Safe Speed Forums

It's probably best that you read it from the horses mouth. Go to the page marked 154 (156 of the PDF) and see what table H7 tells you. Don't forget, this data applies to urban areas; rural areas will suffer greater levels of RTTM.


It would seem we (you and I) have many common beliefs; RTTM aside, there may not be any difference between our opinions at all

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Already been there Told you I had explored a lot of this site, including archives. Somewhere it there it linked to that also, or possibly in another thread I read.

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If you think everyone else around you is driving badly, perhaps it's time to examine your own driving.

Fair enough.
Returning to an earlier point: how are you "... not convinced it is applicable for the stats as much as SS makes out."? Do you feel we or Safe Speed has misrepresented it? If so how?

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

I can't explain fully, reason being I don't want to say where I got the other information from - this will lead to more debating of the other places methods, opinions or figures.

And I fully appriciate that it doesn't give you the chance to defend against it, but I have read so much on here I already know what you would say. Don't take that as a dig though.

And no, not intentionally. As I have said, time and time again I have seen people bend figures to what they want (or discount them if need be), even if they don't realise they are doing it. Or even don't realise they are making it churn out the wrong results.

One good point is that are the stats themselves ok? They are gathered by the speed camera people, and the thought remains that if they were different and agreed with what SS opinions are, would the RTTM (or any other argument) be used against them? I would chance no, but then that could be being unfair.

You very very rarely see people looking into the validity of stats that agree with what they want

But that's just one example. I am most definatly not here to rip apart SS, I agree with much being said, and afterall theres a lot of sensible driving advice given out. So regardless of what you think about the SS opinions, there is some good coming out of it.

Unfortunatly I don't think it will ever succeed in it's aim to get rid of limits, that's an impossibility while we all manually control our cars. For starters it has massive pre-requisites - much much better driver training, much more police on the roads, and some restructuring of the driving laws. And possibly roads also.

And then you come to the blame. If they were abolished, someone has to propose it, and someone has to agree to it. And I see no-one taking that risk, I can imagine the fallout if the deaths/injuries did increase instead of decrease.

Who wants to have relatives of someone killed in an accident writing to you (due to excess speed or not - we all know a lot of people would blame that regardless) en masse?

But, that's just my little opinion, which could well be worth 2 halves of jack and sh...poo.

Though it is nice to air them and not get blasted for it, for which I give my thanks.

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If you think everyone else around you is driving badly, perhaps it's time to examine your own driving.

RTTM is a well documented statistical issue and not an invention of Safespeed.

It applies to situations where the sample size is small and where the events being observed are infrequent. It is not an opinion - it is a mathematical fact although you don't have to be a mathematician to understand why it happens.

If observed events are random and very infrequent, then there will be a built-in variation in observed data in any observational period. On a given road, for example, in a 12 month period, there might be one accident and two in the next period and none in the next. As the measurement window is arbitrarily chosen then this variation is statistically meaningless as you can change the result by changing the observation period. It is doubtful if these kinds of statistics can be meaningfully applied to very infrequent events, anyway.

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

I guess we can’t go any further with the RTTM debate, unless you can share that information? (without sharing where you got it from). Further debate can never be a bad thing (this is afterall a forum).


I have no reason to dispute the data.
There are other argument which haven’t been accounted for, like ‘bias on selection’ where other measures used within the camera site (likely when talking about urban camera sites, which is where that data comes from) have a positive safety impact, but all credit goes to the ‘camera site’, so wrongly implying the camera has given all the positive effect; this may even mask out a negative impact from these cameras.


Are you talking about Safe Speed? I didn’t know it had any such direction. A lot of people seem to be under the false impression that Safe Speed calls for “being able to drive as fast as I like”; I don’t know where this misunderstanding comes from.
It is said on various Safe Speed campaign pages that speed limits are important, as is their enforcement. I agree with these.


That’s the problem with governments and democracy in general. Why must we continue to leave these decisions in the hands of politicians who usually get it wrong, or succumb to external pressures, or who won’t decide, or who do so in secrecy, or won’t be held to account.
We need to vote on these issues as a nation. We ARE capable of doing this and doing it well, but for some reason the means to do this are being withheld from us.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Malcolmw - note I said I have read it from various sources - I do not think it's invention came from safespeed. Please realise I have indeed read many other sites and much of this one.

It will save you typing out what I already know.

I know, sorry I know that seems unfair, but I have read a lot about it and I'm not here to debate it. Just voicing my opinion, not shooting down SS's ones in flames.




