Safe Speed Forums

Daily Mail (oddly not on the DfT website)


Very good news, and I don't share the pessimism that the reduction in fatalities is now likely to stall.

Obviously the recession and high fuel prices must have played a part, though.

On the other hand, the turning-off of speed cameras in many areas hasn't led to casualties going through the roof.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I actually attribute it more to the price of fuel than anything else Peter.

I know I can’t prove it, but in my case I would normally average 10K a year on my motorbike, however, it will easily be close on half that this year for mainly essential journeys and few pleasure ones. So in simple terms, if I do half as many miles I must be halving the likelihood of being involved in an accident?

In fact I’m not sure it isn’t far better than that because, without trying to work it out, if we all do half as many miles then isn’t the KSI rate going to decrease exponentially to more than by half? Who’s got a degree in maths here? I never quite had the interest in 'statistics and probability' as I didn’t see it as real maths; just a political tool to dupe everyone. I'll find the area under that curve using Calculus but just as the Lottery boasts "It could be you" what it actually means is don't hold your breath mate. Lucky dip my a$$, in America they call it "Quick pick". It's honest! And people in this country criticise them for the way they simplify things. I'd rather have that than our Bull$h1te. Hec you're right Mole, I am ranting a lot lately. Are they putting something in the water around here?


So then, it would appear the best way to improve KSI is to effectively prevent us from driving by pricing us off the roads or banning us under ‘totting-up’ for doing what is, in the vast majority of cases, a victimless crime. It also ticks the ‘green’ box too, so they can add that to bolster their image. I haven’t polluted the air and risked an accident with a car of my own for about a year now because I had to sell it; I couldn't afford to run it anymore!

I don’t want to give them ideas, but then I’m sure they know anyway.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I believe overall road traffic is only down by one or two percentage points, so clearly something else is at work beyond that. Such trends can never be attributed to a sole cause, but I believe the hugely improved crashworthiness of cars built in the past ten years or so, and the much reduced participation of under-25s in driving, are both significant factors.

I still routinely see roads absolutely rammed with traffic.

I would also say that in general there is a much more "resigned/philosophical" attitude to driving - I see much less of the obvious impatience, trying to gain a small advantage and jockeying for position that once was commonplace. I know as I have grown older that this has happened to my own approach.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

There was an interesting theory proposed today in the paper about the reduction in road deaths.

The improvement is partly due to the scrappage scheme taking a lot of older and more dangerous cars off the roads and replacing them with new cars which are much safer for the occupants.

Interesting. If road deaths really cost the millions each that is regularly pitched by SCPs, it would seem that it would be most effective for the Government to fund new cars.

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

Link for 2010 as spreadsheet format, read in excel:

http://assets.dft.gov.uk/statistics/releases/reported-road-casualties-gb-main-results-2010/reported-road-casualties-gb-main-results-2010-xls.zip

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

I did ask you once before and you didn't answer, so again: why has a ten percent increase in fuel prices caused you to reduce your mileage by fifty percent. Are you sure that there isn't a confounding factor

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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

Sorry, I should have said my state of pecuniary depletion hasn’t helped and to combat this I have made cuts. Years ago you just didn’t think about filling up; the first time I filled my motorbike up in 1975 it was just under 50 pence a gallon. I know it's all relative but even back then it was 'relatively' cheap. But today it has become a very significant drain on resources like never before and one where we can all make a big difference to our outgoings.

I don’t use much in the way of electricity and gas, (£60 per month for both), and I had a water meter fitted, (difference of £530 a year down to less than £200). I shop at Lidel or Aldi and the clothes on my back are either from charity shops or Primark. I also got rid of my car last year, again because I couldn't fill it up and run it.

Now having painted the picture that I’m a bum, in short the biggest saving I can make, to make ends meet, is in petrol. I calculate that by doing 6000 miles a year less, at 45 mpg using super unleaded @~£1.45 per gal, I save £860 a year or £71 per month!

So maybe I exaggerated my claim that it is petrol prices or the knock-on effect of fuel going up that is the biggest drain on my finances, but I do know it certainly hasn’t helped and it's all that is left under my control to make savings. I admit you may have caught me with my pants down there for a minute, I'll have to look back at my posts or claims

By us a pint will you mate?

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I agree with your words but not your meaning. Years ago I wouldn't think about filling up because I couldn't afford a tankfull - lucky if I could afford two three gallons.

First time I put petrol in a car it was just over six shillings a gallon - say three gallons to the pound. My salary, at a time when bright electronics graduates were in high demand, was £1200 - enough to buy 3600gallons. In a car which struggled to reach 30mpg thats just over a 100,000 miles

Today petrol is £6 a gallon but my son, at a time when jobs for graduates are hard to find, has just started work on a salary of £30,000. Enough to buy 5,000 gallons which he could put in a modern car doing 50mpg and travel 250,000 miles. So the real cost of fuel has fallen to 40%.

If people used their cars in the much more thoughtful way we did back then it wouldn't be so significant. I commute twenty miles a day by push bike to save money and used buses. The car was only brought out for significant journeys. Today it is the norm to use the car for journeys of a few hundred yards.


Come on, Tone. Even you aren't reduced to buying petrol by the pint Try this delectable Snecklifter instead

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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 your maths dcb and think you have done what’s known as put it in its true perspective. (I hate it when he’s right ). Maybe I’m a victim of being duped into thinking my lifestyle is sh1te when in the words of the late great Harold “you’ve never had it so good”.

Still feels crap though, I hate today’s society! Crime is everywhere, the drug and gun culture - and people worship money more than god or being a decent honest human. If things really are so good I say give me the bad old days back... (Soz for topic drift). Actually, maybe it isn’t. People are getting stoned, drunk or stabbed and youngsters are banging like a barn door on a windy day creating the latest birth explosion. So they’re obviously too busy with other activities than driving = reduction in RTA.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I think that Steve would point out that my choice of starting year is special. It was just after a major oil crises. Prices now are dearer than they were in the eighties which is as far back as most of the whingers can remember. And that low price encouraged them to adopt a life style which was dependant on the motor car.


Move to the country, Tone.


Indeed. Forty years ago nobody was interested in acquiring money


Two thousand years ago Roman commentators were bemoaning that things had gone downhill since their own youth and that society was doomed.

Only one solution

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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