Safe Speed Forums

Another excercise in pointlessness.

As a "young driver" I had several accidents and wrote off two cars.

None of the accidents occurred at over 30mph

One of them was in a Reliant Regal Supervan III, hardly something in need of a speed limiter.

And this...

says nothing.

Would they like chewing gum to be the greatest killer in the 17 to 24 age bracket? 'cos there is nack all else going to kill them.

Sounds a good idea in principal but if as a parent you restrict it to the maximum legal limit of 70mph in order to allow your son / daughter to travel on roads with this speed limit. If they stay on A and B roads they could still be lethal at driving at speeds of up to 70 on the 30, 40, 50 and 60 mph roads how do they legislate or overcome this problem. You would have to tell them not to go on roads say over 40 to restrict them and if they did go on the motorway with this speed restriction in place then I say they would be even more lethal driving at 40 then if they needed a bit more powere to get out of a situation then this could have the same effect as excess speed.
Stephen

No, I don't agree with this at all - even 30mph is a deadly speed. We have a fair idea that 20% to 50% of pedestrians die in 30mph impacts.

Fortunately we only kill around 2% of pedestrians injured in crashes - in all speed limit zones. Something other than 'free travelling speed' is already saving many thousands of pedestrians each year. The 'something other' is driver response, both slowing in areas of danger and braking before impact.

It's far better to build on the strengths than it is to try and kid on that 30mph is safe. It isn't. It's deadly.

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Paul Smith
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Well, I'm a 'young driver' at 24 and the only accident that I've ever been in happened at about 25mph. (involved a car driving round a corner on the wrong side of a blind bend into my path)...but then I've got a fair idea how to drive and I'm not suffering from testosterone overdose...its not about limiting speed, its about driving properly! Quite frankly these little boy racer muppets shouldn't be on the road if they can't control themselves...

Personally if I owned a powerful car I wouldn't lend it to a 17 year old newly qualified driver - more often than not its cheeper to buy a banger than to add someone like that to existing insurance...it cost my dad something like £500 when he tought me to drive...

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Nothing wrong with even testostorone overdoese............. do a track day, they're much fun.

As for speed limiters, no matter what the circumstances, they're bloomin dangerous, I still disagree with the 56mph limiters on trucks!

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My only fault accident (yes I did have one) was age 19 at a free travelling speed (before braking) of 45mph on a congested A3 south in Guildford - on the approach to the "Hogs Back" hill, and was caused by my attention being on checking the state of the traffic on the hill in front and not noticing that the vehicle two in front had stopped because they wanted to turn left despite being in the right hand lane of the dual carriageway. The car in front was a brand new Golf GTi and had the advantage of seeing the indicators (which I couldn't see because the Golf blocked the view), and much better brakes than the all round drums fitted to my 650cc Renault 4.

The reason for me looking up the hill for a couple of seconds was because the severely underpowered Renault 4 needed to be driven with a lot of attention paid to conserving momentum - if you could maintain it then it was just about possible to get up the hill in 4th, otherwise you lost speed dramatically and had to change down to third part way up.

It wasn't anything like a fatal: the Golf had a 6" x 2" dent about 5mm deep, while the Renault had much larger damage all across the front - its bumper went under the Golf bumper. As an additional factor I was ill with Glandular Fever, but didn't know it - I was just feeling a little tired. While recuperating I read all the driving skill books in the library including Roadcraft.

So would any of these measures have made any difference? I don't think so - no speeding involved, and if anything the use of a low power car contributed to the accident through the required driving style and poor brakes. I was concentrating on my driving, and was even maintaining the correct gap - the second lost in initiating braking was the only thing that caused the contact - just a single foot more space and I wouldn't have crashed at all. The most significant factor was the driver that was completely in the wrong lane and couldn't get across because of the cars in L1 not letting him, and his decision to stop of course - not exactly behaviour that most drivers would anticipate happening.

No, I think that such measures would have made little or no difference. I know the location you're talking about (the turning into Wilderness Road just after the Cathedral junction and opposite the hotel, right?), and I've seen plenty of near misses there. The signage is none too flash and if you don't know it's there it can come as a surprise. Frankly I think they should either do some work towards improving visibility there, and probably put in a decent size deceleration lane. It's crazy having an ordinary side road entering a 50mph dual carriageway if you have the space for an alternative. Failing that, they should just block Wilderness Road off there - it's not like it's a long drive to get on at the Cathedral junction.

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I've just checked the maps, and it was actually at the Cathedral turn - which is (just about) graded. I had got past the point where anybody should have slowed for the turn, which is why I though I could afford to look further ahead. It is about dead centre on this map

Still think the words " you're grounded- you drive too fast for the conditions" better than any speed limiter.
Might be time when speed above limit needed to get clear - could you live with the thought that lack of performance caused it??

speed limiting maybe but power? having spend many miles behind the wheel of hopelessy underpowered leccy board combo vans following tractors along b-roads with a queue behind me because the piece of crap simply doesn't have the power to accelerate to pass I'm against any flawed ideology that restricted power= more safety. maybe if the cars a high-powered model to begin with but it seems like the kind of specious reasoning car drivers are too used to hearing, because you just know some idiot parent somewhere's gonna feel his son doesn't need more than 40hp.

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

Not sure as to the best this would achieve.... maybe lessen injury severity? But surely the desired objective is simply to educate towards defensive driving (COAST) standards - and thus lessent the chance of RTC at any speed by making all road users better equipped to anticipate and plan course of action by giving space and time?

All the young BiBs trained to do this - and DIS/Speed Awares (whatever standard) do at least try to prmote better observation and and hazard perception. Germany has the "horror what if" DVD game where they use CCTV footage of the offender's own car with various outcomes - apparently called the "Aha-Faktor". Still COAST though - and having seen a version of the German Offending Driver /8 point driver Driver Retrain" DVD, I'd agree this is a hazard perception game which impacts and actually teaches. Each video is unique to each offender - and the offender gets to keep his copy - why these are only available in demo form. Tried to make copy to send to Paul for information purpose and his records - but it has some kind of copy protection.

Limiting speed? All you need to do is restrict type of car they are allowed to drive for first two years as a cheaper option. Even then - they can still drive too fast for conditions on rural NSL twisties or wet roads just the same. They may also not check tyres, tread , brakes and misjudge corners - badly. Again why I would argue teaching basic principles properly and issuing constant reminders.

My own kids with driving licence of their own? Only natural that I nag them and remind them about COAST each time they drive.

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

Insurance premiums do a pretty good job of restricting the cars novice drivers can drive anyway. Only the super rich can afford anything with any power at all

Tea Belly (what a funny name ) pretty much sums it up

Besides, if young drivers are so incompetent, why not up the ante in the driving test for anyone under the age of say, 21 - or just don't give them a license - or take the license away if caught speeding (which is what they do if you get 6 pts in 2 years of passing)

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