Ah, possibly my bad on that. That could be mainly due to a certain thread on a certain forum from a certain individual. Though I knew it was never to simply go as fast as you want. I have read a LOT of what Paul has written (and spoken), and however accurate/inaccurate his findings are, I am pretty much sure he had nothing but safety in mind.

I also have issue with the 85th percentile rule, but that's most likely because it has been quoted to me more times than should be legal in defense of some frankly daft speeds. It may be that it's dead on, but I can no longer hear about the theory without gaining some sort of anger or disgust.



Ha! Along with a lot of other things! But don't get me started on politics - gets me grumpy and ranty.

Like I said, I am not here to debate the claims of SS. Statistics and whatnot would be quoted to me (which I will have already have looked at), with explanations. But then they can be very much manipulated for peoples own view, and not being a statistican (quick makeup word there), I can't really decide for myself how true those things are. Also a factor is that I cannot directly go to the source in how those figures were gathered.

A good example is how often I see how many accidents are mislabelled being caused by speed. Conversely, many might go by that were caused by excess speed. Often on SS that's blamed on being driver not comforming to the conditions (going too fast for them), which is then said it can be solved by driver teaching/training. But in absence of that, perhaps a lower limit/keeping the same limit is the answer?

Before you answer that, don't. I am just pointing out that there is many aspects to it, and many different points of view depending on what you might want to think.

And just to say, I would say exactly the same on an 'opposing' forum. I have seen so many threads debating it and I don't really want to go there. I'd rather read all the pre-done evidence from both sides (from various sources) and decide for myself.

For myself, I just use common sense when driving, and try to keep myself grounded, and always, always ask questions and use hindsight even for the things that were not near misses.

I think you should always question your own driving, and most definatly not just after near misses. hopefully this will keep me crash free for sometime yet

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If you think everyone else around you is driving badly, perhaps it's time to examine your own driving.

On the other hand without quoting sources and references your points could easily have just been pulled off the top of your head. (And I'm not saying they are, merely that if you're making a point that goes against the majority view on this forum you need to cite references.)



Given the postings that were removed from this thread I think we know exactly who you're sniping at there - cut it out.

Now while I have the floor for 5 minutes I shall state my views on this:

Firstly the offence of "speeding" was introduced as a way of easily prosecuting drivers who were causing a danger on the road. Someone who's driving carelessly or dangerously will often (but not always) be breaking a speed limit in the process. And while the act of breaking that speed limit isn't in itself dangerous or careless it provides an easy way for the perpetrator to be "brought to book".

Careless or dangerous driving has to be proven beyond "reasonable doubt" (although with the current judicial system stacked so heavily against the motorist it seems to have become "guilty until proven innocent", or even more now "guilty until proven guilty".) "Speeding" is an absolute offence - you go 1mph over the limit and you're guilty (although a leeway of 10%+2mph is normally given).

Unfortunately the powers that be have become so obsessed with speed being the root of all evil that you'll get had for what's basically a technical infringement. And as a knock-on effect it's caused a large proportion of drivers to think "I'm safe because I'm not breaking the speed limit".

To bring a current interweb meme into play - EPIC FAIL!

You can be a menace on the roads without breaking speed limits - witness the DOFs (Doddering Old Fools) who really should have given up driving long ago but can't bear to lose their freedom (and in some ways I sympathise) driving their Rover (why is it ALWAYS a Rover?) at 35mph through an NSL and riding the white line so nobody can overtake, a string of a dozen frustrated drivers behind them. (Ok, so I dragged out a stereotype but you see my point?)

Speed doesn't cause accidents. Bad driving causes accidents. Failing to look, failing to anticipate, poor lane discipline etc.

Frustration also causes accidents (see point about DOFs above), normally when people over-estimate the acceleration of their car.

I think one of the worst things that ever happened to road safety was when local authorities were given the power to set speed limits, previously any change in limit had to be approved by central government. Now all the NIMBYs can nag the local council who can drop a limit so they can be seen to be "doing something". There's a road near us (B4060 towards Dursley) where there were two accidents involving a car overcooking a bend, leaving the road and ending up in a field. The response was to lower the whole stretch of road from NSL to 50mph.

I raised an objection to this, which was centred around the question "how fast must that car have been going to leave the road on that bend?" Opinion was somewhere over 80mph (speed limit of 60 remember?), when I asked the question "so if that person was breaking the 60mph limit what makes you think they wouldn't break the 50mph limit?" I got some blank looks.

I also suggested that time/effort/money be better spent on putting Armco barriers between the road and layby, putting up a sign warning of the bend, maybe painting "SLOW" on the road - but to no avail, they wanted their speed limit.

And contrary to what some might think I don't want to drive everywhere at full tilt. I believe that speed limits have a place, I agree with the 30mph limit in built-up areas (although I don't believe it should be rigidly enforced, common sense should prevail) but I don't agree with the likes of Oxfordshire, Suffolk etc extending the 30mph limit for anything up to a mile outside the village.

Whilst what I'd like to see is the only speed limits being 30mph for built-up areas and perhaps 40mph for higher quality urban roads with the NSL sign truly meaning "derestricted" I don't see this ever happening. And for the record if it did I would most certainly not be driving "flat out" as soon as I passed an NSL sign. It seems that certain stalkerish people have a very distorted view of my driving based on some admittedly slightly outrageous comments I posted on a ranting forum a few years ago (howmotorwayswork.com) and have taken these comments literally rather than in the tongue-in-cheek spirit they were intended. I do not drive like a maniac, nutter, whatever. I'm an IAM member, I'm a fast driver, sure, but never reckless.

What I would like to see though is for "speeding" to no longer be an absolute offence, ie you won't get "done" for it if all you were doing was exceeding a numerical value. If you were also causing a danger then fair cop, but it should be for the authorities to prove that you were causing a danger to other road users (which is the way speeding laws were intended).

The biggest problem with speed limits is they are far too much a "blanket" solution. There's another road near me that at certain times you wouldn't drive down faster than 20-25mph, yet at other times it's good for 70-80mph.

Just thought of something with "home zones" too but I'll save that for another rant!

So in summary what I'd like to see happening is this:

1. Local authorities to be stripped of their speed limit setting powers as they've proven time and time again that they can't be trusted to set them realistically.

2. "Speeding" to no longer be an absolute offence, for example if you're on an empty motorway in the dry why shouldn't you do 100mph? After all most drivers of big German cars do 100mph+ on the motorway most of the time and don't have crashes, that proves that speed (when used correctly) doesn't kill.

3. Drumming into cyclists and pedestrians that road safety is everyone's responsibility. Bring back the Green Cross Code. Teach kids how to cross the road safely, don't just run out in the road and expect cars to stop for you.

4. Start running public information films again with meaningful road safety messages, "turn your fog lights off when it's not foggy", "keep left unless overtaking", "think once, think twice, think bike" etc etc.

5. Encourage new drivers to undertake further training. Pass Plus is a good start, IAM or ROSPA advanced driving is well worth doing.

6. Stop blaming "speeding" for everything - and end the "one third lie". We've already established that exceeding the speed limit is a contributing factor in, what, 4% of accidents? (Can someone dig out the DfT stats?) And that's just a contributing factor, something else would also have been a factor.

I think these views are pretty consistent with the SafeSpeed aims too.

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Magistrates rule #1: "Never let justice get in the way of a conviction."

I agree completely. But as I am not tearing apart SS's claims and actually agree with most of them, I don't actually have much reason to lie.



Errr, and they were removed, so no-one bar mods knew who I was on about. Fact of the matter is it's entirely true, it was the actions of this person which made me change my mind.



Disgaree with that entirely, but then that's been debated before, no need to go there again.



If there were means of ensuring bad driving was caught - i.e. more police on the roads - that wouldn't be a problem anyway.



Without any malice or offence intended, that's only to be expected when you post such things. If it's untrue, it's hard to understand why it was posted, let alone in such detail.

Look at it from someone else's point of view. A person gives detailed descriptions of driving at 150+, while saying they want limits abolished/relaxed. Damages the cause of SS no? Even if it was untrue.

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If you think everyone else around you is driving badly, perhaps it's time to examine your own driving.

This is a forum where people get to air personal opinions. Whatever is said by any individual, except the campaign founder, should not have any bearing on the campaign; let's try to keep it that way.

Let's have no personal comments please. edit: from anyone


It may be true the campaign attracts undesirables who have misunderstood what the campaign is about (being fair: just as you had Pratnership). They'll lose their enthusiasm when they realise we are also calling for strong measures to catch people like them, measures far better than any camera.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Steve, I am not saying it should - what I am saying is that it does. This is actually the case on a forum I could point you to.
I have not made any personal comments - I mentioned no names, and didn't refer to anything, or any links. The posts were removed, so how can anyone other than mods know who I am on about? Kind of ruined when it was reffered to by the last poster, but that's not my fault.



