Mad Moggie wrote:
81.25 mph in EU and Brits on hols seem to cope OK with this...
Brits at home don't seem to do too badly either, except in the eyes of people who associate illegal speed with unsafe speed
I think the average motorway driver here exceeds the limit not because they want to exceed the limit, but simply because the limit feels too low for the average car of today. So if the limit were raised 10MPH, I don't think we'd see (m)any drivers then choosing to exceed that new limit by the same margin as they exceed the current limit. What raising the limit would do though, is to legalise the safe driving of the majority, whilst still allowing the book to be thrown at the genuinely dangerous.
Mad Moggie wrote:
Conditioning of "70 is sinful"
Mmm
Driving home at the weekend along a 40MPH stretch of road, with clearly visible limit repeaters at regular intervals. The car in front of me seemed quite happy to be doing 40 most of the time, but EVERY SINGLE TIME they approached one of the repeaters they dropped down to 30... The first couple of times this happened I didn't make the connection, and assumed they were just slowing down for some other reason, but then as we continued along past a few more repeaters the link between sign and speed became crystal clear.
And no, the repeaters weren't coincidentally located at points along the road where it would have been necessary or even just a good idea to slow down - the road in question was straight for practically its entire length, and the few curves were gentle and with good visibility. Traffic levels were very low, the road surface was well maintained, dry, and free of any visible debris. In short, I could see no need to slow down at any point along the road, and certainly not in the vicinity of every single speed limit sign. Yet some drivers (and whilst this was a fairly extreme example, it's sadly not the only example I've seen) do now seem to think driving at anywhere near the limit is A Bad Thing. And, to be honest, who can blame them? Even I tend to drop to 5 below the limit when passing a scamera, just to be sure that a) it doesn't go off and b) if it does go off then there'll be no doubt that the photos will show I wasn't speeding... not that this would stop some SCPs from sending out the NIP anyway
So yes, this conditioning does seem to be becoming far more apparent in everyday driving, and I don't see how that can be good for road safety in general. Sure, you'll get some people pointing to an example like mine and arguing that it's good because it shows drivers are slowing down, whilst conveniently ignoring the bit about how their speed yo-yos around making it less safe for the other road users in their vicinity who're constantly having to adjust their own speeds to maintain a safe distance.
Still, what does it matter if other drivers are put at risk, just so long as we think of the poor innocent children, trying to cross the road [1] without any adult supervision and having never been given even the most basic of lessons in road safety [2]. What, me, cynical and tired of the way the road safety message is being turned away from one of shared responsibility to one of "the driver is always to blame"? Whatever gives you that idea...
1. because children only ever want to cross the road sensibly, you'd NEVER find one using the road as their personal playground, deliberately taunting drivers knowing that in the event of an accident it'll be the driver who gets blamed, pilloried by the local media, accused of being a menace to society by the parents - who suddenly are the most caring individuals on the planet, despite not giving two figs what their precious offspring were doing on the day of the accident - and put through hell for something that wasn't their fault
2. because, as we all know, children can't possibly be expected to grasp the concepts of road safety, or be responsible for their own actions. Makes me wonder just how much of my childhood was a complete waste of time, watching road safety ads on the TV, sitting through talks at school from the traffic police (and the BTP/British Rail, if we're considering transport safety in general), doing cycling proficiency tests and other practical exercises to raise awareness of safe road usage... Oh, that's right, I forgot. It wasn't a complete waste of time at all. Have humans "evolved" so much in the intervening 20 years that the average primary school kid today is now incapable of understanding the same basic concepts of safety that we did? The lessons I learned back then are still keeping me alive today - what hope is there for todays children if they grow up with the message that their safety is the responsibility of everyone except themselves...
Hmm, I seem to have rambled well off the original point. I guess that's what happens when I see a long-established system with a proven record of success get messed around with by people in power resulting in the system starting to fall apart, which then encourages the same people in power to introduce new systems which please no-one but the people in power and their associates/lobbyists/vocal minorities/string pullers, rather than simply restore the original system back to the state it was in before they started meddling. Wouldn't it just be great if, for once, we could have a government that was prepared to put its hands up and admit they well and truly screwed up, and are prepared to put things right. And wouldn't it just be fantastic if the pig hovering outside my office window would buzz off