Safe Speed Forums

If they reduce a limit it generally makes the road safer, there are probably some cases where this was not the case, but very rare.

Now, your chances of crashing as an individual driver are already vanishingly small, but by made less small by increasing your speed (given the same conditions and the same driver).

So by driving at 60 instead of 40 (regardless of the limit) you are increasing your chances of crashing, (only if you're on the road on your own of course) and if you do crash it's going to be much worse for you.

Things get more complicated when you've got other traffic, and cleary your going to force other (bad) drivers into taking bad and dangerous decisions if you travel at 40 in a 60 for instance, but then the same is true if you travel at 60 in the newly limited 40 (where other drivers are obeying the law).

In short, it doesn't become dangerous overnight, it already was dangerous, but the law said that was OK... Well, it didn't, it's always illegal to be travelling too fast for the conditions, regardless of what the speed limit is...

Wasn't it you that said there is no such think as a dangerous road?

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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 if you believe the research done that says the 85percentile speed is the safest and speed variations above and below this, mean you are more likely to crash.

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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.

What are you waffling on about ,weepej?

You first mentioned how many crashes country roads have compared to urban roads at this point...which I have just proven to be another of your lies.

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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.

Weepej said,


So what's the point of speed limits?

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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.

Never heard so much rubbish in my life....what is it supposed to mean in plain English?

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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.

Why do you think I'm talking about the road in this case?

Makes perfect sense to me, although I did leave an apostrophe out, which I've fixed above...

So what is "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.

This is the bit that's rubbish....how on earth is someone doing 40MPH in an NSL, going to "force other (bad) drivers into taking bad and dangerous decisions"......????

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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 seem to be tying yourself in knots, over the fact that Whynot said something along the lines of...

Rural roads are mainly NSL, especially narrow lanes, where it would be unsafe to even reach 60MPH in many places, let alone maintain it...BUT...there are lower accident RATES on these roads, which means that the average motorist does a very good job of working out a safe speed on these roads without blindly just sticking to the speed limit, unlike urban roads where the speed limit is lower and the accident RATE is much, much higher.

At which point you jumped in with your famous...."I'll stop you there, NSL country roads have by far and away the most crashes on them, .." and you started to go downhill from there.

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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.

To say that travelling below the speed limit is going to force (bad) drivers to make bad decisions is wrong, even if you travel at the speed limit or below (due to the road &/or road & weather conditions), a (bad) driver is still going to make bad decisions.


It is not that the road is dangerous. it's the way some drivers drive on them that makes them inherently dangerous.

I’ve just realised what kind of troll you are; a staunch proponent of Occam’s razor

If it was a "dangerous" then make it a less dangerous ... When it becomes a less dangerous (in your opinion), consider making it a or better still a is plenty.

If you’d only just stated what you are in the very first place it could have saved us all a lot of time.

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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.

We still don't what "it" is, that is so dangerous. IT aint the road so what is the mysterious "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.

Dunno Grabs. But by definition “... a principle urging one to select among competing hypotheses that which makes the fewest assumptions and thereby offers the simplest explanation of the effect.” (BRAKE).

i.e.

The problem? KSI on roads.
The reason? Speed.
The solution? Reduce all speeds.

It’s a one song parrot. Or in BRAKE’s case, lots of parrots chanting the same ignorant, narrow-minded song.

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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've a feeling Weepy's right about the rural roads, but I think we need to agree the terms of reference. Presumably it's that they have the highest number of KSIs per 100,000 vehicle miles or passenger miles or journeys?

Living in a rural area, I know that we have a great many quieter, lightly-trafficked, challenging roads than in urban areas. A few years ago we had a young lad who killed himself doing (the police reckoned) 80+ in an NSL and there were a few shouts in the papers calling for a reduction to 40. Quite how that might help, I'm not sure. We've recently had a "rat run" NSL single track road from Sellafield towards Cockermouth reduced from NSL to 40 as a result of a variety of vociferous campaigners. The road gets very busy (in predominantly one direction only) at the start and end of Sellafield shifts, and heaven help the driver trying to "swim against the tide"! Aside from despoiling the landscape with a variety of lillipops along 5 mies or so of pretty landscape, it hasn't made one jot of difference because the traffic hardly ever exceeded 40 anyway. It's physically impossible along a lot of it (in an ordinary car on road tyres anyway!) and speed never was the issue. It was always traffic volume at certain times of day. Intimidating? Well certainly (been there, done that!). But now it's still initmidating - just with more road signs.

I happen to live on an NSL single track raod. Within 100 yards of my front gate, it's dangerous to do more than 20 along there. The banks and hedges are high, the bends are tight, and it's only about 1.5 cars wide. 100 yards after that, it straightens out and 60 is no problem. 100 yards after that, there's a more gentle bend - maybe 40 in the dry...and so on.

There's yet another stretch a few miles away, which used to be NSL and the traffic (mostly) used to do about 30-35 along there. Now the limit is 40 and if anything the traffic goes FASTER! I've been puzzled by this for some time now, but all I can think of is that when it was NSL, most drivers used their own brains to determine an appropriate speed (60 being completely implausible in just about everyone's mind. Now that it's 40, all I can think of is that the mindless individuals who slavishly believe that speed limits = safety, are now switching off that part of the brain that used to determine a safe speed and are relying on (what was that quote? - the "thinking people in government" ), to have undertaken that task for them!

With every such mindless intervention, I have to say that answering the question: "what's the point of speed limits", becomes increasingly difficult!

I have to say that with each mindless intervention

This is what I've been saying and noticing for the last ten years now. Some drivers (who look quite young and inexperienced) seem to be driving faster than i would consider safe in some 40MPH limits just because they are within the speed limits, whereas in a good old fashioned 60 or 70MPH NSL you had to THINK...you know that sign they put on roadsides every so often.

As for rural roads having higher KSIs per mileage I agree but that wasn't Weepejs argument , he stated they "have far more accidents, than urban roads", which as an A/mvkms rate they certainly don't.

_________________
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.

I should add, faced with somebody doing 40 in an NSL, a good driver who's in a hurry might end up making a bad decision too...



I've never said roads are dangerous on this thread! I've been saying for years it's not the roads that are dangerous.

Cor, I already dealt with this, my original statement was open to intepretation, so I modified it.

Let's try one more time.

Drivers driving on on rural roads have a massively disproportionate amount of crashes compared to when driving in towns and cities.