Safe Speed Forums

So the decline in western civilisation is down to speeding.....priceless

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Speed camera policy Kills

Hmm, let's see, mobile in hands-free cradle out of clear view, using speakerphone mode so no need for wired/wireless headset. To anyone outside the car (and potentially even to someone inside the car) it would look just like the driver was talking to themselves or a passenger. So how, exactly, would they expect such a law to be enforced?



And, presumably, a return to painting all cameras in battleship grey, combined with a free mindwipe for all drivers who currently have memorised the locations of all the fixed cameras along their regularly used routes...




Yeah, and I bet you couldn't buy that with a Mastercard

If you read your own quote you will notice that speeding has been metioned as 'one' of the main causes, not 'the' cause.

Some good points though:-

I disagree with a blanked 20mph default speed limit for most urban roads etc. However I would like to see a 20mph limit outside schools, doctors surgeries and residential homes. Small avenues or closes could do with something like this, especially places where children frequently play around the street.

Insurance changes would be good in instances of proven driver guilt. I am a cyclist and get a general opinion that it is always harder for the 'softer' party, i.e cyclist, pedestrian or horse rider to claim any substantial damages when struck by a vehicle. If the softer party was in question though and it was their fault they should receive nothing.

Lowering a drink drive limit is good, I think there should be no drinking allowed before you drive. Obviously you have to set a certain limit that isn't going to result in lots of people getting cuaght for a rediculously low level of alcohol in the blood, e.g after eating a liquor chocolate or something silly like that.

Even if you drive with a hands free unit the phone call can still majorly distract you so I would like to see something done about this too. We all know on here how bad distractions for drivers are!!!

Banning speed detector equipment is both good and bad. If your detector genuinely warns you of an upcoming blackspot then a warning is good, however if you are just 'listening' out for speed cameras then that should be banned. Not sure about extending the ban to satnav and gps systems as they are very useful, as long as they are not too distracting.

Black boxes, well anything that records a vehicles speed etc at the time of a crash is useful.

Can't really go into detail about driving offence details as I am not a law person but anything to tighten this up would be useful.

Reducing danger encompasses many many things. The council could be seen to reduce danger in certain ways but how would this be implemented???

Would you consider it to be one of the main causes

I don't think it would feature in my top 100

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Speed camera policy Kills

Yes but thats still bollocks isn't it



The other day I was passing through one of Oxfordshires 20 MPH limits. Pedestrians in these areas no longer even look before stepping off the kerb as they do not view the traffic as a hazard, a very dangerous place IMHO. FWIW there is one area (pinch point) in there where even if the speed limit was 30 (as it should be) I would be crawling at 10 as that was the safe speed



And should cyclists/pedestraians and horse riders be forced to have suitable insurance cover as in the event that an accident is down to the soft party then the motorist still suffers as his own insurance is used to cover the loss, there by costing on the no claims.

It should be noted that the major reason why Causing death by dangerous driving is not the charge after a fatal is that the driver who survived was no the cause and it was down to the pedestrian. Before you go off on one I comment as one whose child sibling was killed in an RTA and it was her fault (al be it that she was only 18 months old at the time, by the way there was a 15 mph speedd limit (it was on an RAF base MSQ) and the driver was going under that at the time.

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

The distraction effect seems to vary quite widely from person to person (and possibly between the sexes too), but that's another issue - if T2000 seriously want to ban handsfree use, then they're going to have to come up with a damn good explanation as to how they intend enforcing such a ban, because I can't see any way of doing so with any degree of success. What's the point in proposing a law that's unenforceable?




If you believe the scamera spinmeisters, detecting a camera IS the same as detecting an accident blackspot, because the former is only ever located at the latter... yeah, RIGHT So why oh why would anyone genuinely interested in reducing accidents at such blackspots want to make it harder for a motorist to know about the location of the blackspot?

And as with the proposal for a ban on handsfree usage, this would also be difficult to enforce - are the police going to have to start pulling over every vehicle fitted with a satnav system so they can check it to see if the points of interest database is currently full up with camera locations...



I didn't read that as being a ban on GPS-based navaids, just a ban on GPS-based camera warning devices.




I seem to recall that airbag systems do that already.

Okay, to take the sandalistas' points in turn:

A 20mph default speed limit for most urban and residential roads.
Well, if they really want to the cost of extra delivery time to appear on the price of their sandals and nut roasts without actually changing anything on the roads...

Changes to the rules on drivers' insurance schemes to make it easier for non-motorised road users to claim injury damages from drivers who hit them.
Is it particularly difficult now then? Cars have large identifying marks and mandatory 3rd party insurance. Still, fair enough if they make it as just as easy for vehicle owners to claim from pedestrians and cyclists who cause damage or injury, whether they themselves suffer or not.

Lowering the drink-drive limit, from 80mg to 50mg per 100ml of blood.
I suspect they mean bring our prosecution threshold in line with the continent but leave the penalty alone in order to ban more drivers. If it was about road safety I'd expect them to talk about reviewing the current level to see if it is appropriate. (I'll stick to not drinking whatever the limit myself).

Extending the proposed fines for driving whilst using a mobile phone to cover hands-free (as well as hand-held) kit.
Not actually a bad idea in safety terms, just practically unenforceable. Do they propose to pay me to have my kit removed? Doubt it. So either they pass a law to enable it to be taken from me (legalised theft IMO) or it stays put, in which case how can they tell the difference between my off key singing along to a cd and a phone call? Stop every driver whose lips are moving? Puh-lease!

Extending the proposed ban on speed camera detector devices to cover GPS-based (as well as radar-based) equipment.
Again, hard to see how this could be enforced. The GPS jobs are passive so how they could detect one I have no idea. Banning sales of new ones will just create a black market for which the government will get no VAT revenue. In any event it's hard to see what's actually so bad about knowing where you are at any one time and remembering where the local scams are. You can do it in your head to an extent, and then share that knowledge with others. Unless they intend to legislate against free speech as well they're stuffed.

'Black-box' speed recorders to be fitted in lorries, buses and other defined vehicle types (eg fleet vehicles). These are already used in police vehicles and under some insurance schemes. Normally the data is only stored briefly before being deleted (so this proposal has no civil liberties implications), but it would leave no doubt about whether a driver was speeding if a crash occurred.
There are still civil liberties questions to be addressed. Top of the list is who owns the data. The car manufacturer? The owner? The police? The court? The government? Still, it's not such a bad idea once that's sorted. Presumably pedestrian caused collisions will be more easily identified when black box data shows the vehicle to have been driven correctly.

New definitions of bad driving offences. At present, drivers can kill or maim but still be charged only with 'driving without due care and attention' The resulting injury or fatality is often not even mentioned in court.
Emotionally loaded prosecutions in other words. Kiss the impartiality of law goodbye. The offence should be all that matters when a charge is brought. the results of the offence can always be considered when sentencing. What they really need is better guidelines for magistrates and judges, and if T2000 had said that I wouldn't have a problem.

A statutory duty for local authorities to reduce danger on the roads they manage.
Isn't this implied anyway? Does anyone think local authorities are expected to ignore dangerous roads? Jeez, they're becoming experts at seeing danger everywhere as it is.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

In North America virtually all new Ford and GM models do. I-emailed Ford and Vauxhall some months ago to ask about here. No reply from Vauxhall but Ford said there's no such system fitted on European Fords and no plans to do so.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Law to assume the 'big guy' to be at fault unless the 'little guy' can be shown to be negligent. HGV bus/van/car/motorcycle/cycle/pedestrian. The most likely to be injured to have the assumption of innocence. Seems to work in France et al. Sounds like you agree; the result must be that the guy who drives untaxed, uninsured, no MOT, never passed a test, double the speed limit, wrong side of the road, and kills a 15 year old should be in the slammer, not fined a few quid.

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I pay tax on all my cars

I think that change would be a dangerous mistake.

One of the causes of danger on our roads comes from the mistaken idea that others are responsible for our safety. Any law / rule / convention that tends to send the message to a vulnerable road user that motorists are responsible for their safety tends to diminsh the care that a vulnerable road user may exercise.

