Jerome

After walking down Oxford St on Saturday, and seeing the amount of stupid and suicidal pedestrians, I began wondering how many of the pedestrian deaths each year (excl. children & the elderly) are the pedestrians fault. Obviously the government will not release these figures for fear of taking away some of the weight behind their speed kills revenue generating campaign.

I know that drivers have a responsiblity to drive carefully when pedestrians are around, but pedestrians also have a responsibility as well. If any of the pedestrians that I saw risking their lives on Saturday had been hit, I would have been a witness for the driver to say it was the fault of the pedestrian.

The drink drive statistics also annoy me. If a sober driver crashes into another car - also being driven by a sober driver - and kills a drunk passenger, it is classed as a drink related death.

Surely the statistics trotted out by the government should be further broken down so sensible decisions about road safety can be made and problem areas addressed, rather than a blanket speed kills campaign.

I feel better for getting that of my chest!

CrisPDuk

If a p155ed person, staggers out in front of a sober driver, then statistically that is a drink related incident, so the answer to your question would probably be yes also.

DavidRB

Scroll down to the bottom of this page:
http://www.abd.org.uk/one_third.htm

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

My sister was driving through her local high street past a pub at about 11pm, she was doing about 25 mph when a very drunk girl stepped backwards off the kerb into my sisters' Mini as she waved goodbye to her mates in the pub. The impact broke the girls' leg and cut it quite badly, the front wing, door and window were all smashed on the Mini, my sister and her friend were also cut by broken glass and my sis was really shaken up - initially she thought she'd killed the girl. Fortunately there were loads of witnesses who said it was entirely the girls fault as did the girl herself.

The following month my sister was driving along a main road with my mum as a passenger when an elderly woman stepped out from behind a bus straight into the front of my sisters' car. Fortunately because my sister was going slow the woman recieved only bruising and shock. There were also witnesses (including the bus driver) to this accident who said it was the old womans fault. The front bumper, grill and bonnet were damaged and although my mum and sister were unhurt they were both extremely upset and shocked by it.

Even though both these accidents were not my sisters' fault it took a whole lot of persuading her to get back behind the wheel again. She really didn't want to drive any more after that.

Sal

Reffro

The current campaign is not about apportioning blame, or saying that it's always the car driver's fault that pedestrians are killed by vehicles hitting them.

What it is asking us to do is to slow to lessen the chance of a fatal accident if somebody does fall into your path. As in the two cases above the fact that his sister was trvalling below 30 mph probably helped avoid two fatal accidents, and she's to be congratulated for that. If both were replayed at 40 mph it might not have been the same story, and still wouldn;t have been her fault but the end result would probably have been two fatalities. Its a sobering thought...........

Reffro

Sorry but this is off topic, but can anyone tell me why I can't edit my message above to remove the spelling mistakes? I have never been able to edit my messages as it says I have entered the wrong username/password. How can avoid this and edit my posts?

carl

But surely it's just a balancing act between convenience and safety? The fact is that if people drove everywhere at 10mph the number of fatalaties would be miniscule. But the country would grind to a halt. There isn't a magic thing that happens at 30mph -- 30mph is just a speed identified by the government as being convenient enough for people to move around freely, and causing an 'acceptable' number of accidents. If the train that derailed going through Potters Bar was going at 20mph there would have been no fatalities.

The sobering thought for me is that people are allowed to die in the interests of making travelling more convenient for the masses

Not saying that I disagree with the philosophy, but it's still a sobering thought.

DavidRB

And where is the other half of this campaign that tells people to be more careful when they cross the road?

We don't expect trains to travel at 10mph after some kid gets killed when crossing the tracks do we? We don't expect the electricity companies to turn down the voltage when some kid electrocutes himself do we?

Reffro

Its not about speed causing accidents, I think everyone on this forum would agree with that. Travelling at 30mph in town does not cause accidents otherwise we'd all be flying off the road every time we drove through town. Speed is very rarely the cause of an accident, but higher speed in an accident will aggravate the injuries.

You are right to assume that if the train derailed at 20mph there 'might' have been no fatal injuries but it doesn't always work out like that. It should have been safe for the Potters Bar train to run over the points at 100mph, but the fact that it derailed added to the speed it was going caused a fatal accident. Deaths might have occured even at 20mph, but the chances of that are substantially less. And this is the point of the current campaign. Lower you speed and you should lessen any injuries and if your lucky help you to avoid an accident in the first place.

And for DavidRB there are always safety campaigns going on in schools about how to cross the road safely, I'm sure even the booze addled brains on here (mine included) can remember the green cross code. This teaches us the skills we need to avoid accidents crossing the road when we are young and a lot more vunerable. What is now being done is the education of people driving cars now, to just think about what could happen and lessen the effect of it. And the best medium for that education is TV and newspaper adverts, which the majority of adults will see.

DavidRB

I remember the Green Cross code and numerous other safety campaigns that you don't see any more.

It's a bit like the AIDS adverts, when was the last time you saw one of those on TV?

Reffro

And why don't you see them, because we adults have already seen them and learnt the skills we need to survive when crossing the road. Children who are still in school get the training and safety videos at school where you are sure they are listening to it all. Children don't drive cars (excepting the thieving little toerags), adults do. Adults know the green cross code which you freely admit. So the reason you don't see the green cross code adverts is surely that it should be pointless to show them. Similarly with AIDS warnings the work was done in the 80's and early 90's, I'm sure we all know the risks now. What is done now is educating the younger generations at and in school about all the risks they face crossing the road or when having sex.

Tiggs

reffro- spot on, makes a change for someone on here to understand the speed kills stuff without suggesting its al the fault of teenage mothers letting their kids on the roads.

Tiggs

DavidRB

Hate to play Devil's Advocate, but incidents of STDs are rocketing at the moment, particularly in the young.

I would also point out that just reducing speed fails to make any account for the human brain. Travelling slower reduces the damage in an accident, can't argue with that. But it does not follow that reducing speed reduces the likelihood of an accident.

The human mind requires a certain amount of risk to stay alert. Driving long distances at too low a speed causes the driver's attention to wander. Speed limits are normally arrived at by evaluating the risk level of the road and matching it to the amount required to stop people nodding off. Artificially reducing speed limits does not result in an overall reduction decrease in accidents, if anything, it causes more.

I'm not against speed limits, nor am I against responsibility. I just want to see a comprehensive approach to road safety that tackles all aspects of the problem and not just the motorist. And to be fair, the recent "Think!" campaign does seem to be going that way. Typically, on the way home last night, I heard one of those "international truck wrestling" radio adverts. Very funny & hopefully very effective too.

BOB.T

OK so we know the green cross code etc, does that mean it's programmed into our off spring then, is that why you don't see the ads on telly anymore?

Reffro

Agreed DavidRB, the only way we can improve on our already excellent road safety record, is through a comprehensive campaign to make everyone aware of the risks and how to help avoid accidents in the future.

Its strange that we live in a country with an easy driving test, pumping out poorly trained drivers, who somehow manage to have the best (i.e. lowest accidents rates) in the world practically. I'm pretty sure we do have the lowest accident rates, but if someone knows better please tell me. Imagine how things would be if we could improve our driving standards and awareness through these compaigns. We've got to the stage in this country we any improvements in the fatal accident rates are going to be hard to improve on, but these campaigns can only help.

We all like to think of ourselves as good/better than average drivers, the fact is we aren't (again I include myself in here). If these campaigns, combined with other initiatives can kick start our minds into thinking about the risks around us, as we are driving, I'm all for it. And if anyone is thinking I'm pipe smoking carpet slippers type, I'm not, I break speed limits as often if not more so than most other people, just I have now started to pay more attention to my speed in and around town. 90mph cruising on the motorway/dual carriageway is fine by me, just want people to give speed more consideration in town.

Jerome

The reason we don't see the Green Cross Code (GCC) adverts any more, is because research has shown that - despite campaigns like the GCC - children do not have the necessary awareness required around roads. A child chasing a ball will run into the road, without looking, because it is concentrating on the ball and becomes less aware of their surroundings.

The elderly also get less streetwise as they get old.


DavidRB is correct: when the motorway speed limits were reduced in this country, roads deaths went up. The same happened when the US reduced their freeway speed limits.

NotoriousREV

RTA's are simply the modern version of Darwinism. It's fair to say that everyone here managed to get through childhood without being killed in a car accident. Those kids that do pick up the fundamentals of the GCC are more likely to survive to produce offspring.

Kids that are not traffic aware shouldn't be allowed out unsupervised by their parents, simple as that. My parents taught me well, and if I can learn that stuff, I don't see why anyone else can't.

Although, people who speed in inappropriate areas (i.e. near schools, kids playing etc.) should be locked up.