Indeed, as such people tend to drive badly and not just speed. Thus increasing the chances they would get caught tenfold.
Unfortunatly, people rarely tend to read the pages on what it's actually aiming for, and how many people on this forum have read in detail the research and linked statistics Paul and co. have done? Not many I'll bet.

The evidence of them not doing that is obvious, especially for people with the opposing view. It's like the readme on forum signups - no-one ever does. Although there is hellva lot to get through, and leads to more reading if you actually want to know what's it's on about.

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If you think everyone else around you is driving badly, perhaps it's time to examine your own driving.

Well since we're all being honest here, yes, I'll be the first to admit that I like to put my foot down - when it's safe to do so. And only when it's safe to do so.

Eg on an empty motorway at 3am, on a quiet B-road with good sight lines - or at Castle Combe racing circuit.

My original point remains. Driving down the motorway at 130+mph at 3am when the roads are deserted is relatively safe. Doing the same thing during the day when the motorway is busy is highly dangerous.

Similarly driving past the formerly NSL road (reduced to 30mph by the hand-waving brigade) past the local comprehensive school at 70-80mph is quite safe - at 2:45am [1]. Do the same thing at 2:45pm on a school day and you deserve to be strung up by the testicles - because it's not "if" but "when" a kid steps off (or gets pushed off) the pavement without looking. Yet at 4:30pm on a school day it's safe to do 40-50mph down the same road.

The irony of this particular 30mph limit past a school? When do you think the Talivan was out on the hunt? 8:30am or 2:45pm on a school day? Nope. 10am on a Saturday. When it's perfectly safe to do 40-50mph along that road.

Also ironically I'd say that 30mph is way too fast along that road at school run times. So what do we do? Put a blanket 20mph limit on it (which also gets ignored like the current 30 limit does outside school times)? Or set the limit to something sensible, say 50mph, with a sign saying "20 when lights flash"?

Sensible people would go with the variable limit idea (which I'm all for). However those in power see it as another means of control and would go for the "20 all the time" option.

[1] Not that I do 80mph past there even at 3am - it would only be safe if people were expecting a car to be coming down that road at such a speed!

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Magistrates rule #1: "Never let justice get in the way of a conviction."

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Wholeheartedly agree with the above.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Hi there.

I think folk can behave like sheep at times

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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.

COAST in action and we can use - some - <cough> discretion up to a certain point on most points - but we also have to balance against "being fair to all" as well,
I think we have to be aware that Germans are taught how to dirve on motorways as well and that their L-test is above the IAM test even - per the wild and various in her family who took that test of course.

But we prosecute more for inconsiderate up to dangerous here than elsewhere and less for speeding? But this is still "hands-on police area" We do allow for some fair discretion up to a set point which we believe to be fair and fairly generous but will explain to each driver the reason for any decision and each get a strongly worded message designed to educate whatever the decision made at the time. By the way .. we certainly do not let off "extremes" as such behaviour could not be justified.. but our teams out there make a fair minded/objective report all the same Written reports follow this same fair and honestly made objectivity and may even help the offender mitigate himself and come away with a fine/points but no ban on occasions.

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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.

Are you sure you are a senior Durham Officer as what you have said here does not reflect their published Speed Enforcement Policy, see here:
http://www.durham.police.uk/durhamc/central_deps/operations/scu.php



You are not at all in step with what is shown to be their activities.

I suspect you have somehow failed to notice or understand the critical difference between being caught by automated camera systems and being caught by "hands-on police"ing.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

I am well aware of the differences what do you think they are?

Can you not see the obvious differences between what the police policies are in Durham and the interpretation of In Gear; they are not even close.

Of course they aren't close; you're comparing apples and oranges.

What you quoted was regarding camera enforcement: "caught speeding by the Safety Camera", cameras do not show discretion, regardless of the circumstances. All detected offences over the threshold are logged and followed through.
Police officers doing "hands-on police"ing (i.e. when not manning cameras) can show a level of discretion depending on the circumstances and driver attitude. They can, and sometimes do, give a stern warning in lieu of the standard penalty, if they feel the need to pull at all.

You would be badly misinformed if you believe all (real) police officers always give a NIP to all drivers doing over 10%+2 (or always apply the 26mph higher penalty threshold).

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign