GreenShed wrote:
SafeSpeedv2 wrote:
GreenShed wrote:
Alternatively they could just drive within the limits as they are required to do. Wouldn't that be the most likely scenario?
There is as I have explained above the need to have safe and appropriate speeds applied to roads appropriately first. Once road speeds are altered with bad and inappropriate application road users have a harder time to judge and manage risk as well.
When inattention and frustration are the main accident causation factors why are speeds therefore being altered un-necessarily and adding to the problems?
It isn't the business of a driver to be assessing the suitability of speed limits on a road;
I never said it was however all road users learn about road speeds that are set. We can all form and opinion and that includes you and me.
When speed limits change we have to hope and expect that there is a just cause and that new speed is promoted to the public or is obvious. For example a new housing estate might well see a previous 60mph limit reduced to 30mph and no one is likely to see any issue with this al all and road users will understand the new conditions. BUT when a road that is suitable for 60mph one day and then is for no apparent reason reduced to 40 or 20mph with no alteration road users are left puzzled and wonder what was the cause.
We ask road users to try to be responsible and by taking explanations and reasoning away or at least not provide any it makes road users wonder (understandably) what is going on ? When those new reduced limits are then enforced rigorously enforced road users rightly question the true intent !
GreenShed wrote:
the limits are clearly indicated to drivers if they care to learn how this is done. If they do not then they have their driving priviledges removed or come nearer to that.
Showing a limit is not the same as explaining why a limit is reduced !
You are not very clear ... you do not
greenshed wrote:
learn how a speed limit is 'done'
which you seem to mean 'keep to the speed limit'. Well we do not condone exceeding a limit, but we have the intelligence and taken the time to learn, appreciate and understand, that there is much more to road safety than you appear to be comprehending here.
GreenShed wrote:
SPECS are used on road works, increasingly so it would seem. There are appropriate speed limits set on these, say 50 mph on a 70 mph road, yet we see much discussion about not observing these limits because they are inappropriate because no road workers can be seen from time-to-time.
There are so many areas to discuss within this bit alone that it may be worth taking this off into a new topic but for the moment :
1) road worker accidents include those that they themselves suffer with often no car passing vehicle involved at all.
2) many road works have massive cushions around the actual works going on, often by miles where no work is even going on and some sections are so long and like this that some drivers think that they must have missed the roadwork end sign !
3) I have seen roadworks with no cameras and minimal length too and people slow right down and even more so when there is actual workman in action, and then as soon as they have past the hazard and clear of the respected sensible marked off areas they correctly increase speed appropriately.
4) if people are not acting appropriately then education to help understand why it is important to slow at potential and actual hazards (time to react etc) then this is beneficial for all their driving where ever they are.
5) It is very short sighted to only alter a behaviour (and resulting in bad side effects too), and enforce when it is better to encourage and show why it is better for people to be responsible and act appropriately of their own accord.
6) the presence of Traffic Police is the very best solution so why substitute anything less !?
7) setting a standard 50mph is NOT always appropriate to some road works require a safer and slower speed fro short periods and then some could easily have a higher speed for the majority of the works too.
So the logic of why all road users need to reduce speeds in this uniform and regimented fashion, and has all the problems too such as ; tailgating, bunch up esp before & during, all frustrations at slightly differential speeds as road users all jostle in very close proximity to each other, inattention increases, mental fatigue, and 'zombie mode' turn good drivers bad.
This is not a good 'fix' but a fixation of a specific numeric value that is not necessarily making the situation safer or better.
GreenShed wrote:
It is easier and safer to simply accept what has been adjudged for all drivers to be the maximum by the Highways Authority, that being the maximum suitable speed at the posted limit, whatever that is adjudged to be.
Asking road users NOT to think could not be more dangerous. We need all road users to keep their eyes on the road ahead, and think carefully about all that they do, and ensure that every moment of travel is carefully judged and risk managed so that at
all times they know why they do what they do and for all the right reasons. To make all road users blindly obey and not question is the saddest and most misguided phrase I think I have ever had the displeasure of hearing. How badly informed you seem and how misguided ! Very sad.
GreenShed wrote:
Time for assessment of safety can thus be used by the driver to achieve safe progress without the need to see if work is being done.
Do I LOL, or cry ! Oh dear oh dear oh dear, are you really serious ? You really want a single road user to NOT consider the conditions but just blindly follow a speed without thought !!? - You cannot be serious? That is the most 'unfit for purpose' statement about road safety I have ever heard. If you believe this then you truly have no understanding of what makes people safe on the roads at all. Or perhaps you really are hoping to turn each road user into a zombie and to merely and automatically just obey whatever speed is suggested for each road no matter what with no thought or consideration of road conditions whatsoever.
I wonder how you drive - if you do at all ? Do you drive or ride ?
GreenShed wrote:
I believe it is absured to suggest that drivers can assess the suitability of a speed limit and the speeds at which they drive whether above or below the speed limits in a safer way than driving safely and within the limits that are set and indicated to them.
Well considering all that is above this comes as no surprise what so ever. I think you must hate people and road safety to even suggest such a misguided and seriously dangerous statement. the sad truth is I think you actually believe this. It makes me wonder how you have possibly come to this extraordinary conclusion ? So how do you think this makes any sense at all ? where did you get you complete disbelief that people can make a competent decision? Who - if everyone ended up like this make the road speed decisions? Who would be competent - a computer ?
Did someone misjudge conditions and kill someone you know ?
GreenShed wrote:
If this is a source of frustration than the sooner a driver, so frustrated, is removed from the road the better it will be for maintaining and improving safety.
The frustration is not 'born' from merely retaining as near as possible a certain speed - it is the non-sense of a slow speed when conditions are clearly possible to drive or ride at a slight faster (within legal limits) speed. Keeping a driver or ride thinking and reacting and pro-acting to conditions is crucial to enabling road users to automatically think as they travel along and ensure at the first sign of any potential hazard, they immediately start to act appropriately.
GreenShed wrote:
While you contend that speed limits are changed unecesarrily I don't believe that any are so altered; it too is an absured suggestion.
Ok well lets take a certain road - please let's look at a road you know - you suggest a road where we can look at it on google and where a reduction has taken place and let's discuss it.