Equal responsibility for all, a duty of care for all, and the expectation that both passive and active participants have a responsibility to avoid a crash is one of the fundamental principles that gave us the safest roads in the world. Any reduction in individual responsibilty is dangerous, any increase in individual responsibility is positive for safety.

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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

Not what I am suggesting.

The consequences of hard/soft contact are unequal; the inattentive pedestrian will be injured, the driver likely not. Where blame cannot be apportioned (because no-one saw and no-one involved will admit anything, for instance) then I can't see the problem; I don't think it's going to diminish the pedestrian's attention (it's their life). But car drivers (bad ones, anyway - witness many postings here) are inattentive by nature; anything to rattle their cage has to be good.

As I said, it seems to work in France; or am I misinformed?

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I pay tax on all my cars

I think you're "mis-assuming". It'd be hard to say that the crash rate wouldn't be BETTER if they hadn't unbalanced the responsibility issues.

We already have loads of road users who thinks others are responsible for their safety. That's a very bad thing ,and these suggestions tend to confirm and extend the idea.

It's the wrong message to send out.

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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

Whereas the railways and canals were the main cause in the past and continue to divide communities.

• We should drain the canals, infill them, and grass over them to make them truly green: a link between communities, not a rift in the fabric of society.
• We should tear down the fences along the rail roads, "Take Back The Tracks", and refuse to tolerate these Berlin Walls that split our cities and our society. Twenty's more than Plenty for these monstrous machines which can't steer and can hardly brake any better than that! Make them travel at walking pace where there is a danger of killing a kid. Then they won't need more than a little whistle, instead of continually breaching the peace like the outlaws they should become. Recalim The Rail Roads!

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http://www.itsyourduty.org.uk

Huh? For drivers it does the opposite. The message to drivers is 'look out, you will be held responsible unless you can show the pedestrian is at fault'. So by your own argument a good thing for drivers.

If the change were to result in a net increase in casualties, reverse it. No reason to assume it would, quite the opposite.

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I pay tax on all my cars

I'd say the opposite were true.

In the vast majority (> 75% I believe) of incidents involving pedestrians the pedestrian is the one at fault. So if we are to have any benefit by shifting the onus of responsibility then if anything we ought to be shifting it the other way, to try and make pedestrians more aware of their culpability, rather than less.

Indeed, an extreme view might be that it would be beneficial to instil in pedestrians that all the drivers are going like hooligans and nobody is enforcing the speed limits! Not suggesting we actually do that of course, but it illustrates the point...

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

There's EVERY reason to expect casualties to increase.

Neither is it safe to suggest that increased driver responsibility would be a benefit. Two reasons, Firstly the significant majority of car/pedestrians crashes have the pedestrian to blame, but secondly, and more importantly, the imbalance in responsibilities breeds resentment.

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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

Are we talking about criminal responsibility here, or insurance responsibility?

If the former, it results in people being treated as guilty unless proven innocent, which violates the accepted principles of justice.

If the latter, then all it's likely to do is to produce a small overall increase in insurance costs.

Nobody drives in the expectation of hitting pedestrians, so I can't see how a change in the law of this kind would affect driver behaviour. But it might make pedestrians and cyclists take more risks in the vicinity of motor vehicles.

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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

Which is a showstopping reason. Do you have citable evidence? To repeat, I understand the motorist-presumption system to work well elsewhere, like France; is this wrong?

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I pay tax on all my cars

With no win no fee legal support if you get injured by a car you are almost garanteed to get compensation. I can't see why the law needs to change.

France have some "odd" laws. I don't think you can take this one in isolation.

I have been to India on several occasions. The have had problems with people diving infront of cars to get compensation from the drivers..usualy cash not to report it to the police.....

If it worked both ways I would be more supportive. if a cyclist caused an accident (rare though it may be)he/she should also be liable. Maybe everyone who uses the roads should carry some kind of 3rd party insurance.

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Speed camera policy Kills

Motorists unaffected, coz they're responsible people, pedestrians and cyclists affected to be even more irresponsible, even though they are the ones who get hurt? Don't make much sense to me.

As it's told to me it does affect motorists behaviour in France; stay out of their way or else!

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I pay tax on all my cars