Safe Speed Forums

Good advice, that you should heed yourself.



Per year, dear chap, per year. Over 60 years, gives (quick scribbling) a
one in 16 chance. And Steve only said the drivers when he quoted 0.1%. So when
we add in the passengers pedestrians and cyclists etc, we get .... between 1 in 16 and
(say) 1 in 10, according to Steve's numbers.

Now we are on the right track - you're not safe because of bad drivers. And you may not even know until it happens, eh? So drive slow.

This closes another argument at the same time. In yet another thread, you were saying that you can change lane and overtake safely. Yet now you say that you're never safe from bad drivers! So drive slow.



Well, it's 1 in 17, but that's about right.



Get real - there are hundreds of crashes every day, or even thousands.





Could you image some copper saying "we don't like you're driving but you've done nothing illegal"! Any self respecting Brit would tell him to knob off Look, you need evidence of wrong doing - that's the law.

Oh I see how you got the answer so monumentally wrong. Please try to work it out properly

Jesu Mawr! Due to a "monumental error" it should be 1 in 16.6, but still a far cry from 1 in 1000, eh. Perhaps
driving isn't as safe as previously thought?

You missed the other road users who aren’t within vehicles who are included in the given figure.


How utterly irrelevant!
It is true one may not be safe because of the bad driving of others, but that doesn't detract from the fact that one can drive safely (not badly), even at speed. This was the underlying point.

Maybe drivers are already driving slow? (well many limits are already below a reasonable level). How much slower do we all need to go because of the lack of proper enforcement against bad drivers? Wouldn’t that be a very ineffective (as well as unfair) way to solve the problem of bad driving?


Do you really not see the difference between acting safely and being in a safe environment?
Remember, we are talking about driving badly, not of exposure to bad drivers. I think it is obvious to the reader you are trying to twist the argument to suit your own agenda.
Do you want to revisit your hilarious misquote of the guru you used to justify your stance? Closed argument indeed


There’s no doubt there are that many casualty crashes – at the global level, but in terms of individual driver behaviour, it still cannot be viewed as very very frequent (which was the original context before you tried to twist it). If these 259 people drove as they always did, and they are any form of representative sample of the general population, then the rest of the population would individually be casualties very often, much more than the average of once in 20 lifetimes. This obviously isn’t the case, yet the logical steps are valid; hence the premise must be wrong. This is mostly irrelevant anyway.

Returning to the real point: you cannot know that any of those 259 were guilty of any camera detectable, technical infringement (bad driving or not), indeed I strongly suspect the great majority weren’t. This was the point before you tried to evade it by twisting the argument in that predicable way that you do.


What rot!
Your confusion with the concepts of 'evidence' and 'bad driving' aside: you might have well said to an arresting officer: "There's nothing illegal about me having left a 1m gap to the vehicle in front at motorway speeds, so you can't prosecute me - I know my rights!"

Back in the real world: there is no legal minimum limit on a UK road, yet drivers have recently been done for driving too slowly on them common sense prevailed, at least over the lack of it, even though there was no prescribed limit or definition against it. We need much more of this common sense method of eliminating bad driving.

Now I can see why you love automated camera enforcement, it let's you get away with exactly that kind of bad driving. It is attitudes like that that completely justify the Safe Speed campaign's call for a return to trafpol based enforcement.

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

Is it any coincidence that the drivers that I see driving badly are more often than not the ones who are also driving SLOWLY. In their half asleep dream worlds, they seem incapable of using mirrors or indicators, Incapable of using the correct lanes on roundabouts or road junctions in fact totally oblivious to anyone around them, they pull out into approaching traffic SLOWLY, then proceed SLOWLY with a long tail of followers. They drive SLOWLY in bad visibility but with NO LIGHTS.

Whe you are next driving SLOWLY Aber, just think about what other road sins you are commiting.

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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.

Ah, you see Abercrombie believes slow drivers like him "don't need to think about" things like merging because they goes so slowly

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

Spot on graball.

Why is it that whenever I am stuck behind a 40-everywhere driver and we catch a horse rider, I slow to a crawl, but they just go past at 40?

When are the rest of you going to stop taking abercrombie seriously?

He's obviously only doing it for laughs. No-one could come out with some of his stuff with a straight face.

I'm of the opinion that these people can only travel one speed. I see them going for miles at 40MPH on Welsh roads with even caravans stuck behind them and then when they reach a 30MPH....they still go through it at 40MPH...they are about as safe as nitroglycerine on a jack hammer.

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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.

There do seem to be a large number of drivers that have the wrong idea about Einstein's relativity theory, for some reason they think going slowly will make their cars narrower.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

... except someone related to SCP activities or revenue; they're well practised at it.
I'm not saying Aber is one of these people, he probably is just amusing himself.

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

Many modern vehicles, especially large 4x4s, have invisible one meter long protrusions to each side.

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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

Enjoyable reading this

Driving slow can be dangerous, driving not slow enough can be dangerous, driving badly can be dangerous, driving too fast for onditions can be dangerous,
however,
Driving by paying attention, having good attitude, good awareness, concentrating, being aware and courteous, anticipating, having great observation skills, giving good space about you to allowing for others errors and your own, trying to allow for correct journey time and not panicking if things go wrong and you might arrive late, good car controls, and then but not least constantly looking to improve all these and more abilities, knowledge and skills, and ....

when you find that driver that drives badly, you will have allowed for it in space, anticipate the action anyway and be aware of the potential scenario and stay clear.
Problem solved.
then ...
the cop presence on the road saw what was going on and tugged said bad driver over to have a strong word or two!
The police seem to generally still try to have evidence to stop someone, I dare say the paperwork alone discourages them from stopping someone un-necessarily. However the camera won't care about anything other than a numeric error at that location.
The 'evidence' is sometimes in 'error' or even forged in some recent cases.
How can a camera have helped where someone is driving too slowly.
They need to be guided and their problem understood and then appropriate education taken. Punishing any driver that has failed to recognise their own inadequacies fails to address the ongoing core problem. We need TrafPol to properly tackle these problems initially and then proper back up systems in place to address them.

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

Ultimately as they fail to recognise the dangers ... they look but do not see !
to digress a little to the horsebox situation too ....
There seems a total amazing lack of support for anyone wanting to pull a horse box - although new drivers need to take a test I must say I don't know what they cover.
I do know several horsey owners who pull horseboxes, although the 'preferred' method is a lorry box, if money is available, but many seem ignorant of the horse's issues when they pull in a straight line or corner, some just go megga-slow everywhere and some have better understanding going faster in straight lines, and slow as you corner, going in very gently and as 'straight' as possible, including roundabouts, is acceptable for the horse stress and arrival condition.
Many drivers have no concept that a horse can panic inside the horse box and if it decides to last out - watch out. Even a vehicle revving up to pass may panic the horse. It has been proven that having a horse traveling at a diagonal, is actually the most 'natural', least stressful, and with the head at the rear than forward facing ! Hence lorry boxes being close to this ! However like most things if many horses cope with our chosen mode of transport for them, why give them better when it is mostly un-necessary and far more expensive.

I pull over as ofen as I can and when I know the road has less overtaking opportunities any straight I indicate and brake and pull up if it is clear for traffic to overtake, and pull over into layby's when I can.
But you have to be careful, pulling over doesn't help the horse ! The horse needs the smoothest route and when you pull over it creates a pause which some horses may start to play up, and if a horse starts to 'sweat' it can quickly become de-hydrated and become an SOS incident and a vet will be needed if you cannot get crucial salts into the horse or it could die !
Plus if you have been going along a road, and pulled into nearly every layby your journey times are extended sometimes quite considerably - (and there is the extra fuel usage too !) it can become tiring too for the driver, so drivers being about to overtake safely is by far the preferred choice of horsebox drivers (with the least amount of revving!)
Like most things it is more involved than first appears.

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

IME horse lorries are noticeably worse-driven than those towing horse boxes. Certainly the lorries seem far less likely to pull in than the horse boxes.

I guess worse drivers will prefer the easier vehicle?

I think people should just chill the f**k right out.

Is being "stuck" behind a horse box doing 50 really such a thing to get so wound up about (as clearly many do).

Get a lot of horseboxes in London, weepej?

50 mph? Lol...

There are a number of issues:
Horsebox / lorry - if you are holding up traffic you need to recognise the delay, and potential frustration you may be causing to others - so courtesy and sense should tell you to pull over and allow faster moving traffic to pass by.

Other cars / vans / bike vehicles around the slow moving vehicle:
To choose to leave a good gap in front of you so that any one overtaking from behind have a good space to pull into in front of you, and to keep a heightened awareness all about 'one' to help overtakers,
Be ready to go for the safest overtake (esp round R hand bends !) look for the earliest vision on the long straights and be ready. Keep aware of behind traffic already in an overtake too. Look behind & all about you before going for the overtake.

The traffic further back can get the earliest vision to see what is causing the delay, and then look down the traffic to see where the pinch points are, (lorries / heavy goods vehicles (esp Foreign cars / vehicles) that will take longer to overtake and may need to be overtaken first before reaching the front of the queue. See what is behind you and what may pass sooner than other type vehicles.

One of the roads that I can often travel is 200miles long (only alternative is longer), and I would not be prepared to follow a vehicle just because I am meant to be required to accept an un-necessary acceptance of being delayed for an unnecessary period of time, and show some kind of inability to confidently overtake ? Deliberately not overtaking when you can see things to be clear, is not good driving, unless one is (for some temp or other reason), incompetent to do so.
I have heard that a Driving School is telling newly qualified drivers, to not overtake for their first year - this is appalling, if they are not able to overtake then that will cause additional frustration to others, flowing traffic is important on the roads for many reasons.

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

What is it with modern driving instruction?
First I hear that instructors are advising NOT to indicate when overtaking, then to stay in fifth gear til the last moment and change to second on a corner and now not to overtake for their first year?

Is it any wonder that young drivers are getting killed and driving skills on Britains roads are at an all time low. Who comes up with these stupid ideas, health and safety jobsworths in offices?

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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.