Safe Speed Forums

Hi all!

One of the problems we have that i've noticed from reading these posts, the T2000 forum, and posts from the likes of mosis, is that the speed camera lobby refer to groups like ours as "pro-speed", which is obviously incorrect. We want genuine road safety, not merely the right to speed for the sake of it.

To that end, I propose my view up for discussion, which may be able to convince them...

I'm not against speed cameras per se - if I get caught by one, I won't bellyache about how it was unfair, I was driving safely, etc. etc. At the end of the day, we do need speed limits (even if just to act as a guideline for the hazards you can expect to see on a road) and if went over it and got caught, I was breaking the law, and must now pay the fine.

What I'm against is speed camera policy - I feel that a disproportionate amount of attention is devoted to speed as the cause of accidents. OK, sometimes it is - but I think we need education in other areas as well. Tailgating on a motorway for instance. If a tailgating car has a collision at 70mph, he may well have a reduced impact at 60mph - but if he wasn't tailgating, he'd be able to drive at 60mph, 70mph or even 80mph safely.

Don't dismiss me as a troll for saying I'm not against speed cameras, I do have an interest in road safety, can see that a lot of you do too and agree with a lot of the interesting comments posted on here!

Not at all, I think you make a very valid point.

Some people do drive far too fast and no-one will deny that. It does bother me greatly that we are dismissed at pro-speeding.

We're not pro-speeding at all. We're anti-policy as you say. Many of us believe we are safe to push the limits a bit, more in the dry, less in the wet. By the same token most of us will also be the first to back off the throttle when things get iffy, such as fog etc.

People here realise that targeting "speeders" is barking up the wrong tree. Forcing everyone to drive at or below the posted limit will prevent a handful of crashes every year. The vast majority of crashes will carry on regardless, because SAFE DRIVING is not a function of speed.

I believe the reason for targeting speed is because it's absolute. you're under the limit or over it. It's easy to enforce. It achieves sod all in terms of road safety, but it's easy to enforce and produce "results" from.

Virtually no-one here is a speeding apologist, but we do know that there are far bigger issues to tackle on the roads other than pure speed.

The mentally challenged will claim that driving slower results in less severe impacts. Thats fine, can't argue with that. It's slightly trivial though. Airliners crash occassionally too. Everyone dies. We could fly them slower, and they'd still crash. Everyone still dies.

The point is that Safespeed is about preventing the collision in the first place, rather than trying to limit damage whilst ignoring the true causes.

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This is why it's so difficult to argue with them:

1. In one way, they're right - drive slower and hit something, you'll hit it less severely
2. It's an extremely emotive subject - so because of point 1, if you try to say there's another way to reducing fatalities, you're dismissed as a dangerous idiot who likes to drive fast all the time for the sake of it and don't care about anyone else.

Personally, I do try and stay within the limit because I don't want caught and, providing it's set correctly, usually find it to be a useful guide to the safe maximum - but when I'm driving I think there are more important matters to look out for.

That's the problem though isn't it?

It's treating the symptoms rather than the problems. Why rely on damage limitation when other methods could avoid the problem altogether?

Where speed limits start to become of questionable relevance is when comparing something such as a Nissan Micra on soft suspension and cheap narrow tyres driving at the NSL. Great, nothing illegal there. Now is a Jaguar XKR on firm suspension, premium brand wide tyres more or less dangerous at the NSL?

Obviously driving at the same speed on the same road the Jag has far greater margin for error thanks to it's big brakes and impressive grip. The Micra is skittish, I know, I crashed one.

What if the Micra is doing NSL and the Jag 70mph on the NSL road? The Jag is without question still the safer place to be, but it's illegal. The law is the law - fine with that. The problem arises when someone wrongly accuses the Jag of being dangerous purely because it is travelling faster than the law allows.



That's obviously one tiny hypothetical example, but it does illustrate that speed limits are not in anyway a garuntee of safety, as there are so many other variables which carry far greater weight in the whole scenario. Anyone who fails to acknowledge this is, in my opinion, foolish.

I am in no way saying that it's safe to drive fast/posh cars faster, but I am saying that as a measure of safety, speed alone is a nonsense.

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You can argue with that, but not to the mentally challenged - or those who are not interested in your arguments.
Besides the fact that driving slower only positively results in less severe impacts in situations where absolutely no braking takes place, it's an almost completely irrelevant argument - but try to get that through to a person who, for one reason or another, has their own fixed ideas.

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

That's certainly not trolling, and I'm quite certain that the viewpoints are valid and useful. In large part those views are also the 'official' views of the Safe Speed campaign.

I have moved away from defending any use of speed cameras for two key reasons:

1) I have seen how they change drivers' though processes and what I see is frightening.

2) Other measures - especially vehicle activated signs - are likely to be cheaper and more effective at solving local problems.

The original dream for speed cameras - that they would save lives by 'teaching' drivers not to speed - has completely failed. Speeding behaviour is largely unchanged.

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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

I agree the policy is the thing that gets up the nose the most. People so often get caught where it is actually safe to exceed the limit by a small margin. I am thinking of the deserted dual carriageway where 50 would be safe but the limit is 40.

