Safe Speed Forums

I've long considered that the content of Why drivers speed may be the most important information on the Safe Speed web site.

But I've always got the feeling that people don't get it. Here's me thinking it's the 'answer to everything', yet few folk seem to share my opinion.

Recent discussion hereabouts may have bridged the gap (if indeed there is a gap to bridge), and I'm considering revising the page.

The key argument in the new version would be the same, but the following concept would be added to help explain and justify the overall conclusion:

Drivers continually make subsonscious risk assessments all the time they are driving. Speed is adjusted in response to these risk assessments. When danger is present ahead we don't have to think consciously about slowing down in good time - we do it subconsciously, and the reason that we do is because a subconscious risk assessment process tells us that we need to.

If we feel nervous in a vehicle that's travelling too fast that's because the subconscious risk assessment is sending an alarm signal.

If we feel bored or frustrated in a vehicle that's travelling too slowly, that too is a signal from the subconscious risk assessment process.

When we're driving we're in a continuous process of assessing and balancing risk The risk is assessed subconsciously and we adjust speed to maintain a sensible balance.

In fact adjusting speed is a driver's primary risk management tool. If we want drivers to manage risk - and we do - then it is most important to allow them to adjust speed.

So this then is the primary reason that drivers speed. They are using speed to manage risk in low risk environments. The road is clear and speed 'naturally' increases to take appropriate advantage of the good conditions.

Comments welcome.

(edited to fix italic)

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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

Constant risk-assessments is a very good way of putting it.

I think the 'speed kills' approach in modern life goes hand-in-hand with the zero-risk approach to health and safety at work that is becoming prevalent.

You cannot remove risk entirely, you just end up moving it somewhere else, or in the case of speed limits, abdicating it to a higher authority.

This also ties neatly in with observation. Those that don't alter their speed eg the 42 mph everywhere brigade travel at this pace because they haven't observed the hazards or road conditions changing so think they're safe as it is only 40 mph and they've probably not really hit anything or it was always the fault of the other 'lunatic'.

I think road planners can do more to help this subconcious process by only putting limit changes where there is a change in road topology. It is totally stupid to have a large wide road with the same hazard density at 30mph when the road gets more busy and narrower further on. Set the wide bit at 40 then I bet people would actually slow up more because they realise the 30 is there for a reason.

Once had a debate with an "always obey the limit" neighbour. A local road had recently dropped from NSL to 30 limit.

I wanted to know if he considered it safe to drive on it at 60mph before, and whether he did now. Did he consider the road to be EXACTLY half as safe as it was before?

I hasten to add the road and its surroundings had not changed in any way.

Cameras are designed to give a wakey-wakey call to somnambulant/subconscious drivers on auto-pilot. We should all get into the habit of being aware of what we are doing at all times when driving.

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I don't think it's realistic to hope that these ongoing risk assessments should be made consciously. I don't think we have the required foreground multi-threaded architecture.

We need to leave the conscious mind free to recognise higher level dangers - i.e. specific conflicting hazards. If that is right (and at present it's more theory than fact), then the risk from cameras will be even greater because the cameras demand precious and scarce conscious attention.

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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 think this line implies a NEED rather than a simple employment of risk assessment process. Frustration would be the result of being thwarted in a desire to go faster.

The need could arise from a subconsious desire to stay alert, and this could be achieved if the road was less straight, or if some other stimuli were introduced.

In the tourist traffic in the Lake District, you can be frustrated, but RESIGNED to travelling below the legal limit for long periods - but if you have an appointment, and driving so slow is eating into your journeytime margin, then FRUSTRATION creeps in, which can be dangerous in a driver who is not aware.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

My twopence...

Drivers speed because their vehicle makes it so easy for them to do so. A modern car does not afford the driver the feedback that an equivalent vehicle of the 1970s era would have done, they are more or less isolated from the environment around them. Select 4th gear in a modern 2 ltr saloon, rest your foot on the throttle and your're doing 40mph before you know it and still it seems inexorably slow.

So we didn't speed in the 70s then?

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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 didn't: I was in infant school

This is how I experience it DEFINITELY.

Driving artificially slowly in known enforcement areas also demands precious and scarce conscious attention.

Not being 100% sure of the limit and driving artificially slowly demands precious and scarce conscious attention.

Not being 100% sure of the limit and watching out for cameras demands precious and scarce conscious attention.

This topic, and all the responses so far are very, very good.
Adding distractions is not the way to improve road safety.

Hey, I've just thought of a good soundbite to counter "speed kills"...

"CAMERAS DISTRACT !"

I don't really know what the situation was in the 1970s, to tell the truth and I'll bet nobody can really state categorically because we didn't have such obtrusive speed monitoring back then. Anecdotal 'oh yes I did' evidence doesn't really help here, we need to zip back in time with a modern gatso or two.
I'm convinced that many drivers who exceed the 30mph limit today may genuinely be trying to stick to it but simply drift over because its so darned easy in a modern vehicle. A small movement of your foot can add 5mph in a trice.

I think its quite simply a case of unneccesary frustration from the typically competent driver. If a driver tries to be completely law-abiding and travel at a lower than considered maximum safe speed he/she tends to either lose alertness and concentration or simply focus much more on the speedometer even without cameras (although of course cameras do mostly operate on the roads with bad speed limits). So because at least the first scenario is rather undesirable drivers will just exceed the limit. And while your at it why not try and double your concentration whilst your at it - ie. look out for talivans instead of looking at your speedo all the time.

In 95-99% of cases, speeding is simply caused by badly set speed limits. And allowing speed limits to be lowered because of non-safety reasons (eg. noise) only makes the situation even worse. And of course I share the view like many others that badly set speed limits only create more speeders in areas where speed limits are properly set.

On a final note I thought I might also add that when approaching a speed limit change its often easy and tempting to predetermine whether the approaching speed limit is justified of not by looking at the quality of the signs. So when your, say on a main single carriageway in a suburban area, and you see big, new, sparkling signs its easy to immediately disregard it as badly set and speed anyway. Whereas if your going through an urban area with signs which are old, rusted, bent, beaten up etc. its likely to be better observed as its assumed to have been imposed properly before the mid-90s.

I'm not so sure that would stand up in court as a defence.

"Your honour, my car is so modern, that I didn't even realise I was 5mph over the limit because I only touched the accelerator..."

I don’t think we come “out of the box” with the required architecture either. The multi-threaded architecture is a thing that experts develop. Those who fail to develop it are dangerous.

When doing complex, risky things, our consciousness needs augmenting with a little ‘watch-dog’ that keep us safe. When driving, it tells us when we are getting angry (and says “forget it”) or impatient (it says “relax”) or when we are ignoring risk for fun (it says “get with the programme”). There are too many simpletons on the roads who have not developed their watch-dog. Basically, their emotions are doing the driving.

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I stole this .sig

So we need to help them develop, and NOT occupy their limited capability with peripheral tasks. QED?

I also think that my foreground mental process is single threaded. It's only background subconscious processes that are multi-threaded. General risk assessments belong in the background process.

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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

But it is common to hear of people stating that they didn't realise what speed they were doing after they got nailed.
The AA (I believe it was) once commented that most drivers getting caught speeding in 30 mph zones did so because they were using 4th gear which, in a modern car, easily sails you over 30mph without you realising it. They suggested using 3rd gear in a 30 zone, a practice advocated by the IAM.

Maybe. But some drivers are like children - they just take advantage when you're soft on 'em.



That's more threads than most drivers! If I thought that we could talk blokes into driving with thier minds instead of thier bollocks, I'd agree with you. But half an hour on the M1 will show you that most revert to stone-age behaviour when they drive.

That's the hateful thing about that car-ism. Unless we use our "watch-dogs", cars bring out the beast in all of us. That's why drivers speed - again!

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I stole this .sig

That's right. They are the thumb in bum, mind in neutral brigade. They make comfort assessments, not risk assessments. They only know they are going too fast when they have a close shave! Or a ticket, whichever comes first.

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I stole this .sig

If our crash rates were terrible then I'd be forced to agree. But with 32 million licenced drivers and 214,000 injury crashes in a year it makes no sense at all. The one injury crash caused in 150 years. Factor in the fact that crashes are concentrated at the low end of the driver quality scale and our median driver has a truly remarkable safety record. (Maybe about 1 crash caused in 500 years) And then factor in those that are caused or contributed to by 'speeding' and I'm sure you can see that it's a policy blind alley.

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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