Safe Speed Forums

This was also on the BBC news last night.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

More emotive claptrap from Brake, taking advantage of greiving parents' ignorance to peddle an anti-car agenda.



OK, so lets make sure there are no extra distractions like confusing road layouts, fake hazards and speed cameras around schools then.

Yeah, right.

If you also read this the girl was hit by a stolen car which was later found abandoned.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Scandal!! How flamingly, blatantly ignorant and stupid are these people. No amount of 'modern' road policing methods (cameras, ANPR, reduced speeds) would have saved this girl.

This makes my blood boil. Perhaps a press release is in order to expose the hypocrisy behind such propaganda......

Quote from Malcolm who is broke:

If all pedestrians looked out and paid more attention to what is going on around them, I am sure there would be fewer deaths on the roads.

Just as valid.

I don't know the circumstances of this incident in detail but if the girl was hit as she got off the bus, how many busses have doors which exit onto the carriageway?

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

So lower speed limits and speed cameras stop people nicking cars do they?

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

I notice that the survey was of children aged 5-14.
Where the 5-year olds going to school on their own, or with parents? Either way, the parents should be locked up for neglecting/endagering their children.

The BBC's kids news programme 'Newsround' is doing a piece on road safety shortly, tomorrow perhaps.
I'll keep an eye out for it.

I think this is a perfectly reasonable statement under the circumstances.



This is also a reasonable statement.

Both of them are about road users considering the risks to themselves and others and taking personal responsibility for their actions. Kids vary enormously in the time taken to learn about road safety and parents vary in their abilities to teach them effective strategies. I don't see what is 'emotive' or 'claptrap' about suggesting that drivers should slow down around schools, especially at the beginning and end of the school day. They are areas of increased hazard density after all. Perhaps I've missed something here and you'd like to enlighten me?

The trouble is Brake are using the case of someone who was killed by a stolen car to push their agenda of imposing a 20mph speed limit 24 hours a day. Driving below 20mph when the situation does not warrant it is not a good thing: try it on an open road and see what I mean.

Here is another one...
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Speed camera policy Kills

I don't really see that in the BBC News article referred to in this thread. I completely agree that a speed limit where it is inappropriate is counter productive, but there are still drivers who drive too fast around schools at those times when the hazard density is high. I see it every day when I take or collect my own children from school. One way of addressing this issue is to impose a lower speed limit, and there may be other ways of achieving an improvement without speed limits or cameras but what are they? There are flashing amber lights near school crossings, school crossing wardens in full high visibility clothing, signs warning of a school, yellow zigzag lines painted on the road etc. but they don't have the effect of slowing everyone down at the appropriate times. A 20mph speed limit would also probably be ignored by some, but what are the alternatives?

People should not underestimate the devastation brought by losing close family members in such circumstances. BRAKE has many such people as members who want to do something and don't want others to experience the same misery they do. Twenty odd years ago I spoke out demanding that more should be done to combat drink driving, having lost my first wife and child in an accident involving a drunk driver who also died. It is a natural reaction, following such a devastating event, for those affected to want to try and do something to change things for the better however 'flamingly, blatantly ignorant and stupid' some people might think they are.

But kids do not run out of school gates. Many schools are tucked down residential roads anyway - with humps.





Real danger in the immediate vicinity is down to parked cars and some idiotic parking. But kids walk home and perhaps better to have amber flashing lights and slow downs along the maine road for one/two miles each side of the school. Police patrols may not be a bad idea at key times. Believe that's part of Durham's strategy - according to "his nibs!"

Think I posted the story of the family who joined Brake to campaging after their girl was killed. Only I did see the story as reported at the time. Girl was run over late at night and because she'd downed vodka - driver (who was definitely speeding at the time) escaped a dangersou charge on this basis.

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There is nothing ignorant and stupid about these people, but after losing a family member in tragic circumstances, they are in a vulnerable state and very susceptible to the subtle persuasion of Government propaganda. In other words, they are being taken advantage of by the Government to further its own aims.

A lower speed limit would clearly have done nothing to prevent this accident. Unlike your example of drink driving, logic and reason has not been applied.

"Speed limit" is actually a total misnomer, as they do not physically limit the speed of anything. Anyone who wishes to exceed a posted speed limit can do so. The more responsible drivers will adhere to speed limits out of their own free will, but these drivers weren't the problem in the first place.

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

Not just Government...

I find the way that pressure and special-interest groups prey on these unfortunate people in order to further their own, frequently misguided, aims to be utterly nauseating.

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev