Safe Speed Forums

You don't risk breaking it though do you, you KNOW you're breaking it; you know you're doing 35mph, or 65mph. Apologies if I've got you wrong here, but I don't think I have.

Well, I fully expect to seeing you supporting red light jumping cyclists in the same beath in future then.

After all, they obviously think the law should not apply to them, they do it safely, they look, go slowly across the junction in the majority of cases, and are quite careful and 'safe' about it, well, at least they think they are.

If you don't support red light jumping cyclists its a bit hypocritical IMO.

I suppose the question is can you risk "red light jumping" perfectly safely compared to breaking a speed limit?

Well I'm not sure. we know for certain that speed limits are broken many million times a day and that action results in very, very few KSI's (in comparison to the act) - I don't know what the figure for jumping red lights without incident is, I suspect that the figure is far lower (either by motorists or cyclists but my inclination would lead me to believe that the risk of KSI would be higher.

Does anyone have the stats on KSi causation via failure to follow a signal (I think that is the offence)?

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

I seen hundreds of cyclists jump red lights every day for years and years; I cycle in London a lot.

I personally have never seen one get hit, and I've never seen somebody else crash trying to avoid one either.

They do get hit of course (as do cyclists that go through green lights), but by Safe Speed standards if you're not involved in an accident whilst doing something illegal it means it must be safe, right?

sigh....I suggest you ask your physics teacher to explain it to you

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

I don't need to. The faster you go, the further out in front of you stretches the area in which, if something happens, you won't be able to avoid it.

Its why you keep a two second gap in front of you on a motorway (which changes in length depending on how fast you're going).

I think its you that needs to talk to the physics teacher.

What has legality and safety got in common?

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

Laws are there to mitigate danger (well, that's their intention), seatbelt laws, red light laws, speeding laws, holding onto lorrys whilst cycling laws, indicating laws, I could go on.

So why has the attention to speeding laws failed (miserably) to lower our KSI's?

Can it be that over attention to an easily measurable yet insignificant safety factor could actually detract from the harder to measure, although important, safety factors, thereby reducing their effect on the overall road safety solution?

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

Weepej,

Does applying emphasis to the implementation of speeding laws impact road safety in a positive or negative way?

Either way please state your evidence.

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

Well, that's a big question, rhetorically asked by you I think.

Safe Speed is not neccessarily correct in its assertion that the apparent fall in the downward KSI rate is down to automated speed limit enforcement.

From what Weepej said just now, he seems quite relaxed with the idea of cyclists jumping red lights. Illegal and dangerous.

Yet he gets very agitated when someone drives at -say- 33mph. Illegal and arguably not dangerous

There seems to be a bit of a dichotomy, there.

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

I'm not, I don't do it myself, and I think people are fools for doing it.

I'm arguing that if you support breaking the law to speed when its considered "safe", then you should also support breaking the law for jumping red lights when its "safe".

I don't support either, I'm not the one in a hypocritical situation.

I think you'll find that the 'huge' area you're alluding to is actually quite tiny relative to the distance you can normally see ahead of you.
You are required by law to be able to read a numberplate at 22 metres. The normal distance between streetlights is 60 metres. Compare those distances with stopping distances. Even more to the point, those distances are almost astronomically tiny compared to the tens or even hundreds of thousands of miles the average person drives between incidents of someone running out in front of them. So, do you feel like calculating the probabilities?

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

It is unlikely to be just that. (and this is well known within safespeed)

I think it has far more to do with the replacement of trained Traffic officers who could detect all manner of driving offences and act appropriately and with discretion, two things that an automated solution fails on every time.

For this traffic police gained respect amongst the community as they tackled those that actually caused a danger to the public not those that transgressed a rule that was minor in it's relevance.

Why do you think that road KSI have failed to continue the falling trend since the reduction in Traffic Police and the introduction of automated enforcement?

I know that Paul Smith put a lot of effort into looking at it, and I assume you have had the decency to assess his work before commenting on or dismissing it, and as such look forward to your views.

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

Yes but things come at you from the side as well, its not just about how far you can see, and what's more, you might not be able to see them, i.e. if you go around a corner too fast you might not see the sheep in the road until it's too late.

Can you agree that if the speed is appropriate to the conditions then you are not going to collide with anything?

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

KSI's are still falling, the assertion is that they are falling at a slower rate.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5387568.stm

Okay....

Why is the rate slowing...

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

Well sort of, but conditions is a very loose term. You might think that a speed is suitable for the conditions going down a road with lots of driveways on it, and it may well be, as long as somebody doesn't stick their nose out of a driveway whilst somebody is coming the other way.

If they do and you hit them, your speed was inappropriate by definition.

So do we agree?

Just so it helps - An appropriate speed is one that you can travel at and stop within the space you know to be clear.

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair