Safe Speed Forums

Might be, but I do not see any correlation between more traffic (more billion vehicle miles) and more people killed in traffic, not since the magic year 1973 anyway. Therefore I look at people killed relative to population. At least as far as "western" countries are concerned. (The EU + US + Japan + Canada + Australia)

Thanks. Seems interesting. I have to look in this in more detail.

Oh the correlation is there all right. See: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/smeed.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

Hi Lawman and welcome.

Like yourself - have been trained to drive at very high speeds - trained at Hendon originally. Don't know about you but we used to spend hours perfecting one basic manoeuvre until we got it right! And used to get told off when we failed to achieve it....

Regard it as a bit of light relief when I get to drive at normal speeds .. I also regard myself as still learning to drive a car as well - despite my police training and role within my department.

However, I do not think that I am superior to some non-Plod trained motorists because I received advanced Police Driver Training etc as part of my profession. I would regard most of my non-BiB relatives and pals to be an equal match and even better and safer drivers than myself.




Given that Joe Bloggs can then go to EU and drive at 81.25 mph throughout, 93 mph on certain stretches in Italy and at any speed within reason on most German stretches, then I think we could at least lift the existing m/way limit to 80 mph without too much extra carnage. This would bring us into line with EU. By the same token - certain A roads would fall victim to a slight reduction in setting - but somehow I do not think too many would argue about a lowering in busy town centres and residential roads, including school zones.




I think a way around that would be via P plates as I understand is the case in France and Switzerland - whereby book is thrown at novices driving at speed from which they are precluded under probationary period.

My other problem with increased speed limit in early hours of a morning - darkness and body clock may affect driver ability - but see no reason why a maximum of say 90 mph should not be set initially on certain stretches as a test case: such a plan would have to be trialled and monitored in any case...



Yes ... some areas needed a reduction - especially in areas of urban redevelopment and new builds, but some need a increase just the same.

There are one or two roads in Lancs, however, which were 50 mph, surrounded by fields for three miles and speed limits have been slashed to 30 mph. The member of this family who travels along this route daily says this occured without any consultation and that nobody can recall any accident occurring on it at all - apart from one minor collision involving a sudden lane change some years ago.

I think this is one of the problems motorists are facing: speed limit reductions on certain roads and no solid justification for it given to them. I am sure there would be more compliance if the logical reasons were apparent and given.

We'll get to and deal with as many as we can, and offer advice to area officers about prosecution for collisions they are dealing with.

The section 3 RTA offence of careless driving is the criterion which has to be passed before a prosecution is considered. The guidelines for careless driving is when ‘a person has departed from the standard of care and skill that in the particular circumstances of the case would have been exercised by a reasonable prudent competent and experienced driver’

Many considerations come into play when considering prosecution of the offender, and there is no hard and fast rule determining prosecution. I believe there is a DWDC&A in almost every accident, but the policy for prosecution seems to revolve around the fact of ‘Was it more than momentary inattention? This lower criterion is all but dismissed in the case of fatal and very serious RTCs, as the significance of the consequence makes it appropriate for the matter to be given to CPS for decision.

Other factors which ‘in the real world’ also come into play when considering the offence of careless driving are

• no-one was injured
• no-one else was injured
• the responsible driver has been so injured he is deemed to have suffered enough.
• There is no independent witness.
• There is conflicting evidence.
• The victim is/is not particularly interested in the other driver being prosecuted.
• There were other aggravating factors eg drink/drug/disqual.

It is conceivable that these reasons may be exercised to opt out of investigation, especially if no-one was injured. The vast majority of supervisors these days are pretty keen to dismiss many of the above list as 'excuses' and recommend consideration for prosecution for all but the most minor lapse of concentration, especially with the option of driver improvement courses for appropriate cases.

There is therefore no definitive set of rules to govern prosecution, and I personally don’t accept any of the above as a consideration to thwart submission of a file for CPS consideration. Evidence should be the main deciding factor. If a collision has occurred and has been investigated appropriately, then the factors preventing me from recommending prosecution or driver improvement are insufficient evidence and the fact that the carelessness was less than a minimal level of inattention. My supervisor might decide to discuss the appropriateness of my recommendation with me prior to submission. CPS may then consider their own set of guidelines including probability of conviction, is it in the public interest etc.

So to answer your questions

• What is the threshold of seriousness of an RTC for prosecution to be considered?
  My own threshold is low, my supervisor or CPS may raise the threshold slightly, but I like to discuss this with them first. Each officer to some extent makes his own decision about some of the more minor RTCs, but as they get more serious the scope for any discretion is dramatically reduced.
  
• Do you think there's a case for bringing DWDCA prosecutions for minor RTCs?
  Yes absolutely, I'm much more interested in the level of driving misdemeanor than the consequences.
  
• If yes, how often is it possible (in multi car collisions) to identify the 'at fault' driver?
  Two vehicle no independent witness collisions are the hardest to apportion blame, because it is easy for one driver to blame the other, and often there is a combination or range of driving actions which could have caused the physical evidence at the scene. More often than not though, there is something to work at which would suggest where the primary responsibility lay.
  Usually in multiple vehicle collisions, each driver has a shared responsibility, in that they are required to drive according to the conditions. (The exception are those who have managed to stop or avoid the hazard, but become a target themselves). Usually there is a common cause, ie microclimate, hard to see road hazard etc, and it may therefore fall into the category of momentary inattention - sometimes not. Often, because of the number of witnesses, a fairly clear picture can emerge as to how the collision happened.
  
  
• Are drivers involved in minor RTCs more susceptible to becoming involved in a serious RTC?
  I really don't know......... But I'd think so.

I agree entirely, and I think that certainly in the last few years, much more emphasis has been placed on the manner of driving rather than the consequences.

This CPS link is quite a useful guide. My responsibility is to ensure that all collisions which fall within their prosecution standards get to be seen by them.

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

Ian

One partial solution to the practical problems would be to have a "go for training" or "go for assessment" conditional offer.

Acting much like a Police caution, if the offender accepted the disposal then no further evidence would be needed. And the offender gets the training required to avoid repeating the mistake.

It's in the Safe Speed manifesto:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/manifesto.html "Retraining for careless drivers"

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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

Emboldened by myself

Do you mean a training program offer issued much like a fixed penalty ticket, or one which would be scrutinised by the prosecuting authorities and issued either then or at court in much the same way as the driver improvement scheme.

What I'm saying is, in what way would what you are suggesting be radically different from the way it is now. (Inquisitive only )

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

Ian

The big difference is that if the offer was accepted there would be no need for proof. You could hand out "go for training" tickets much more freely, especially in cases where you knew the driving was careless, but couldn't very easily prove it. Naturally a percentage might "call your bluff" (I chose that phrase reluctantly) and force you to prepare evidence, but most would accept the training. The approach to actually bluffing would have to be minimal and carefully judged.

Nevertheless, I'm quite sure we'd be training 10 times more than we do at present where the normal disposal ends up as 3 points in the magistrates' court.

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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 suspect if you allowed people to "call the bluff" of the police then they normally would do so, if they felt there was a reasonable chance of it resulting in no further action.

Perhaps a better way of doing it would be to make taking the course mandatory on the request of a police officer, but to prevent it being abused restrict it to one course every three years for each driver, and have it 50% funded by the taxpayer - therefore the police would need to exercise judgment about how many they handed out, and to whom.

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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

Please ignore the use of the word "bluff". I knew I was asking for trouble, but I couldn't think of another phrase (I was rushing).

I didn't mean "bluff" I did mean that decisions that would be marginal in court would be perfectly good for a "caution style" "go for training" notice.

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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

The idea has legs, kind of like a fixed penalty ticket (perhaps delayed a day or two) which would allow the collision causer the chance to consider the more attractive option. It doesn't need to be a bluff because as with a speeding EFP ticket, the driver has the opportunity of taking the less severe option or having it dealt with at court.

The insurance companies might see it as an automatic admission of blame, but they could also be encouraged to come onside by seeing this as an acceptable method of resolution which would hopefully reduce their risk by training their insured in the appropriate skill.

I cant see it applying beyond the most minor injury RTC though.

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

Ian

Until now I did not see UK data from before 1970. So it seems from your link the trend change in the UK started already in 1966, earlier than anywhere else, as far as I know. According to your link the change was provoked by road engineering and especially by vehicle safety.
Do you have an explanation why even in the US the trend change came only in 1973, 7 years later than in the UK? I mean, back then in 1966, vehicle safety was not really an issue, nor here, nor in the US, was it?

(Due to Christmas Holidays and so on it took some time to even read this)

A first sentence that struck me as absolute truth is:

The change was really provoked by the annual percentage increase in traffic becoming smaller than the annual percentage change in engineering safety. It stands to reason than when one gradually overtakes the other they are quite finely balanced for a few years. So there wasn't much change in the range 1965 to 1973.

Vehicle safety has a very long history. In the 50s is was hydraulic brakes, toughened glass, better tyres and so on.

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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

Nah. It isn't absolute truth. Sooner or later some folk will have random bad luck crashes. Maybe about 5% of crash involvements fall into this category. Examples include an oncoming vehicle swerving into your path at the last second, mechanical failure in a well maintained vehicle and "random" behaviour of animals.

What it is is a code to live by. Good drivers take full responsibility for their mistakes, and take full responsibility for avoiding the mistakes of others.

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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 agree. It is a code to drive by.

Removal of traffic police and introduction of speed camera's

The UK remain the sole EU country to introduce speed cameras in this manner. France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Hungary, never seen a single static camera



Would need to compare the actual average m/way use for the average German Driver, compared to the UK Driver, to get an accurate comparison.

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Steve

<smile> Yeah, that's a better way of putting it. Thanks.

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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

The quality of the roads themselves is likely to also be highly significant. Germany had the first motorway network, so they tend to have shorter slip roads, narrower lanes, more 2/4 lane roads and tighter bends.

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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

How do you categorise the instances where you are rammed from behind while stationary? This has happened to me several times in my driving career, and I have looked back and considered that in every case except one, there was absolutely nothing I could have done about it.