Safe Speed Forums

I'll predicate this by saying that I've only scanned the last page and missed loads of the debate, so I may be repeating stuff already said.


He can't be, as according to Botach, I'm that person, as per this post earlier in the thread:



Oooh, wait, you can't believe that there are more people who don't swallow the safespeed doctrine? Or can't you believe that they can be bothered to debate?

Now then, in the same spirit of making accusations without a shred of evidence, are SafeSpeed, PeterE, Botash, Oscar [insert names of all of the safespeed members] actually just more of Paul Smith's alter ego's? NO, THAT'S STUPID TO SUGGEST.

NDP, you will probably next be accused of being a troll and if you are really lucky, accused of being part of the speed camera machinery. It's sort of a rite of passage here, don't worry about it.




Now this I have to take exception to. I am not an unskilled driver, or so my nearly half million miles without an incident would suggest (I KNOW I'm not THAT lucky!) but I choose not to speed. The conditions include the speed limit and my comfort factor.

Or perhaps I am deluding myself, and I am really in the worst 10% group? Paul, care to comment?

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

I can assure you its concise compared with all the guidance, regulations, records, and so on that has to be trawled through when actually worked to improve road safety, instead of simply wittering.

I'm starting to find your tone quite offensive.
You presume that, just because someone has not had formal training in a particular discipline, they are ignorant fools who know nothing.
Well I qualified as an electronic engineer before you were even thought of, and after decades of driving, observing and analysing what I've observed, I think I'm well qualified to form a valid opinion.
If you want to debate the issues, then by all means do so. But I strongly suggest that you get off your high-horse - you might even learn a thing or two.



How do they justify four miles of reduced speed limit for one junction?



A few calculations will show that that's only a problem if they grossly underestimate either the speed of the traffic or the time it will take for them to get clear. Or they expect oncoming traffic to brake for them, together with underestimating its speed.



When speed limits are properly set, very few people really mind driving a few mph below the limit - if that's the speed of the traffic. Most tend to settle down to the flow.
But when they perceive the limit to be too low, many tend to drive right up to the limit and are less tolerant of people who don't - so they tend to drive too closely. Also, when speeds are low, many tend to be quicker to slow down and not so quick to speed up again - after all, they're not going anywhere very fast. And, assuming a 30 limit, you only need about 15 people to slow down by 2mph relative to the car in front of them for the traffic to grind to a halt.



Of course not. But you don't give them as much attention as you give to things going on much closer to you. If you're trying to scrutinise something happening a half a mile ahead you might miss noticing that the car in the next lane is about to carve you up, for example.



Depends on the number, intensity and nature of the potential hazards. One car in an adjacent lane is a potential hazard, but not necessarily a real hazard - you just need to keep a wary eye. And, very often, it's safest to not slow down. Passing a lorry is a good example - if you're doing 60 you'll be alongside it for quite a long time, and if anything happens in that time you're dead meat. On the other hand, if you're doing 90 you'll be clear of the danger in a couple of seconds.




There's a huge gulf between being a half a mile away and being right on top of something.

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

How does that work then? How do speed limits ensure drivers react to the full picture? How do they inform drivers of the nature of the hidden hazards, for example?
Or are you of the opinion that there are going to be accidents regardless, so it's better if they happen at a lower speed?

And how does that justify the motorway speed limit, for arguments sake?

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

Diddums.



You presume the same of traffic engineers. You think you know best, but I think I'd be right in guessing that you're not privvy to all the data, you haven't performed as much as a single site visit, discussed it with other traffic / traffic signals engineers and so on. Yet they do appear to have solved an accident problem, which is more than you've done.

I wouldn't come along and suggest the product of your work is rubbish on the grounds I've done a bit of soldering and own a TV - so why is it OK when its the other way round?



So what?



Perhaps thats the problem.



Speak for yourself.



Possible issues would include, but not be limited to, accident record on the stretch of road in question, siting of signs, ensuring limit changes occur at changes in the nature of the road, consistancy, parking considerations, preventing see-through, etc, etc.

Maybe the speed limit was too high before.

And thats before possible political pressure from people who, like you, think they know best.



Maybe so, but from the evidence you have supplied it seems apparant that there was a problem, regardless of how improbable it may seem from your unstated calculations. And, touch wood, the changes appear have dramatically reduced this.



Yes



And more often well beyond. They don't obey the limits of course - they don't perceive the risk of prosecution to be great enough to be of concern.

And as discussed elsewhere, drivers preception of the limit doesn't necessarily reflect the reality.



And they don't do that most of the time anyway?



But as there is more time to react, drivers generally slow down early and and smoothly, reducing the stop-start effect which causes more bunching as people have to faff around to get going again.



And wheres that come from?

And you haven't provided any evidence to back up your claim the limit is respsonsible, beyond arbitrarily declaring the signal timings issue as "nonsense", with (again) nothing to back it up.

Aside from all that, safety trumps congestion. It appears the measures have resulted in a substantial reduction in accidents at a site with an accident problem. You having to queue is of little consequence in that context.



But OTH if you're concentrating whats happening under your nose, then you'll simply plough into the traffic in front which is grinding to a halt due to congestion or whatever.

Its not one or the other, its both as appropriate. If you need to spend so much time looking near that you can't look far, then you need to slow down.



Not really enough to prevent you from looking ahead then, surely?





Except the fact that a hazard half a mile ahead may well cause a hazard imminently.

I think that remark has just proved Pete's point.

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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

It doesn't. It merely provides a mechanism to reduce drivers' speeds to somewhere near a safe level, providing that the limits are enforced sufficiently such that drivers perceive enough of a risk of prosecution.



They're not meant to. Indeed, its been shown that warning signs indicating a hidden hazard are often simply ignored, and that drivers don't even recall passing the sign. Why? They can't see the hazard it relates to, and so they dismiss the sign, in the same way you are so eager to dismiss the limits.

And thats if people can actually understand them - most can't. Most do understand limits (even if they don't bother to obey them).



Its not either or - its both.



Well, as has been discussed, there are of course political pressures from those who claim to know better which get in the way of proper limit setting. But that cuts both ways. You can't on the one hand witter about a speed limit being set to low and that your so hard done by and expect to have your personal preference implemented on the basis of assertion - and then on the other hand complain about those who do exactly the same thing except they believe the limits are too high.

I have little sympathy for someone complaining that they are being treated like an idiot in a post a few down from comments in precisely the same vein eg "Just how long have you been driving?", and then go on to make statements like "Read my lips - there was no accident problem. " followed up with "Four serious injury accidents in the three years leading up and six PIAs ". He hasn't answered any of my points regarding issues which would effect the speed limit, like the tradeoff between the longer intergreens needed for higher speeds and junction capacity, intervisibility, detection, traffic speeds, alignment, the nature of the road or anything. The closest hes come to doing so is locating the junction somewhere on the A38 - which as I said, could be anywhere between Mansfield and Bodmin.

He continually asserts that the limit is too low, yet has provided no consideration or conclusion on these important issues on which to base his assertion. He claims to know of what he speaks, yet when asked to justify his comments he cannot (or will not).

Maybe if hes so knowledgable, maybe he can put forward a solution to the accident problem at the junction. But it appears from his own posts that what has been implemented appears to be working.

...besides very effectively ending the debate.
I've got better things to do with my time than to waste it on smart-alecs.

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

You sound like someone who thinks they know it all, usually happens just after you walk into a job and try to assert an air of authority outside the workplace as they have none within it.

Have you recently graduated?

I don't know it all, and I know it. Hence me asking questions, and putting forward possibilities - as opposed to declaring "nonsense" to points raised without any supporting evidence or argument, and dodging surely vital questions, even the easy ones like what the nature of the road is. Pete317 has made no effort to justify why he thinks the limit is wrong, and has done very little to deal with the issues which I have raised which would effect the limit. Meanwhile an accident problem has apparantly been solved. Given this, how on earth can I agree with Pete317? You'd think he'd be more helpful in providing the required information, or at least saying if he doesn't know, instead of arbitrarily declaring points to be nonsense.

I don't suppose we'll find out what the full circumstances are now Pete has thrown his toys out of the pram - so how on earth can the merits of the measures implemented by considered without all this important information?



Don't I?

Would I be right in guessing that a certain poster who have already been shown to be confusing the part of the picture they can see with the whole picture has been gossiping in the private members forum?

No.

_________________
"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

edited

Safe was a perhaps sloppy way of phrasing within an acceptable level of risk.



Whilst overuse of such things is an issue - it has been shown that drivers ignore warnings and regulations they see no need for, eg accident rates go up upon the installation of a pedestrian crossing where pedestrian volumes are insufficient for the reason for the crossings existance to be apparant.



I wouldn't disagree with that.



I agree they could do with a bit more publicity and education on other aspects, but given speed is the contentious one, is the issue the media pick up on. Perhaps anti-camera campaigns are counter-productive in this regard.



Wrong.

Speed is sometimes a common contributory factor at a site, sometimes it isn't. Even where it is, its not necessarily something to be solved by a limit change or enforcement.

However, people here seem so focused on speed I doubt they even notice the many safety schemes which are often little more than reviewing and replacing signs, refreshing markings, adjusting visibility, or even the psycological traffic calming that Paul Smith has recognised the importance of. Indeed, Pete317 was so focused on the speed limit he seemed unable to provide any inofrmation regarding the tradeoff of the intergreen.

What people have to realise is that sometimes speed is the issue, and limits are the appropriate solution. Unfortunately, people won't just obey the limits, so we need enforcement to encourage drivers to stay within the speed limits if they are to be effective. If there is no risk of getting caught, they'll simply disregard the limits.



I would suggest that is due to the false inferences people tend to make from simple messages (and they have to be simple for publicity campaigns), rather than the message itself.

Of course, this is something to be considered.



And which model/simulation did you use for that assumption?[/quote]

Which assumption?



But speed limits were what was under discussion. The statement really applies to many other issues, but that would be irrelevant in the context of the thread.

And lets not forget - the scheme under discussion appears to have done the trick.

You seemed to have asserted that I'm focused on speed alone from thin air.



Whatever

NOW I understand. You're too young and inexperienced to understand the true nature of the driving task. You're imagining that drivers have to be protected from hidden and unknown hazards.

Reality is very different. The driving task is one of continuous risk and hazard management. Without this behaviour we would have utter utter carnage. Millions killed annually. It's easy to say ~3,200 killed - that's terrible. But when you look at the danger inherent in the system it's absolutely amazing.

Now the problem is that while we're obssessing about delivering a smallish benefit in protecting people from their mistakes we're (paradoxically) interfering with drivers' risk management procesess and making mistakes more likely.

We have to deal with system level risk as well as local level risk. We have to build on our strengths rather than obssess about our weaknessess.

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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

It appears you redrafted your post after posting it while I was drafting my reply, so heres the reply to the bit that was added




But as we have discussed, they are not privvy to all the factors.



No, but you do need to step back and take a look from all angles. You can't do that whilst remaining in the car.



What is a "road planner"?



And you base this on what?



"Road engineer"?



Oh really. What do you base this on precisely? Have you asked them? Or is it that traffic engineers have to consider the needs of *all* road users, and sometimes that means people (motorists included) have to give a bit sometimes?



Serious question - have you ever been in a traffic office?

It's a misread. If you track through the nested quotes, you'll see that I was refering the behaviour of an underskilled group. I didn't suggest or imply that similar behaviour would provide evidence of group membership.



I don't know your driving (obviously) but I would think that simply being here and talking about it probably puts most of us in the best 10%. The other 90% don't really think about it at all.

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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

Sometimes they do. Not all hazards can be apparant from the drivers point of view. An obvious extreme case would be at a railway level crossing when trains cross at high speed - we have lights to warn when a train is apporaching, because drivers are not in a position to know. The same can be true for other hazards.



Indeed



Yes, which is why you have to show restraint.



I agree.

However, there are and will always be situations (such as the level crossing example) where drivers cannot work it out themselves. Thats why we have traffic engineering (as far as safety is concerned) - after all, if drivers could/did see all the hazards, realise all the factors, deduce the appropriate response and implement it, then we wouldn't need any speed limit, warning sign, road marking, traffic signal, guardrail or whatever at all (from the safety point of view at least). Clearly that isn't the case, as you acknowledge by saying that we need speed limits.

The fact remains (and people are conveniently neglecting this point) that the measures implemented in Pete317's example appear to be working. So whats the problem? And if people here really do know better, what would they have done?

edited

Proper roads engineering is EXTREMELY valuable. There's very good work being done all over the country. Treating blackspots, building bypasses, moving traffic to higher spec and safer roads - all this stuff is vital.

But drivers aren't much aware of it. They experience entirely different parts of government policy.

I also think that road repair and roads engineering budgets are shamefully low at present.

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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