There are so rarely traps where the limit is 30 but most people do 20 because of the parked cars or other hazards.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

i am in favour of utilising VAS as a speed reminder, but a VAS is no deterrant to slow down, take the information boards on the motorway for instance they flas 50mph or whatever and no one takes a blind bit of notice of them

Brookwood Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:10 pm Post subject:

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There are so rarely traps where the limit is 30 but most people do 20 because of the parked cars or other hazards

is there any data to show what % of speed traps are in 30mph areas compared to other limits, as i have stated before all my routes / sites are (except 1) in 30mph residential areas

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now retired

If there is Paul will know.

Speaking from personal experience I do find that most traps are in the wrong place because they seem to target areas where the average motorist may exceed the limit all be it by a small margin. And yet when I am traversing narrow streets where the risk of a pedestrian appearing from between parked cars or from behind parked vans is high then there are no traps.

The local BiB seem to know where people are most likely to exceed the limit but whether that is dangerous or not is another opinion. If they slowed people down at obvious death traps then I would be all in favour but at the moment it seems to be all about 'lets get this bloke he has just come off the motorway and will be disorientated and take him time to slow down in this straight road with no hazards. So he missed the lollipop that's his fault, he should've been more careful'.

I am not bitter or twisted or anything just interested in the way it works.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

[quote="Brookwood

Speaking from personal experience I do find that most traps are in the wrong place because they seem to target areas where the average motorist may exceed the limit all be it by a small margin. And yet when I am traversing narrow streets where the risk of a pedestrian appearing from between parked cars or from behind parked vans is high then there are no traps.

The local BiB seem to know where people are most likely to exceed the limit but whether that is dangerous or not is another opinion. If they slowed people down at obvious death traps then I would be all in favour but at the moment it seems to be all about 'lets get this bloke he has just come off the motorway and will be disorientated and take him time to slow down in this straight road with no hazards. So he missed the lollipop that's his fault, he should've been more careful'.

I am not bitter or twisted or anything just interested in the way it works.[/quote]

but you have got to remember at present for SCP sites there has to be an accident history / or a resident complaint site where a speeding problem has been identified, although i am getting more and more convinced that come April 2007 it will be open season to go anywhere

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now retired

I’m very glad to hear that you are not pro-speed, and you don’t want to break the speed limit. Well done – take the pledge and drive within the limit from now on, like me.

But the average punter here does want the right to drive faster than the legal limit whenever he feels like it. That is "pro-speed" unless we split hairs about it.

But we're not having that - the last thing we want is more speed merchants. On the other hand, there are now at least two of us who are not pro-speed - guron83 and basingwerk. That’s a grand start, keep it up.

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I stole this .sig

Do you set a good example to others by always obeying voluntary vehicle activated signs, and do you see other drivers obeying them? Are you only in favour of external speed violation warnings, rather than in-car speed violation warnings, and why? Do you believe that voluntary vehicle activated signs provide sufficient incentive to make a difference? What incentive is there for drivers to respect the rights of other road users/residents, with these voluntary signs?



Official studies show that many hundreds of lives have been saved. Why should anyone pay heed to mavericks, rather than independent academic assessments? Where has your work been independently validated? If it has not been, why is it such a struggle?

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I stole this .sig

What a complete & utter load of tosh.

I (and many others here) do not go around exceeding posted limits whenever we feel like it, we analyse the scenario & regulate our speed accordingly.
If you honestly believe that my doing 85mph on an empty M6 toll in dry conditions & broad daylight makes me a danger because I have gone over the limit, then you show me the proof that my actions make me a danger (but we already know that isn't going to happen because you cannot possibly provide any such evidence).

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

Basingwerk: "But the average punter here does want the right to drive faster than the legal limit whenever he feels like it."

Please provide proof not assertion !!

I would consider myself an average punter but am concerned about how cameras are not providing the benefits they were suppossed to.

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

I'm glad that you have declared your respect for the law! Good man, take the pledge.

Now although the Jag might be safer at speed than a Nissan, it is far, far more likely to be broken down and unable to get anywhere at all!

Stats:

http://www.reliabilityindex.co.uk/man_i ... 010848601#

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I stole this .sig

What the f*ck does reliability have to do with safety?


Hark, is that a reversing bleeper I can hear?

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

Dorset:

Two of these sites have two cameras in (one per side of a 50 limit dual carageway, twice down the road) so there are really 2 extra fixed cameras in 50 limits.
All of the 60 and 70 limits are mobile sites. Only three of the 50 limit sites are fixed cameras.
I just worked this out from the FoI documents for fixed AND mobile sites found here and have created a nice OpenOffice spreadsheet with the data.

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Andrew.

Good idea – we’ll do a test to see whether you are average or not.

Do you want to be able to drive faster than the legal limit, or are you happy to keep to the limit? Don’t be evasive because it is transparent.

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I stole this .sig

Well, the jag is a very safe car indeed, as long as it is broken down. It only gets seriously dangerous if you can afford to get it fixed!

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I stole this .sig

cheers
65% in 30mph knocks brookwoods theory out then

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now retired