Safe Speed Forums

I'm not sure I understand that. Could you explain in a bit more detail please?

If that is the case, why are so many now being reduced? Do you mean they WEREN'T being set properly in the past but they are now?

Another straw man. I didn't say that the population at large should set the speed limit. I said that the population at large should debate the acceptable amount of risk and then allow professionals to set the limit to meet that degree of risk. Probably quite impractical but I don't think that an unelected highway engineer should be making that decision.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I agree with you on this one that no "appointed expert" should decide a safe speed because we all know that "experts" can be wrong and come up with figures to suit their masters.

This is why I believe that mean speeds should be used as the reference points. Taking thousands of drivers passing over a given stretch of road over a long enough period should evaluate an average for that road taking into account different times of day, weather, driving abilities and risk factors. The Dept for Transport Guidelins say that the speed limit shouldn't be set BELOW the mean speed.

This means that a good driver, in good conditions etc should be able to maintain a steady average speed slightly more than the mean speed, whilst drivers who are "less able" or find themselves in "less than perfect" conditons, can adjust their speed downwards accordingly.

At the moment we seem to be resetting all speed limits to accomodate the "less able" in "non perfect" conditions and anyone who feels able to exceed those limits , no matter how safely, is going to be penalised for doing so.

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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.

You and your straw men!

Which professionals would you get to set the limit if not a highway engineer?

Dentists? Stockbrokers?

Armchair Campaigners? Self-professed Safe Drivers?

3 answers in one to avoid a large nested quote.

1. The casualty figures have been assessed the same way for years, to change it now would put a large step-change in the figures and make comparison impossible (almost). While the assessment of Police Officers may not be as accurate or informed as medical assessment it is accurate enough and well defined to make it acceptable. It certainly is acceptable enough for comparison and trend purposes. I wonder if anyone has found any evidence of the claimed "fiddle the serious casualty figures" that has been suggested in the past. No...thought not.

2. The human frame cannot be made to decelerate rapidly without some movement of the internal organs. Stop it too suddenly from forward motion and your internal organs keep going as they are not in seat belts they do have small yet fragile restraints though. They come to a stop against your frame in the form of your skeleton and skin. In the sudden arrest of forward motion your head becomes detached from your body, it kills you quite suddenly and painlessly I believe; perhaps the rising arch of your aorta will move forward to stop aganst your ribs and rupture, death not as swift as the neck break but faily swift never the less. The way to prevent this is to either not be going so fast in the first place or to bring the body to a surviveable stop, i.e. gradually; in a hardy vehicle that would need to be done within the confines of the vehicle passenger cage; not much room to do that so the vehicle would have to be made larger to allow this to happen.

3. Speed limits are generally set correctly within the confines of the speed limit values allowed. Why then are they being reduced? Well for a start there is a problem with them being observed. Set a 60 mph limit and see the average or 85th percentile at 70 mph, set the same road to 50 mph speed limit and see that drop into the 50's or low 60's job done. I'm not saying that was the reason for the Wigton By-Pass 50mph speed limit but the result does bear out what I have just said. A lower speed limit reduces the average in a step-change similar to the value of the limit change; a lower average speed reduces the number of KSI casualties. You may not like it but you have to look at the reasons for the lower limit and quite often it's because some drivers take the pi55 in the face of the limit and the public demand protection from that sort of atttude.

Hope that helps.

Or how about people who want to make money from speeding fines?

It's all in your mind and bitter fantasy...next.

That's not true! I have yet to see a report on any road where the 85% or mean speed was higher than the limit. Normally a NSL road will have a mean speed of approx 52 MPH.

I would challenge you to find me a report that says otherwise. We both know that the Dept for Transport guidelines say that the limit SHOULD NOT be set BELOW the mean speed. If a road has a mean speed of above 50MPH it should not be set BELOW it.

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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.

And while you are at it , Greenshed, perhaps you can answer the question which I've asked you before, as to why are speed limits being reduced against the advice of the police? (as in the case of Norfolk and Warwickshire)

It obviously has nothing to do with road safety, if the people who should know more about road safety than anybody are being ignored.

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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.

Not my strawmen, yours. Why are you been so abstruse? Is it simple stupidity, dyslexia, or something more sinister? I said that highway engineers should set speed limits but based on a consensus of the general population's level of acceptable risk not on their own opinions,.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Greenshed? What do you consider to be the purpose of speed limits? Is it to protect drivers from the consequences of their own folly? Or to protect vulnerable road users from motor vehicles?

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Orrr....to raise money for the treasury....

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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.

If that was the case, why would the SCPs continue to grossly exaggerate the effectiveness of their speed cameras?

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

No, you said:



Not _quite_ the same thing! Unless my "stupidity, dyslexia, or something more sinister" is interfering with my ability to make two different (in both word and meaning) paragraphs mean the same thing. Oh well, no job in politics for me...

Are they? Shall we ask motorway drivers?


Wait a minute: say the limit is seemingly set needlessly low and people already disregard it, and then the limit is dropped further, don't you think yet more people would disregard the limit, and many of those who already did so would continue at their original pace hence exceeding it by a greater amount? Wouldn’t that make our roads an even more unpredictable place to be, twice over?

Dropping the limit purely as compensation against those who exceed it is tantamount to accepting the lowered limit can be exceeded. The disrespect for the limit is accepted and amplified by those who reduced them.


You mean the joyriders and boy racers who don't give a stuff about the limits anyway? This is what the public complain about (it's certainly what I whinge about), so is the right response to these to drop the limits further? Who demands protection from drivers doing 80 on a clear motorway?

Set limits to 1mph and you can bet most would exceed 11mph. Going the other way: if such limits were set to 100 mph, do you think (normal) drivers would do 110mph? You only need to drive on the derestricted autobahns to see that clearly isn't the case. It is clear your argument is overly simplistic.


So where should the line be drawn? Zero mph?
Besides, what you said isn't necessarily the case. We know the fastest roads have the best safety record [Using the RCGB2007 figures, motorways account for 5.6% of all fatalities and 3.7% of all KSI, even though they hold 19.5% of all traffic (net distance travelled) even with their higher speed limit]. Increasing the limit on these roads would displace traffic away from the more dangerous roads (which is why they are slower); or increasing the limit during non-busy periods would displace traffic away from busy periods. This is why the one-size-fits-all limit reductions, of one-size-fits-all limits, fail.

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

Oh but I think so. You certainly have the required ability to ignore facts.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Really! I have seen loads of reports that put 85th and averages above the limit and above the speed enforcement thresholds.

Why would the police be the authority on this subject? I am not saying they couldn't be but they may well not be. Are the police carrying out surveys and traffic engineering investigatoions; I would think not.