Safe Speed Forums

Delighted to agree wholeheartedly. And surely there are other 'tips' which could be added to a series of "better driving" ads.

No. Crowded roads are not a reason to reduce following distances. On the contrary, congestion will be reduced if decent gaps are maintained (possible upper limit if the traffic load is really more than physical capacity but that's far from always the case). Mostly, congestion occurs around junctions and because of the 'wave' effect of unnecessary braking.

I wish I could agree with your evaluation. However, I've stood on a bridge or two over motorways counting vehicles and seen all three lanes each carrying a lot more than thirty vehicles per minute.

The next time you're travelling on a motorway or trunk route during rush hour (assuming that the traffic is actually moving) check the separations both in your lane and those around you. When I do this, most separations are much shorter than two seconds - and it's all lanes chock-a-block.

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Will

Stick rigidly within the 70 limit on a motorway, decrease the speed differential whilst overtaking slower vehicles, increase the time near these vehicles, increase the risk of a collision by side-swipe from vehicle not checking mirrors, etc. Not to mention the vehicle following too closely behind or pulled out into safety gap in front!

Perhaps the outcome of a crash may be a tad less severe at or under 70, but increasing the time alongside other vehicles whilst overtaking increases the risk of the crash happening in the first place! I find slightly faster speeds make it far easier to keep a healthier and more comfortable distance from other vehicles on all but the busiest motorways.

There is an optimum speed differential for overtaking. There is nothing worse than a driver rigidly sticking to the speed limit and taking several miles to overtake a vehicle travelling at a fraction less than the speed limit. This is akin to the chaos caused by lorries overtaking each other governed to 56!

Living in Nottingham, I drive through the 30mph specs cameras on the A610 on a regular basis. This is a single carriageway with 2 lanes each way. Should I wish to change lane, it now takes far longer looking for a gap, checking mirrors and keeping eyes off the road in front whilst I find a gap and manoevre into it than it used to in the pre specs days. I do not fancy the prospect of this on motorways!

Couldn't agree more. It's par for the course on the motorways I use most (M3, M4, M40 and M25), and from what I've seen of the M1, M11, M20, M6, M5, M42, M56, M62, A3(M) and M27 things are no better there. Trunk roads and dual carriageways are usually just the same. In fact I reckon up to a point the higher the road speed, the smaller the time gap. Drives me round the twist.
Yep. IMO they need to begin the re-education process before they start hammering drivers who've been allowed to forget it. OK, the drivers themselves have also allowed themselves to forget about it, but we have continually had the seatbelt and drinking messages over the years while ads for the two second rule have quietly vanished from our screens.

This is what they had to say when I mailed them about it a while ago:

So they have a filler that may occasionally get shown when the TV companies have free airtime, say the early hours of the morning, and a leaflet that hardly anyone will ask for obtained by dialling a number hardly anyone knows about, and advice on a website that hardly anyone looks at. [sarcasm]Well, that's alright then. We're obviosuly worrying about nothing.[/sarcasm]

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

I read somewhere that a lot of deaths on the road (as opposed to accidents) occur at night. It seems that fatigue is responsible and not speeding. Basically people fall asleep at the wheel and career off the road.

I agree, fatigue is a killer, as a 40k mile driver, I get to feel it often, although can cure it with a 15 minute nap in a lay by (didnt set my alarm correctly one night though, and slept for 2 hours......explain that on to the other half!)
In the last few days with cold, clear conditions, lots of road salt, the amount of delays caused by minor accidents seems unpresidented. (a14, m11, m25). Bright sunlight in the face, running outof screen wash etc. is a major cause of accidents. How are conditions like these, + fog + snow taken into account in the accident statistics?