, a speeding driver hasn't selected an appropriate speed. He's selected an illegal one.

I've indulged in some mild joshing, and speculated about the underlying motives behind your campaign, and you respond by calling me a dangerous driver.

:twisted:


Paul is right - speed cams are as much use as a chocolate fireguard when it comes to road safety! Do they catch drunk drivers? NOPE! Drugged drivers? NOPE! Boy racers? Well - most boy racers would have nicked the car and the NIP goes to registered keeper - so NOPE!

High mileage drivers are exposed to more speeding convictions as "just overs!" more than OTT speeding! As for your comment about shoppers never getting copped shoplifting - are you implying that my shopaholoc wife goes out nicking things? You do not shoplift as result of slight foot fluctuation! You do that deliberately!

Mr Evil, your logic is completely broken. Do you work for the DfT by any chance?

Just because forcing drivers to stick to the speed limit would be dangerous nationally does not imply that an individual is dangerous because he chooses to stick to the speed limit.

You're mistaken. I didn't call you a dangerous driver.

And I certainly don't campaign for the "effective abolition of speed limits" - I think that might well be libel. No problem, just be nice.

And aspirin doesn't cure cancer. Better ban that as well

Speeding is as deliberate as shoplifting. You are ( or should be ) in control
of your car. If you are unable to drive in a legal manner, perhaps you should consider some extra driving lessons. My car ( Toyota Corolla ) comes equipped with both a speedometer and an accelerator pedal. Correct use of these devices allows me to remain under the speed limit at all times. It's not exactly rocket science.

And shoplifters aren't responsible for hundreds of deaths a year. Speeding drivers are.

Neither I nor, I believe, most sensible drivers object to speed limits (we may grumble about limits which seem to have no justifiable road safety purpose); or, within reasonable limits, speed cameras and other methods of speed enforcement. The problem I have, and I think most speed camera opponents would share, if they addressed their mind specifically to the point, is the SCALE of the enforcement activity combined with the indiscriminate nature of the enforcement systems that are now in widespread use.

It only takes a moment's thought to realise that speed limits are not, never have been and never will be anything but a guide to safe speed. In absolute terms, it is reasonable to estimate that millions of speeding offences occur every single day (counting every discrete occasion on which any vehicle, anywhere, exceeds a posted speed limit), but only a vanishingly small percentage of them result in actual harm. If "speed kills" (meaning speed above a posted limit), we would be measuring fatalities in the hundreds of thousands or millions per annum.

Speeding is an absolute offence and it is understandable that it must be so, because enforcement would be almost impossible if it were not. Therefore (unless one takes the view that a crime is a crime only if the offence is detected), there are millions of criminal speeders (reportedly 99% of the driving population) whose culpability in law depends on no more than luck and/or their ability to avoid detection. If it was possible to detect all incidences of 'speeding' and enforce the law accordingly, it is clear that very few drivers would retain their licences for more than a few weeks or even days. If speeding really represents the danger to public safety that the 'speed kills' lobby would have us believe, that would be a desirable outcome. In fact, that would be an absurd result which would be hugely damaging to the country as a whole. (This is not the case with other crimes; for example, if it was possible to detect all incidences of burglary or theft and enforce accordingly, that WOULD be in the public good.) So, in establishing and maintaining this system of law, it must follow that the state (consciously or sub-consciously) acknowledges that it is NOT the legal definition of the offence itself, but the scope and scale of activity employed to detect offences and punish offenders, that defines the real boundary between criminal and non-criminal behaviour. Put another way, it is not exceeding the speed limit which represents the crime but whether the speed limit is exceeded so frequently or flagrantly or unsafely that, at a given level of detectablility of the offences and enforceability of the law, the offender is detected and prosecuted. Therefore, speeding is a "technical" offence.

Hitherto (before widespread use of automated speed detection), a (hypothetical) reasonable careful and reasonably competent driver, who exceeded the speed limit from time to time where the conditions were safe to do so, may well have avoided detection for speeding during an entire driving career without causing harm or alarm to anybody; although, on simple application of law, he would have been guilty of numerous criminal offences. The reason he would have escaped detection and conviction is that the narrow legal definition of the technical offence was balanced by the limitations of the previously existing detection and enforcement mechanisms so that, give or take a bit, the level of detection and punishment of offenders was proportionate to the harm which the offence actually caused. The introduction of systems which, on a previously unimagined scale, are able to detect the 'technical' offences, together with corresponding law enforcement systems, has destroyed that balance and re-defined the boundary between criminal and non-criminal behaviour.

In the binary world of speed enforcement, there can be no distinction between those people who exceed a speed limit and are detected, prosecuted and convicted, and those (reducing in number) who exceed a speed limit and are not caught. Each is equally culpable. Speaking in the House of Commons on 8.12.2003, Caroline Flint, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department said: "There is no doubt that speeding is a serious criminal offence". Therefore (if the reported figures are correct and, from observation, I do not think it a wild exaggeration), 99% of drivers are serious criminals. This is complete nonsense. The competent and careful actions of a majority of responsible people should obviously be considered legal (unknown author acknowledged). But, according to law, they are not. If, as acknowledged earlier, it is necessary to retain the existing legal definition of a speeding offence in order to preserve a reasonable degree of enforceability, it becomes clear that the pre-existing boundary between criminal and non-criminal behaviour must be restored by removing speed cameras altogether (or drastically reducing their number) or by some other adjustment to the detection and enforcement mechanisms.

The state has re-drawn the boundary of criminal behaviour and seeks to turn a majority of its citzens into serious criminals. That is a bizarre but unavoidable conclusion. We, the public, must turn back the tide. That could be achieved if a sufficiently large number of enforcement targets do no more than require the state to meet the ordinary standards of procedure and evidence which apply in all criminal cases.

The more adventurous among us can and should go further by using every trivial and non-trivial legal device available to frustrate the enforcement process.

Most rational people would rather adjust their behaviour and keep their license rather than continue to flout the law and lose it.

DeMolay,
The point of speed limit enforcement is not to criminalise 99% of drivers, it is to convince those drivers to comply with the speed limit. Most rational people would rather adjust their behaviour and keep their license rather than continue to flout the law and lose it.

DeMolay,
The point of speed limit enforcement is not to criminalise 99% of drivers

Most rational people would rather adjust their behaviour and keep their license rather than continue to flout the law and lose it.

Why, in that case, are the numbers of people prosecuted for speeding rising through the roof? Why are more people expected to be caught speeding this year than any other year in history? Why do we have so many people with more than 3 points?