darts_aint_sport

lol. Okay, assuming the objects are the same but travelling at different speed

OllyK

To be a little more serious however, a lot of the "hit a child at 30 mph" stuff is warped anyway. Not too many people hit a child (some do, mostly drunk / drugged) without having tried to brake first. So most people travelling at 30 or even 40 would not impact at 30 mph. To actually hit a child at 30 mph having applied the brakes hard to a modern car would require the driver to be travelling well in excess of 30 mph or for the child to be hiding behind another car and jump out on purpose.

So what now becomes important is not the speed in question, but the observational skills of the driver. A highly observant driver travelling at say 40 mph may have picked up on warning signs and have already slowed to 20 mph in good time, whereas the brain dead masses who swallow the government propaganda bimble about at 30 mph hardly looking beyond the end of their bonnet confident that they are "safe" as they are not speeding. To me these people are the liability rather than those who are continually assessing the situation for danger.

Jerome

If you are saying you never break the speed limit you are either lying or don't drive.

More people die from DIY accidents in the home every year than in car accidents. I presume you will be campaigning for DIY bans and CCTV cameras in all homes to prevent any law breaking.

OllyK

I think bans for speeding will become less likely. As I mentioned, they are looking to reduce the points for speeding offences but allow the person concerned to be means tested and pay a significantly higher fine. The public transport system cannot cope at the moment, never mind if thousands were banned, plus this would remove a nice easy revenue stream.

Sith

The speed limit is 70mph.

Sith

My feelings exactly.

darts_aint_sport

Can people PLEASE lose the misconception that if someone drive under/at the speed then they aren't paying attention to the road?!

darts_aint_sport

Of couse I break the speed limit, but as I have repeatedly said, if I was caught I would have no problem in accepting the punishment as I have broken the law.

No, I am not considering banning driving so I am not considering banning DIY. Bad DIY in your own home is almost only going to affect the person doing it, driving too fast could kill a family in another car. They are completely uncomparable.

Jerome

In my experience, it is often these people who drive inattentively, so it is not a misconception. Where do you drive, Utopiaville?

OllyK

I don't have that misconception. If you read what I said, I was referring to "the brain dead masses who swallow the government propaganda bimble about at 30 mph hardly looking beyond the end of their bonnet confident that they are "safe" as they are not speeding"

I am sure there are some people driving around below the speed limit (me for one, most of the time, mostly becuase the conditions do not allow for anything other), who are being highly observant, but just look beyond the end of your bonnet next time you are out in the car and see how many people are driving well:
1) Use of mirrors, i.e. not cutting people up or trying to get in to spaces that are too small.
2) Indicators - clear, in good time
3) Safe manoevering, leaving a suitable distance between you and the cars around you.
Try those few for starters - those are supposed to be the basics, the essentials to pass your test and so few people do it.

darts_aint_sport

In my experience, all kinds of people, no matter how fast they are going, drive inattentively. It's just that the slower ones are less dangerous.

darts_aint_sport

Yes I 100% agree, most people are rubbish at driving. However, these traits are not the domain of slow drivers, just the general public. However, of those who are crap drivers, the slower ones are less dangerous!

OllyK

Sorry - going to pick you up on this as well

The government have just change the law on what electrical work you can do in your house as an unqualified DIY electrician. This is supposedly due to the numbers of people getting killed by poor wiring jobs, either by electricution or fire. This would no doubt also affect any person who were to buy the house after Mr DIY Nut (when did you last have your electrics checked?). Having said all that I have no idea how many die each year as a result of accidents involving shonky electrics.

OllyK

I don't have any stats to hand to counter that, but as I recall the number of accidents where speed was considered to be a significant contributary factor when being measure by the Police accounted for about 3% (have a look at http://www.safespeed.org.uk/ for the actual numbers)

So why focus almost all your road safety effort combating something that contributes almost nothing to the overall figures (and hence why road death figures are not going down). Why not try doing something about the other 97% that may actually save a significant number of lives. Why not? Because it costs money to do that, it doesn't generate it.

I do wonder if those travelling slowly are safer? Would you rather "almost" have an accident at 40mph or actually have one at 29mph. Yes the faster ones may do more damage "when" they have an accident, but it woudl be interesting to see which group has more accidents per mile travelled, and indeed who kills more (remember the old biddy that dragged somebody down the road (slowly) as they didn't realise they had run them over?)

Tiggs

so what?

this was a suggestion to a fool that cant drive without leaping on his brakes at the site of a camera...i assume for fear of a ban?

if he drives at 85mph he wont get banned...if he is unlucky and picks up 3 points my advice is drive at 75-80mph.....if he picks up 3 more my advice is drive at 70mph.

simple

T

Jap2Scrap

Not always. Shoot someone with a bullet at around 700mph then remove some of the gunpowder from a cartridge and shoot them with an identical bullet at around 300mph. The first bullet will enter the body and assuming it doesn't change direction glancing off a bone it will exit the body leaving a relatively clear through hole. The second will enter more slowly and deform under the forces, spreading out into a mushroom shape causing far more trauma as it passes through. I know which I'd prefer.

Disclaimer: in this instance this only applies to cars which are far smaller than a human body, such as a Smart City Car.

ajm

What poor old d_a_s is clumsily elaborating is that he is one of those people I highlighted earlier who's basis for "speed kills" is:

1) a car moving at zero miles per hour cannot kill
2) a car moving at zero + 1 miles per hour can kill
3) therefore the faster you go the more dangerous



What *actually* kills is an event whereby your car transfers energy to someone's body at such a rate that sufficient trauma is caused for them to die.

Now it may be perfectly feasible to say that, out of two similar cars of equal front profile and mass, the faster of the two stands a higher chance of killing...

BUT, in order to assess this as realistic danger, it assumes that both events are equally probable, but this is not necessarily true.

The physical factors leading to fatal energy transfer to a person are:

a) The mass of the car
b) the velocity of the car
c) the effective coefficient of restitution between the car and the person (the ability for the car to pass energy to the person on collision)

BUT

To calculate ACTUAL probability of such an event occurring in the first place we need to ALSO look at the likelihood of it happening, namely:-

1) road conditions
2) weather conditions
3) condition/ability of car
4) condition/ability of driver
5) behaviour or victim
6) timing - depending on the likelihood of a victim being present, the faster or slower car may or may not even be present when the victim is there!

So...

Statement A: It may be true to say that in the event of two cars striking a person the faster one is more likely to kill.

BUT

Statement B: It is not true to say that a faster car is a more dangerous car.

If you are going to base legislation on Statement A: then you must make the speed limit Zero because this is the only way you can reduce death at the exclusion of all other factors.

As any health and safety risk assessor knows, a risk is calculated as follows:

POTENTIAL HARM x LIKELIHOOD OF OCCURENCE = RISK

In practise this means that if someone is doing a high speed, but the likelihood of collision is very low due to driver ability or conditions then the overall risk is the same as someone driving below the speed limit but having very little ability or poor conditions.

If you are going to base legislation on a realistic representation of danger then you must factor in probability, and hence penalties cannot be based on speed alone.

The government has taken the EASY and more LUCRATIVE option of basing legislation largely on speed. People know this is not realistic which is why we still speed and why we are still having this argument!

Bubba po

I've got a bit of wind here, If you'd like to **** into it, ajm.

Gawd bless you for trying, though.

ajm

LOL

It wouldn't be so bad if these people's ignorance wasn't going to pull us all down. Still, if we **** low enough and hard enough, their trouser legs are going to get wet either way!