Hanslow

Quite agree, educate the pedestrians more [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

Most annoying is the young parent that is waiting to cross the road and putting part of the pushchair onto the road Don't they realise

Not like it was in the old days.....

chiark

I don't have kids, but...

Children aren't old enough to take responsibility for their actions which is why someone else has to. We all know that kids run out in the road, whether it's after a ball or whatever.

No matter how much you educate 'em, they will still ignore the advice on some occasions. The severity of the consequence of their actions really isn't uppermost at all times in their brain.

I fully agree that kids need to be better educated to this, but ultimately it's us that are in the tonne plus box of metal travelling at 30 mph that will do the damage to them.

If you drive past a school at kicking out time at a steady 30 mph and say "if I knock anyone over it's someone else's fault" then you're fooling yourself. Plus you'll have to live with it.

Alpine

Totally agree Chiark... Going back a few years I was passing a public park which was cut off by hedging.. Suddenly from a gap in the hedging a boy of about 8 comes running BACKWARDS straight onto the road.. I was doing less than 30 when I saw him and reacted fast.. impact speed was probably in the 5-10mph bracket.. He still hit the middle of the bonnet and was thrown onto the windscreen.. bounced back on the floor.. Good news is that he was OK..

Loads of people came over to me 'Not your fault mate, I saw what happened' etc etc.. It didn't make much difference I felt sick at how easy he'd be tossed in the air like a rag doll..

It was his fault.. But he was a kid and they make mistakes. We have to be responsible for our actions.. If he'd been killed it would still have been his fault.. But I'd have had to live with it.. Be careful!

dogmaul

there was a study that was done and it showed the largest % of accidents with pedestrians was with men after 10:30 at night when they decide to walk in road when they have been drinking

Tiggs

chairk-

you are clearly one of the ""no kids but sensible" clan, they are a rare breed

much larger is the "no kids and so will act like im 5 to make up for the shortage of childlike minds in my life" clan

CrisPDuk

I've started something here methinks, I wasn't having a go at kids as such, sure they are unpredictable that's what makes them so great (?), but, by the time they are teenagers/young adults they should know better.
It always amazes me the number of parents I see outside schools, dragging their kids across the road into traffic, and the kid is fighting to stay on the pavement. Which one needs educating?

Funny you should say that dogmaul, I was once driving past a pub at about 10.30ish when a bloke came staggering out, straight in front of me and onto my bonnet, fortunately the driver of the police car following me saw it and escorted him to a night at Her Majesty's Pleasure.

P1Fanatic

And having kids automatically makes u sensible tiggs - get real

BOB.T

was it not "speed kills" at the start of the thread? That's the bit that bugs me, can anyone name an incident where someone was killed by speed, I seriously doubt it!

Sure speed is a contributing factor in accidents but there is more to it than that, simply reducing speed won't end all accidents, as much as we'd all like it to.

On the schools note tho, I now have to pass the local primary school at about 8.45 ish and it's really busy as you can imagine. I'm 25 and drive a modded Fiesta, when I go past that school I must be the most hated man in the world, not cos I'm going too fast without paying attention but for doing 15 to 20 mph!!! The parents hate it, it seems to me they can't get to school, park up and leave fast enough, they all charge round like maniacs and give me awfull looks as if to say get outta my way!! The funny thing is there's only room for one car at time so I make then wait as long as I can, just enforce the point, just cos I'm young and have a fancy car I'm not automatically daft

Rant over!

Bob

chiark

The thread name is appropriate. If you weren't going as fast, you'd be able to stop...

I'd guess that most people are aware of what's going on. If there's a dog off a lead, I slow down. If there's kids playing on the road, I slow down. If there's a school exit, I slow down. The speed limit is supposed to be a maximum, not a target. (Yes I do "make progress" but there's a time and a place - perhaps this is what the advert is really trying to hammer home?)

I'm 28, but by the sound of it going on 50

Fully agree that a major problem is the loving mummies and daddies who slam their 4x4s on the pavements for 20 minutes to pick up Tarquin and Camilla before those nasty druggies who they've heard on the news hang around every school corrupt their innocent youth

Interesting stuff.

cheeseboy

Here speed is one of those things that is´n´t thought about - at least on the autobahns. Each day you see people in accidents, or near accidents, or traveling REALLY close at very high speeds... But it, as you have said above, scares the daylights out of you when something happens, or nearly happens that directly involves you. I try and drive to the situation though. On the autobahn at 180 when no-one (and no rain, no ice, not snowing and not foggy - goto love german weather ), but in the city, just crawling around - as our side streets are chocked with parked cars and people love to jump out between them! There´s my 2 cents worth for the morning...

Diablo

Tiggs - don't start

Chiark, speed does not kill, its a contributory factor

The impact is what kills. Innapropriate speed (which may be 10 mph or 100 mph) may contribute to that.

Anyway, have we not discussed this to death (no pun intended)??

D

DavidRB

Don't know about anyone else on here, but when I was growing up, if I walked out in front of a car without looking, I'd have got a right telling off from my parents. I knew it was dangerous to walk out in front of cars from an early age and I knew it was my fault if I got run over.

If speed kills, why don't they make trains run at 10 mph? After all, most trains have a stopping distance measured in miles when travelling at their legal limit.

Just because children run out onto the roads in a 30 zone is not a reason to drop the speed limit on a deserted A-Road from 60 to 40. If someone drives down the motorway at 100mph at 3am they will NOT RUN OVER ANY CHILDREN. Jeeez.

Markus

Chiark has a point about kids not realising the serveirty or possibly stupiditdy of thier actions.

Kids, ok, I'll not get mad at them for running in front of me, they should know better, and in time, when they grow up then hopefully they'll realise that running in front of cars is a bad idea.

Now, teenagers or adults who do this, well, sorry, but they should know better. OK, I'm not perfect, far from it, and I do occasionally walk out in front of cars, but feel like a ***** when I realise what I've done, most people don't, they seem to think that as they are in the road it is thier right of way. Well, in my view, you step off the pavement, you're in the road, the road is for vehicles, not pedestrians, so you get out of the road as quickly and safely as possible, or prepare to annoy a motorist.

Harsh? yes, but when you have some prat run across in front of you, causing you to slam on the brakes, when the idiot could have walked 10 meters down the road and used a proper crossing, then I'm sorry, you're asking for it, ok, not asking for it, but tempting fate. I'm not saying that if someone steps in front of me I'll sqash thier toes, not that nasty a person, it's just that I'm fed up with the motorist getting all the crap when someone is knocked over when it turns out the person was crossing without paying due care and attention.

Pedestrian re-education is needed. Where's David Prowse when you need him?


On a slightly lighter note. As for 'speed kills' ummm, no, it does not, it's the impact that kills, speed is a contributing factor to the impact, but speed is a, well, umm, not sure (should have listened more in physics ).

chiark

Ok, if we're being pedantic - and this is scoobynet after all - speed doesn't kill. But that's like saying "falling off a cliff doesn't kill".

Diablo

LOL

**** off, you know what I mean

DavidRB

As Martin Brundle is fond of saying "It isn't the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end."

Markus

It's like fear of parachuting, it won't kill you, it's the ground

sorry, will go and sit in the corner for a while and think about cats

CrisPDuk

Just been to the cinema and in the trailers they are running an anti-speeding advert showing a teenager who spots his bird with another bloke and runs across a busy road to shout at them. He obviously gets brown bread. the hook line of the advert is slow down don't kill a child.

To my mind all this advert is saying is you can be driving along minding your own business and some tw*t can run straight out in front of you without looking, but it is still your fault because you were doing 31mph.

I bet if you look through the records of RTA's involving pedestrians, without the biased view usually applied, you will find that a large majority of them were the fault of the pedestrian.
'Rant mode off'

Edited for spolling

[Edited by CrisPDuk - 3/7/2002 1:31:20 PM]