|
An area of fluid on anotherwise dry road is normally a subtle hint ;) on a wet road it is normally a good idea to drive a bit more carefully anyway. Common sense dictates areas within a reasonable distance of filling stations are likely candidates, especially on tight corners such as the exit of roundabouts. I'm sure you realise all this already, and we do agree that driving carefully and appropriately for the conditions is paramount.
The only real sticking point is that you believe upon an aribitary maximum speed which gives no regard to driver or car, where as I do not. If I ever get done for speeding then I'll not complain as I know that law as well as anyone, but to me the idea that the maximum speed on every section of road should be the same for everyone is absurd. In many circumstances the same limit is appropriate, ie around built up areas with pedestrians all around, it doesn't make much difference what you are driving. In other situations why should it be a problem for a vehicle designed with the capability to travel at 2 1/2 times the posted limit, with an experienced driver who has done advanced training, to travel along at above this arbitary speed? If it is legal/safe (the law (by camera) makes no distinction) for an inexperienced driver (with no intention of ever improving) to drive a clapped out heap that scrapes through MOTs at this speed, is it not true that driver one would be safer travelling 5,10,20+ percent quicker? You could argue that driver one would be even safer by driving at the limit than at whatever they felt was appropriate for the conditions. But there is evidence that this is not the case, and that by driving slower than is necessary accident rates go up. By being forced to drive excessively slowly peoples minds wander, they get bored, tired, start playing around with other stuff in the car to keep themselves amused... I know I'm happier in a car with someone who is driving appropriately (if quicker than the posted limit) than with someone who is driving within the legal limits but looking out the side windows and paying little attentio to the road. |
I'm with imlach in this, EVERYONE knows the speed limits - or they shouldn't be driving.
If they choose to break those limits then they get done - and then moan and maon and look for a way out of the penalty. They don't seem to understand the simple fact that if you hit a child at 35mph they will probably die - at 25mph they will probably live. Save your speeding for the track, thats why you do the track days. I do, however, think that the police are wrong to collect speeding motorists at the expense of catch other forms of crime - it is, to my mind, a money collection excercise ............ I laugh at the speed trap vans labelled as 'Road Safety Units'!! One of these units sits at the bottom of a steep hill where I live - pointing up the hill ..... Why not, sometimes, point down the hill?? Simple - because a pedal bike can hit 40mph coming down it, cars need to brake to stick to 30mph ............ he wouldn't collect as many fines if he was pointing at cars coming UP the hill. Same hill, different approach, gives evidence that they are about collecting money! Pete |
But what about if you drive too *slowly* (which was what this post was supposed to be about);)
UB |
Yep, UB, slow drivers - say 20 in a 30? 40 on the motorway? should be BANNED!!!!
I have to say that I NEVER drive below the speed limit! so its NOT just the over 70's that drive slow! Pete |
PSlewis...
out of curiosity do you know what the legal minimum speed limit is on the motorways??? imlach wooops slipped there didnt you ,,, agreed to a post Robertio stated " No one can say they will never have an accident, but experience and observation can minimise the risk." you replied "Robertio - I agree with EVERYTHING you say in your last post. Good." then you added "Can one observe a diesel spill? In my experience, they're pretty tricky to spot no matter what your levels of observation? Unless you are Superman" you agree to his post then disagree ???? your theory is flawed, its like saying aids kills speed does not kill,,,its a contributary factor. at 31 mph you can have a crash and walk away at 30 you can have a crash and be killed..... why because there will be different factors to each scenario..... look at F1 martin brundle gets his car destroyed and lives Ayrton senna hits a wall and dies... both had speed involved, but differing factors both upto during and after the crash. the space shuttle columbia was doing well in excess of mach 1 when it blew up speed ws not an issue there but an o ring i belive the true answer has already been given it is the inppropriate application of either speed or lack of speed prevalent to the current situation. mart |
Does this mean that PS Lewis's Scooby will be in the FOR SALE section!!?? :D
|
118,800 persons in the uk alone die from smoking each year
Compared to 3,423 per year killed on the roads (1999). Coupled with the effects of passing smoking and house fires, how can anybody justify a campaign/spend £millions against combating speed and this is seen as essential for the public good when such a small minority of driven miles lead to a death yet, death wise, smoking is a far far far greater killer. If money being wasted on speed cameras etc was spent on improving accident blackspots I think youd find a significamt reduction in accidents. Obviously speed has to be contained in urban areas, but revenue cameras are an absolute sick joke, especially when they are placed in areas that have been a previous 'no problem' higher limit. People will always die in accidents,as the arguement goes, to limit further deaths on our roads we should have cameras everywhere and a person in front of any vehicle waving a red flag. There are 35 times more deaths in the UK each year due to smoking, yet all the government do is slap a warning on the packet. I dont see smoke detection cameras on the high street and people fined. |
Imlach and PSL are quite right in what they say about deliberate speeding. It is necessary to remember the true purpose of roads. They are there to facilitate transport, commercial or private, around the country. They are not there for drivers or riders to demonstrate to all how good they are at enormous speeds and that they could leave Schumacher for dead if only given the chance!
There has not been a single argument to justify driving at high speeds on our overcrowded roads. It comes out instead as a bunch of selfish arguments to justify people's personal pleasure while driving at speeds which endanger other's lives. It is impossible to argue that if you arrive at an unavoidable accident then if you are going faster then the damage to yourself but more importantly to others is not almost certainly be going to be worse. To say that the accident might not have happened at higher speeds is a particularly specious excuse. The people who are allowed to drive on our roads have a vastly different skill and experience level. It is not possible to leglislate for this so some common factor has to be used. This amongst other things is called speed limits. How else can you try to keep the death toll down. Without limits there would be absolute carnage. It also devolves on you to be patient if you are caught behind a slower driver. The limits are laid down by law and regardless of what you consider to be a safe speed etc. etc., we do not have a God given right to break them. If you get caught doing so, then you have no right to whinge about it. If you feel that laws are not for you to obey, then you favour anarchy, and that will lead eventually to a "Mad Max" society. Its bad enough already for goodness sake! Excess speed will lead to more unavoidable accidents. The accidents caused this way are more likely to lead to deaths and serious injury. Our roads are too crowded to behave that way. Nobody is a good enough driver or clever enough to avoid an eventual serious accident if driving at speeds well above the limits. I don't believe anyone can produce a credible argument against that. Let me say that in common with most on this thread, I decry the use of speed cameras as a means to raise extra money. This is no way to gain the cooperation of motorists. Especially the modern tendency to reduce speed limits on country roads to 50 or even 40 mph and then stick up a speed trap. Just too transparent I'm afraid. I have also had my share of speeding fines as a younger driver, that was in the days when there was only 1/4 of the traffic density we have now. But still no excuse anyway. Mainly on motor bikes too. I speak now with the benefit of a lot more experience and also the state of our roads today. We just have to be honest and face up to the facts. I wonder if that will be taken out of context! As I have said often enough,and as PSL said, if you want your thrills, go and do some track days. Trouble is you might be embarrassed to find that the experienced track drivers just make you look very slow! Les ;) |
Does this mean that PS Lewis's Scooby will be in the FOR SALE section!!??
------------------------------------------------------------ Its a fully serviced MY00 without mods and never raced, looked after like a baby and never abused - 1 careful owner Please start an orderly queue! ;) Pete |
Leslie,
re your comment " selfish arguments" i have never posted into this thread as a selfish arguement!! i have stated simple facts speed does not kill!!!! re imlach,s statement if your son/ daughter got killed on by somone doing 50 in a 30 how whould they feel about speeding!!! i think imlach has been trying out his local magistrate book, then next one to be used is "if the guy next to you said jump of a cliff would you!!! what if imlach had said "how would you feel if your son / daighter had been killed by a car doing 30 in a 30,, or 25 in a 30" but the speed kills tag grabs attention!! After workin as an undertaker for many years, i can honestly say that in the time i was in the job i only dealt with two road fatalities one was a person killed in a car crash the other a cyclist......... however the number of suicides / murders / natural causes was 100 fold.. all have made there points of view known.. speeding happens . speeding will happen. the overiding factor is not that it is deliberate , if i could guarantee to keep my car at the correct limit at all times i would .. then to quote a well worn phrase, we would be in an "ideal world." however the real world is different , its where people make choices, some good some not so good. If hmg whished to eliminate the "Speed killing" factor, all modern vehicles would be limited, and controlled.. would that stop road deaths NO people will die on the roads whatever happens,,the human body is not designed to take on motor vehicles... I have never denied that speeding is a contributary factor.. so how does that make me selfish!!! If you travel on the autobahns as i often do you see the same situations that we have on british roads,, bunching, speed to excess of the road conditions and curtesey! but all know that if you have an accident above the posted limit youe are at fault no matter what the circumstances.. to date (in the last 12 months)i have seen 1 accident that warrented medical intervention... contrast this to my run to work... 3 in the last three weeks all mway or dual carrigeway.. i believe the bigger risk these days is the constant method of driving whereby you spend so much time looking for speed restrictions/ cameras, that accidents occur becuse your attention is not on the road.... and that i find appaling!!! mart |
Cant believe some of the opinionated rubbish being spouted on here about speeding. Not everyone who goes over the limit will be budding Schumachers etc. And I think youll find that those type of people wont be too detered by speed cameras etc anyway.
Constantly lowering limits on perfectly fine roads will only result in resentment to the motorist and a general refusal to obey limits, and in consequence possibly question legitimate speed limits set on our roads. Ill wager that although a national speed limit will be in place on many country single laned roads, not many people will bowl along at a LEGAL 60 mph on a road where they cant see around the corner. To put a ridiculously low limit for the circumstances just smacks of moddycuddlying and wont achieve anything. Driving under the influence offences have actually risen this year, why? How many speed cameras will stop somebody swerving all over the road knocking pedestrians down? Answer, none. You have to ask yourself is the widespread usage of speed cameras replacing traffic police on our roads, and in turn making offenders think they can get away with boozing and cruising. Read this and then post up with Holier than thou bull5hit http://www.safespeed.org.uk/speeding.html |
pslewis wrote:
Yep, UB, slow drivers - say 20 in a 30? 40 on the motorway? should be BANNED!!!! I have to say that I NEVER drive below the speed limit! so its NOT just the over 70's that drive slow! The problem with speed cameras is that they have absolutely no discretion. Drive at 70 in thick fog past a camera and it won't blink an eye, whereas you'd probably get a pull for careless driving off a traffic cop. There's no effort made to try and get drivers' perception and observation levels good enough that they can decide "appropriate" speed for themselves and that IMO is far more dangerous than someone who can make that judgement straying over the speed limit. Speed doesn't kill - collisions do. Yes I agree that inappropriate speed can be the prime cause in collisions, but the anti-speeding lobby might not like to face the facts that TRL (transport research laboratory, the official UK road statistic agency) figures state that in 2000 (latest available stats) excessive speed was a main factor in 7% of statistics. So what about that other 93%? I guess the government doesn't really care about that lot, certainly they aren't making anywhere near as much of an effort to do something about it. Maybe because it's not so easy to dish out millions of fines for things like drink-driving (major factor in 16% of road deaths) or driver fatigue (major factor in 10% of collisions). Unfortunately solving these problems requires old-fashioned traffic cops which cost money rather than raise it, which probably explains why traffic patrols have declined in the UK over the last few years. Quote from Edmund king of RAC "In the 1980s, about 15% of the national police force were deployed on traffic duties. We estimate it's currently less than 5%.". Reason being the home office decided that traffic duties should not be part of the police core policy. Obviously not important enough then, that coming from the same people who litter the country with cameras because so many people are killed on our roads. One last thing - if speed cameras are so effective then it's strange that the annual death rate has more-or-less levelled off since cameras were introduced around 1995 (don't quote me on that year). Before that they were steadily declining - yet cars have become very much more safety-orientated over the last ten years. Proof that this strategy simply isn't working, and only distorted figures that the government spews out makes the public think it is. If you view the raw data compiled by TRL then the truth is revealed, and it's very clear why the government don't actively advertise this data even though it's freely available to all. http://www.safespeed.org.uk/stats/1.4.gif |
Paul_m
Bravo!!!!! its exactly what most of us have been saying..... Mart |
My original point (it has diverted) is still true however - see 2nd post in this thread. There are speed cameras in place, so why do we get members of the public compaining when they get caught? They HAVE broken the law, so where is the complaint?????
They are perfectly entitiled to disagree with the law, but for now, torching the things is not exactly the best way forward. Until the law is changed, do you think torching them is the most mature method to acheive that aim? If a neighbour torched your Scoob cos they thought you drove too quickly in their opinion, would it make you more or less determined to get another one? [Edited by imlach - 11/30/2003 9:27:11 PM] |
BTW These pages might prove interesting reading, totally unbiased factual statistics recorded by the police and TRL. Paints a somewhat different figure to what the "adjusted" figures from other sources such as revenue-camera-partnership etc.
http://www.ringroad.org.uk/wmrar1999.htm http://www.ringroad.org.uk/wmrar2000.htm http://www.ringroad.org.uk/wmrar2001.htm |
Hmm....I notice "careless/reckless" etc are in a different category from speeding, but form a large proportion of the reports.
Surely there are some cases where there is a suspicion of speeding, but cannot be proved/not caught speeding. Question for the coppers on here really - can they only record an accident as due to speeding if 100% fact? Given 99.9% of people speed as someone "pro-speeding" has said, then more than 7% of accidents involve people over the speed limit. Who knows - statistics can be easily interpreted in the favour of whatever you want them to say :) |
The complaint is that it's law enforcement for the reasons of raising revenue, not for road safety which they make out. If they are so concerned about reducing accidents why are traffic duties no longer a core policy of the police? Why is there very little action being taken against drink-drivers, tailgaters, etc. These actions are statistically more likely to be the primary cause of a collision, yet the chances of being caught doing so are very small compared to speeding - does that make them less "illegal" or more acceptable? I don't hear the "speeding kills" brigade complaining about these dangerous acts.
The fact is that "speed kills" is misinformation which does absolutely nothing to improve road safety. Collisions kill, and the sooner something is done to tackle all the causes of collisions, particularly the more common causes (of which inappropriate speed is only the 5th most common), the sooner the roads will actually get safer and fatalities fall. Unfortunately this method costs money rather than earning it, so the government aren't in the least bit interested. Some people really need to open their eyes and look at the big picture, there's a whole world out there and with it brings real issues that can't be summed up in 2 words. |
Some people really need to open their eyes and look at the big picture, there's a whole world out there and with it brings real issues that can't be summed up in 2 words.
Ooh. I'm so fick aren't I that I cannot see the real world... Get real. Real issues are that speed DOES kill.....along with many other things. It says so in the reports that you so kindly provided - is there not a fatility column with a non-zero number in it for that row? Doh! |
OK - so how do you propose the govt reduce drink driving? Are they supposed to be psychic? They already have random breath tests, and I don't see what else they can do without mass testing? No duobt you'd not agree with that either, as it'd cause traffic congestion?
|
Given 99.9% of people speed as someone "pro-speeding" has said, then more than 7% of accidents involve people over the speed limit. Likewise because an accident is listed under inappropriate speed doesn't mean they were over the limit. Driving at 70 on the m-way in snow or fog and running into the back of a stationary car because you didn't see it or couldn't stop would most likely be listed under inappropriate speed. People really need to get away from this obsession with the speed limit. Yes they are necessary but unfortunately the laws of physics don't change at the speed limit so you don't suddenly go from being safe at 70 MPH to being dangerous at 71 MPH. It works both ways, in many cases the speed limit is too fast but I get the impression that most people in this country think the limit is the "correct" speed, regardless of anything else, which is bloody dangerous IMO. |
Also, policing tailgating would require just about one traffic car on every mile of road at any one time....
I'm sure electronic detection methods WILL improve in future, and these things may well be caught moreso.....but for now, the technology would no doubt be difficult to implement. ...and if someone brake-tested you on a motorway in front of a camera, would it not look like you were tailgating? But you weren't. Hmm.....come on, proposals please! |
"Careless/Reckless/Thoughless" makes up for more than 50% of accidents in 2001. Most people charged with careless or reckless driving are usually driving outwith their limits are they not? ie, inapproriate speed.
Is careless/reckless not a more serious crime and therefore they prefer to bundle them into reckless etc? [Edited by imlach - 11/30/2003 9:50:55 PM] |
OK - so how do you propose the govt reduce drink driving? Are they supposed to be psychic? They already have random breath tests, and I don't see what else they can do without mass testing? No duobt you'd not agree with that either, as it'd cause traffic congestion? The problem with this approach is that it needs traffic patrols to be out and about so they can see the erratic driving in the first place. They can kill plenty of birds with one stone, by being able to detect all forms of bad/dangerous driving, and defective vehicles which also cause accidents. Numbers are dwindling cos like I said before it's not a core police policy any more - speed cameras are far more effective at pulling in fines. |
..and do you have proof of this reduced level of traffic cops on the road?
|
Also, your argument on "appropriate speed" is fine, but there HAS to be an upper limit. If someone is driving at 77mph in dry conditions, shop 'em. If someone is driving at 77mph in wet conditions, shop 'em.
OK, it won't catch the person doing 70mph in wet/foggy/snowy conditions, but that is because there is an absolute limit, and the machine can only go on that. So, the machines catch ALL users doing 77mph. They don't catch people doing 70mph in snow, but at least it's a start. Can you really complain about getting caught at 77mph? You know the limit. To glibly say that 77mph is "safe" in your opinion, is entirely your opinion. The powers that be have decided 70mph is the legal limit. That is what goes. Also, there are probably environmental factors at play. Cars doing 80mph emit FAR more greenhouse gases than at 70mph. Do you care about the world we live in, both environmentally and socially? [Edited by imlach - 11/30/2003 9:59:00 PM] |
Who knows - statistics can be easily interpreted in the favour of whatever you want them to say
Exactly, same can be said of speed camera statistics. Also, [Edited by imlach] suggest you get it right the first time. Interesting the amount of times that phrase pops up under your posts. |
Scoobynutta - what exactly is your gripe over me editing posts? Grow up.
|
Scoobynutta - your profile says :
Interests : Ragging my P1 lol Hmm.....sums it up really. |
..and do you have proof of this reduced level of traffic cops on the road?
Read this. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2049146.stm |
Fair enough over the BBC link - was just asking for the data.
|
| All times are GMT +1. The time now is 03:14 PM. |
© 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands