Safe Speed Forums

All we've had over the last few years of debate is the points of view of statisticians. We've have TRL and the Government being opposed by the ABD and in all honesty where is the debate. What successes has there been in reducing casualties and speed cameras alike...none.
The debate is going to keep raging on, speed camera numbers are going to keep increasing and people are gong to get needlessly killed and injured. The scientific approach to road safety has catastrophically failed. All the regression to the mean and 85th percentiles are meaningless.
It is my intention to change the direction of the debate to a more realistic approach.
Removing speed cameras right now is not the answer as more people will certainly get killed and injured, increasing their numbers is also not the answer as this will only cuse damage to peples freedom to enjoy the road and in some cases (approaching 1 million) will cause loss of livelihood.
Mtorists have to understand that they were at fault when they got caught by a speed camera, when they received those two little flashes in the corner of their eyes they were driving, quite literally at their most dangerous. Many are not willing to accept that the reasons they were caught out by a speed camera was due to their own poor driving skills which are by no means momentary.
That is the main problem with speed camera, you ain't gonna get rid of them by constant complaining and whining, you can only get rid of them by reducing casualties and making speed cameras obsolete.
All I have done is make use of selected traditional driving techniques for this purpose and more and put them into print. One thing I have avoided however is and advice regarding 'use of speed' as I said earlier speed is in the main a contributory factor, not in the main causative. I can't go into it any deeper as the book is 25,000 words long. Oh and please don't forget that it was you who googled me in the first place and discovered it, I never mentioned it.
What road safety needs now is a complete change of hearts and minds, motorists need to wake up to the fact that they are not as good at driving as they should be and any improvements they make will result in fewer death and injury. If this does not occur and road safery is left to the dire bleatings of the scientific community then road safety will be left to the government. I appreciate that you have been discussing road safety here for years, I have been teaching it for years. Speed reduction does have an absolute value in road safety, but the reductions created by driver improvement would be significantly greater. I am offering motorists a choice, no more no less to turn their minds into their very own speed camera detector but infinately more effective. and cheaper.
If you want to see the end of the speed camera, you're going to have to work for it.

That's all I have to say, take it or leave it, the choice is yours.

What utter rubbish. You really do have no idea what you are on about. I suggest you concentrate on driving because, boy, road safety is just not your forte. At all.

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All views expressed are personal.

I'm not sure its been tried. Road safety policy in this country seems to be all about knee-jerk reactions and prejudice.

Now, this is total rubbish. Just exceeding a limit is NOT necessarily dangerous at all.
Thank goodness. I'll leave it.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

That's just bollocks.

Distilled, essence of bollocks.

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Simon

Ok, I'm starting to loose the will to live but just let me see if I've got this...

Are you saying that the SORT of people who are dangerous aren't necessarily all speeders but those who get CAUGHT speeding? Are you attributing this to the suggestion that if they are paying insufficient attention to spot the camera in the first place, then they are probably paying insufficient attention to be driving at that speed?

Everybody is a good driver, until they have an accident.
The causes of many accidents lie with other parties than the vehicle driver, the driver however always gets the blame.

"Peter **** was going home after a night out with friends when the car, driven by Ms T**** ****, hit him shortly after midnight"

Ms was perfectly sober, but got breathalzed anyway, after being arrested.
Mr was perfectly legless, it was raining and an unlit road.

Lets be perfectly clear about this: the only way to stop road accidents is to remove the moving element.
It is insufficient to remove personal transport, we will have to remove ALL moving vehicles, and then stop ALL moving people.
In fact, for 3000+ lives a year to continue, 60 million lives will have to halt.

Like I said folks....you just aint ready for it yet..and as a consequence.Safe Speed is heading for irrelevance...
TTFN..

Tom, for all the words, you've actually given nothing on the topic of road safety. I cannot find a meaningful suggestion for improving road safety anywhere, just rhetoric. Perhaps you should try bullet points.

Robin,
I'm really sorry but Safe Speed as the ABD is obsolete. It has no future as any sence is interpretted as rhetoric.
Good luck to you all, I really mean that.
Tom..

You'll be please to know that I'll not be back..

Stop them yes, but reducing them is very possible.

A reduction is person transportation will reduce accidents.
The increase in public transportation will increase accidents.
The accidents statistics give little room for optimism on that.
People keep harping on about "driver education", but are very coy about "pedestrian and cyclist education".
The protection of people depends on them accepting, sometimes, that it needs THEM to do some THINKING.
I drive expecting the other driver to be a complete psycho, ditto pedestrians.
Most are not, but it helps me to recognise the ones that are !
I drive LOTS of miles, and SO FAR I've hit nobody. In 40 years of driving.
The same is true of MOST drivers, otherwise the accident rate would be very much more than it is. The accidents per mile figures tell a truer story.

Now hold on, thats also rhetoric.

Please, perhaps I am missing something, but I don't see any concrete suggestions for what can be done to make an improvement, merely wishy-washy soapboxing. Thus I suggest that bullet points would make your suggestions more obvious.

I must say that its not the most persuasive attitude; pitching up with claims of some revolutionary revelation on road safety, calling names and suggesting that people aren't worthy of your news, and then storming off when asked to substantiate your claims, seemingly taking umbrage that we haven't accepted you as our prophet.

If you want to make suggestions then please do, most people here are happy to hear new ideas, but please don't expect that anything will be accepted on faith; new concepts will be put to the test, and if they do not stand up to scrutiny, then they probably weren't that great in the first place. As much as you deride statistics, and other forms of measuring effectiveness, we cannot base policy purely on 'common sense', when it is so seldom sensible, and not purely in relation to road safety. If we discarded science and relied purely on 'common sense' then we would still consider ourselves to be living on a flat earth, viewing the stars as pinholes in the blanket of night, waiting for the sun to complete it's next orbit of the world!

Err...that's because TRL and the government have had it all their own way. If Safe Speed and the ABD were listened to, casualties would be reduced. We've tried the other way without success, and now we should try their way. Anyone who prioritises reducing casualties above persecuting motorists should logically agree.

Just because there are two opposing sides in a debate, it doesn't mean the truth is somewhere in the middle. It doesn't mean that neither side is right.


Oh dear oh dear. There goes your credibility. I don't see how anyone who actually understood RTTM or the 85th percentile could possibly say they were meaningless, whatever their position on speed cameras.

I would love to hear you (or anyone) explain why they are meaningless. Perhaps the forthcoming book will contain such an explanation. Unfortunately I don't think that will persuade me to buy it.


That's a new one on me.

How did you do at science and maths at school, by the way? Did you hate them then as well? That's fine, not everyone's into them, but then such people don't usually claim to be authorities on subjects like the camera debate, of which statistics is a very important and inseparable element.

Alas, I'm not sure who's going to buy your book. I don't think many of us have been convinced yet, and I can't see pro-camera types rushing to read it either. Who will you be targetting? Surely anyone who's interested enough in the road safety debate to buy such a book would know the significance of RTTM and the 85th percentile, so I must admit that I don't like your chances. I'm sorry but to me it all seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity.

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Paul Smith: a legend.

"The freedom provided by the motor vehicle is not universally applauded, however: there are those who resent the loss of state control over individual choice that the car represents. Such people rarely admit their prejudices openly; instead, they make false or exaggerated claims about the adverse effects of road transport in order to justify calls for higher taxation or restrictions on mobility." (Conservative Way Forward: Stop The War Against Drivers)

I give him a week.

Damn! Looks like I never will get my question answered then!

But in a very real sense Tom, you were never really 'here' in the first place.

You came to give people your wisdom and, when people here said: "Look, cut the bollocks old chap, cut to the chase and tell us what you mean," you either wouldn't or couldn't.

Oh, well. As the old song nearly said, 'he's not our brother, he is Heavey.'

What I mean by the above is that I am not convinced that Tom came as our brother to help us. Perhaps he just came to throw insults and slope off, sniggering.

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www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

I didn't come here to impart wisdom. I came to see if you were ready for change. Sadly I didn't see any evidence of that.
I can't blame you, you've all spent the last several years (in my opinion) looking in the wrong direction. People with different opinions to Safe Speed usually get a hard time here. However, my time here hasn't been too rough and I'm gratefull for that.
I'm sorry if I havent answered many of your questions but you've answered all of mine.
I shall look in from time to time and pontificate as appropriate.
Later...
Tom..

Oh great one, what must we do to be worthy of your 'change'?

Was tom an upper class troll? Was it a wind-up all along?

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus