Safe Speed Forums

You'll have to explain more. How can speed-related risk depend on anything other than speed?

Speed related risk depends on circumstances. 100mph on a clear straight hazardless open road is unlikely to present much in the way of risk.

15mph in a crowded market street may well present very considerable risk.

The point is that the speed in MPH tells you NOTHING about the risk.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

What does this mean.

? if the accident record is good, why the cam?
If so many people a caught breaking the limit, and it has a good accient record, This must prove the safe speed campaign?

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Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

Case is sub judice - but the chap is not a happy bunny by all accounts - as far as I can comment ! ....

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
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A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

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Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Okay, well I need to use a different term, then. What I meant by "speed related risk" is that component of risk that arises solely from your speed.

you're still making the mistake of presuming that conditions never change. Obviously given a fixed set of conditions then risk increases with speed, but conditions are never constant. You can't separate the two. If you're going to say that it's too dangerous to ever drive more than 70mph in perfect conditions then you should be locking up anyone doing that speed at any other time. Bit harder to detect that with a camera though.

No, I'm not, you're still attributing statements to me that I didn't make. Conditions are another component of risk. Your overall risk will have many contributory factors, of which speed is just one factor. When we're talking about speed limits, clearly the only component of risk that can be affected by adherence to the speed limit is speed-related risk. Overall risk will vary with the conditions, but you aren't breaking the law by having varying overall risk if your speed-related risk remains within the legal limit, though if your overall risk becomes so excessive that you are driving without due care and attention etc, then you are breaking the law even though your speed-related risk is within legal limits.

The relative risk from extra speed, and speed by itself, is proportional to the ratio of the speeds - ie the risk purely down to speed at 35mph is approx 16% higher than at 30mph.
But - and this is a very big but - the absolute risk from all factors combined, including driver hazard awareness and attention, can easily vary by more than a thousandfold - which makes the 16% relative risk mentioned above like the proverbial drop in the ocean.
And you can't even say, "all other factors being equal", because they never are.

Cheers
Peter

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Another Safe Speed member in the making.....

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Speed camera policy Kills

I don't think it exists within the range of speeds chosen by responsible and experienced drivers. (We only have to look at the gulf between free travelling speeds and average impact speeds to know that other forces are at work...)

It certainly does exist when reckless driving is involved, but then reckless driving tends to ignore speed limits anyway.

And I reckon it exists for inexperienced drivers - that would be the real world component that truly justifies speed limits. But even then an obsession with 'speed related risk' might have significantly worse side effects than the original risk.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Any police officer who has been issued an NIP for exceeding a speed limit should be suspended until the matter is resolved. If the FPN is completed or found guilty by magistrates then a disciplinary hearing should be convenied. No Police officer convicted of a motoring offence SHOULD EVER drive police vehicles again.

Afterall, speed kills.

Yes, yes, yes.
The last post by SafeSpeed and the last post by Pete317 contain excellent and crucial information which should be read and re-read until it is fully understood.

I was trying to think of an example to get the message across, and feeble though it is, here is my best shot at the moment (bear with me ):
- - -
People in Kiteland fly kites a lot, sometimes for business, sometimes for pleasure. However there are occasionally accidents, sometimes fatal, caused by kites hitting people on the ground.
It is noticed that red-dye is heavier than other dyes, so all other things being equal a red kite will be heavier than a kite of another colour, and could cause more injury in the event of an accident. With me so far?
So, in an effort to reduce kite-related casualties, cameras are set up in many kite-flying places, and red kites are outlawed, the redder the kite, the greater the punishment.
The cameras do not detect sharp kites, badly flown kites or kites that are not insured.
There have been reports that all the camera activity is distracting people flying kites of all colours.
- - -
Not a perfect model, as kites cannot change colours in mid-flight, but if it gets people thinking about the risk-proportionality, then it has done its job.

I'm slightly confused as to who is disagreeing with who here. The case in question is one where a police officer appears to have broken the speed limit while driving a police vehicle in a scenario where he had no necessity to break the speed limit. Thus he is the same as any private individual who is also prosecuted for doing 35 in a 30 limit.

Arguments about whether people should be prosecuted for doing 35 in a 30 limit do not belong in this thread, they are simply irrelevant, they belong in a thread about whether people should, in general, be prosecuted for this act, not in a thread about whether a police officer on non-urgent police business should be prosecuted for this act.

I refer to what I said in my first post in this thread:
"Whether everyone should be getting tickets based solely on them doing 35 in a 30 zone is another matter."

You are quite right, stevei, I was happlily following along on the "off topic" bit .

As far as the police officer is concerned, I must reluctantly say that given the current state of road law enforcement it was probably legally correct that he was punished, it does not sound like his action was any more urgent than thousands of others which members of the public carry out every day, and most people have no possibility of "police activity therefore please don't fine me" consideration.

However, I agree with an earlier poster that safety/risk aspects should be the overriding factor when deciding if a punishment is issued. The current regime makes this type of consideration very rare.

Really there should be a greater tolerance level and you should not be prosecuted in a 30mph zone for speeding unless you are either doing at least 38mph or there are other factors which makes 35mph an unsafe speed for the conditions.

I don't agree with doing that. However, it would be one way that the police could make their policy on speeding at least internally consistent. Just saying 'speeding kills, but we're allowed to do it anyway' is hypocritical bullshit.

My view has changed markedly over the last few years.

The sensible rational person in me says that the police driver found guilty of speeding should be treated as any other individual. Afterall speeding is a trivial offence.

The indignant, 6 points on my licence, person says no no no! I will not be lectured by the likes of Brunstrom whilst those who have sworn to uphold the law break it with impunity.

I'm afraid that I have become incredibly black and white on this issue. If speed kills and 'its no accident if your speeding etc etc' then its serious enough to be considered gross malpractice on the part of a serving police officer. Sorry boys, nothing personal, blame your bosses.

I agree with you about this. Though I am now retired, I used to earn my living in sales and spent a lot of time "on the road". A clean licence was thus absolutely essential to me. Indeed, though it may be difficult to believe these days, job prospectuses would often state, "Applicant must have a clean driving licence."
Whilst on a personal basis, I may have sympathy with the officer who was prosecuted, I think that in order to preserve the little remaining goodwill that exists between police and public, they should be treated no differently from Mr & Mrs Joe Public.
The more humane side of me does feel some sympathy, firstly because I understand that the limit is in process of being lifted to 40 and secondly because the officer's boss, (the Chief Constable of Durham, I believe) can hold his head high and say "There are no fixed cameras on my patch."
GW

I have rather more sympathy if he works for Durham: didn't realise that before!