Safe Speed Forums

I want to stick my neck out here. And also test the integrity of Safe Speed. Yes, I'm a member of Safe Speed, and for good reason. But first and formost, I don't want to see any more suffering.

I have stated in the past that I will do a complete U-Turn in the light of new evidence or proof.

Long timers here will have heard me bark on about my job. (Rehab Technician working for the NHS)

I have often claimed that I talk to RTA victims; about what brought them to their situation - and I have! More times than I care to remember.

I'm going to see a man tomorrow whom I have known for about six years. His situation really doesn't get much worse. I won't go into detail

But what I will say is he is one of the most wonderful people it has ever been my privilege to meet. So much stronger than I could ever be in his situation and in his own typical matter-o-fact style has said to me in the past, "no-one said life was fair".

Not the first or last time I will hear that.


But I have never asked him in detail what happened. Like so many I meet, he is so much more than a patient - he is also a friend.

I wish I could meet him in the next world when we could have a drink together and he isn't the person I will see before me tomorrow. But as my dear friend in America would say, 'if wishes were fishes we'd all have nets'.



So my promise here, for better or worse, is that I will ask him, and I know him well enough to know he won’t mind, exactly what happened.

Obviously, if it's inappropriate I will terminate the questioning, but I think I know him well enough and long enough, so...


My promise here is that I will faithfully and honestly report back tomorrow with what he tells me, verbatim. No exaggeration, no bias or hidden adenda - just what he says. If he says it was speed or they were 'going too fast', so be it! It will appear here.


It won't be the first itme I've wept going back to work, but let's put it in words for the first time and cut through the lies. I've yet to hear someone tell me it was speed but maybe this is a first?

Diary of a rehab technician..

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Not sure what youre trying to prove to yourself?

If, whatever happened to this man did or did not involve a speed over a posted limit, what does that prove. There are too many other factors.

I hope what evere you come to discover, you apply good judgement when determining what this means to you.

Excessive speed can of course injure and kill, but so can knives, water, high buildings, gluttony, bad driving, ice, fog, electricity. ther list of ways people can be injured is endless. But we should apply sensible proportion to the percieved risks and not just pick an easy target for a fast buck, especially if the evidence of the effect of the action is dubious at best.
If a child is more likely to be killed at 40 rather than 30, Id first teach the kid to use the green cross code to avoid the impact in the first place. I now that it more likely to cost money instead of making heaps of it, but the kid is more likely to stay alive, which I thought was the desired objective. Silly me.

Speed doesnt kill, but bad driving definately can, and speeding per se doesnt equate to bad driving, otherwise all emergency service drivers, including the highly vaunted Police, should have their licences taken away. Using a single measure such as, (no especially) speed is a terrible way to judge the safety of a driver.

Thanks Julesm, I don't mind critisism and I'm happy to explain. Please don't think me a saboteur or troll.



Not to myself, but as someone who is at the coal face I thought it may have interest value here, in the same way many posters here have often asked for someone's 'take' from a different or professional angle or brought something a little different to the table.

On SS we have police, ex camera operators, etc. I should have thought my experience would be relevant here too, in a way that others do not get to see or hear of but I'm sorry if I'm wrong.




It is these other factors which I thought would be of interest. When accidents are reported to us, via the media, these reports are often polarized and short lived - a sound-bite on the news. But how often do you get the follow up? The bit I see? Today's 'case' took over a year before the police came to their conclusion and told the family their findings. Do you think you would have heard that on the TV? No! It's old news.




Me too. I have for many years. What I'd hoped is that when I presented the facts we could analyze them, in the same way a case study is presented. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_study It will mean different things to different people and the feedback from these things is often enlightening.

If it is of no worth then I'll leave it. I've just come back and it wasn't what I expected but if there's nothing to be learned from it then okay - I'm sorry for wasting peoples time.




I'm in total agreement with you. No argument there whatsoever.

Well, maybe I'm a fool for thinking it was or could be useful. The case studies at work are invaluable but maybe not here. If so, please accept my apoligies. It's wasn't my intention to hurt or offend anyone.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Well, at the risk of embarrassing myself further, I may as well finish what I started.


Obviously I can't/wouldn't mention names or anything else whereby someone may be able to identify him or the family in any possible way. So, in case study style, I'll just call him Dave. As I've said, I've known him for years and seen him very many times. Before my appointment today, this is what I knew about him:

Born in 1974, (so young enough to be my son). The car he was driving hit a tree, back in 1999, so this happened when he was only about 25 years old. Suffered a complete C5 lesion, tetraplegic, as well as other horiffic injuries. Each day he has a rich cocktail of drugs to alleviate pain and various other symptoms and keep him alive.

That's as much detail as I'm happy to go into about his situation.

So what happened exactly?

Well I shouldn't have been surprised to learn that unfortunately he has no recollection of the accident. So it actually came down to his mother who was very willing to talk of the investigation: -

It was raining heavily that fateful day. Dave approached a bend in his car when it careered off the road into an oak tree.

At first they looked into whether Dave's car aquaplaned, but the stretch of road had excellent drainage and his car was in good order, well maintained, and we're not talking about negotiating a hairpin but a gentle-ish bend. So this was ruled out.

Dave's speedometer was actually broken/stuck at a speed nearly 10mph over the limit. However, before anyone jumps on that, the police investigation said that even for the conditions it would not have been enough to loose control in the way it did.

In this speed obsessed age, I was actually surprised to hear it wasn't the speed they were concerned with - this is what they told Dave's mother. In fact, they said that it would have been quite easy to negotiate the bend at that speed even in those conditions.

The conclusion was that he swerved to avoid something coming the other way, (someone who was out jogging in those conditions saw a motorbike go past a moment before in the direction of the accident before hearing the sound of the crash. The police sent out a bulletin asking for the motorcyclist to come forward, as a possible witness and eliminate from the investigation, but he/she never did.)

The only other option was that he may have been trying to change a CD and took his eyes off the road.

My personal conclusion is that although he was speeding, I would say it wasn't causal but, as we've said here before, it makes a bad situation worse when things go wrong. I don't think anyone here has ever denied that though.

So for me the cause is the important thing here and, to the investigators credit, they didn't put it down to speeding.

We would normally have several case studies in a meeting and each one brings something different and interesting, but a one-off here isn't likely to be very productive so I'll regard this as a failure.

I have my own thoughts on what I learn from these cases and I like to think they have helped make me a better driver/rider. Maybe this wasn't the best example although I have still taken something from it.

If there was something, any one thing, which would help prevent these things I would vote for it in a heartbeat.

I don't know what that 'thing' is - but I think I know what it isn't.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I don't think that you have failed, - you have tried to come up with an example. You were led by injuries and perhaps made an assumption, but you're big enough to accept this.
However we can all learn from other's mistakes - even if we only use them as a reminder.
I would love to see more data on this. My thought is that for whatever reason he skidded and lost control, which maybe, what you are saying but it is hard to really judge. As for identifying the cause, well, that seems like an unknown.
You say that they thought that it aquaplaned, so I guess it went in a 'line' hence thinking, that he probably skidded off the road, but we cannot conclude this on such scant data, really.
How sad that he never got on a skid pan! Now that might have enabled a very different outcome ! If it were a gentle bend of perhaps, 30% or more, then perhaps, recoverable, and probably possible to control and negotiate the bend, or even make the accident less severe, it is hard to tell for sure.
I believe in being responsible for your own life, and this may not have been something that this chap had even thought about, never mind been encouraged to do so, or realised that further skills may have helped him.

Is this 'societies' fault or error, probably not, however the current trends of drop your speed, or be got by a speed camera, as an all encompassing answering to safer roads is highly questionable and wrong.
I wonder what the 85% percentile for this road is ? That would be interesting to find out .. In other words - what were his 'chances' of a slightly higher speed resulting in an accident. But I do agree very much with Julesm, that too much is not known, and so impossible to draw conclusions. But I think it interesting, and I applaud your courage to ask and try to learn more - that cannot have been easy.
Do thank them for allowing this to be a bit more public, and our thoughts are with them too.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Impossible to know what happened here.

Driving rain? Diesel slick? small pothole? worn or polished road surface? Defective/under/over pressure tyre?

Exuberance of youth?

Pure inexperience of youth?


I think we need to focus on training.. on educating our young and other learners to always be on the alert and never to see the pass of any test as an end. but the start of more aspiring learning opportunities

I know my DIS works. I have the stats. Please do an FOI. I will not do one as this would be subjective self praise of a tried/tested/true iniative.. which also includes the beter and involved Speed Aware coursed

Judge Durham on its record to date. We deliver road safety and tough stance on all other criminal issues too.

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

And I am sure I read somewhere of a speedo needle that had probably jumped on impact so was showing a speed higher than the car was travelling at.

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

Thank you Thatsnews!

If for no other reason, I'm glad I posted because there's something else I didn't consider!

I would sincerely hope that after more than a year of investigation they would have checked the obvious outlined in IG's post.

I would imagine you would have much more intimate knowledge of these procedures than me IG but, (with the greatest of respect), I'm surprised at your post. These investigative teams are not fools, (I hope), and as such I would hope they would have considered things like tyres, oil spills etc. early on as common procedure before they dismissed it.

Case studies are one of the few things, in the health service political football, I believe are actually very worthwhile.

The whole point of a case study is to ask and tease out more than maybe even the note-taker read from his own notes, as thatsnews just did for me, which haven't been included or considered. This is how they work, in my experience.

For instance, thinking about today, in my past I have wondered if there is any merit in winding my window down, radio off, so that in similar circumstances I may hear something travelling out of sight approaching from the opposite direction and adjust my speed/position/(adrenaline) to compensate for someone else’s misjudgement.

The speaker doesn't explore every avenue in the opening dialogue. It usually promotes a debate where 'the speaker' is questioned and gives honest answers.

Did you ask? How do you know? What makes you so sure? Is that exactly what happened? Have you considered? Was he/she/them speaking emotively? etc. etc.

IMHO I could have done or said more here which may have been - something. Maybe it's a missed opportunity or a sterile path.

Thanks again thatsnews. If it weren't for your educational post I was not going to post on this thread again.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

And thanks

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Nothing wrong with sniffing around and asking questions to gauge a wider understanding of an issue... especially an issue reported with such one sided bias by the media... I'm an electrician, often when I'm in customers houses we'll chat about this an' that, topical things, and my impressions are, contrary to what you might think after reading the papers, the majority of people don't buy in to climate change hysteria.

And don't get me started on the minority that do

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction