DavidRB

From The Association of British Drivers website:

Suffolk County Council introduced 450 new 30MPH speed limits at the end of 1995, many of them on roads where no driver would expect to see such a low speed limit.

Take a look at the results...

Suffolk accident trends.

Dream Weaver

Hmm, like to see them say that "speed kills" now

If they introduce 30mph all over round here, think it may be time for false plates etc

BarryK

Hmmmm. Bear in mind, the most spectacular increase was in the minor injury category and the dates coincide with the upsurge of "where there's blame there's a claim" so punters who would normally have walked away and told the tale in the pub are now sporting neck braces, walking sticks, throwing a few weeks on the sick and all that old cobblers, in order to trouser a few hundred quid.

Don't get me wrong I personally see every day former NSL roads which have been reduced to 40, presumably to protect the sheep, cos there is no history of accidents, nor inhabitants.

But as they say, lies damned lies and statistics, oh and nowadays graphs from computers!

Pete Croney

I think the biggest problem is that when people see a 30 limit, they slow down and switch off their concentration.

If you have just been enjoying a road, at a brisk pace, and then slow down 30, you feel you could get out and walk faster. Consequently the level of concentration applied falls to zero and suddenly there is an accident.

"Speed Kills" has about the same impact as saying "The Earth Is Flat". Speed doesn't kill and millions of motorists prove this by exceeding the speed limit every day... and surviving

If the slogan were "lack of concentration kills" I think the whole issue would be taken much more seriously.

[Edited by Pete Croney - 10/25/2002 2:02:56 PM]

camk

I think speed does kill, sorry to be in the minority. The issue is that no-one thinks it'll happen to them. When it does and your going that bit faster in your comfortable and quiet car it all takes a bit longer to avoid or stop and the energy involved is taht bit higher.
The issue is that we're policing and enforcing speed in a similar fashion to taming a naughty dog. Therefore no-one takes it as a serious issue and do not respect the process. We should have hard and heavily punished limits in towns and villages. Motorways and country roads should be more appropriately(higher) limited and policed based on where the accidents happen, not just randomly or where Colonel Smithe-Winterbottom call's the local plod to complain. Police it in an adult and open fashion, using hard and fast rules across the country and then there is no excuse on both sides of the fence.

Regards
Cammy

BTW people drive faster in the UK than they do on the continent, only exception is motorways. In every other EC country that I've driven in they are not as fast off the motorways as we are in the UK. However i see more minor accidents on German Rural roads than I ever saw at home. Possibly as street lighting is less popular.

Iain Young

I disagree with you point about UK drivers being faster cammy. Back in the summer I drove my sti all through France, Germany, Austria and Italy, and most of the time I felt like I was the slowest thing on the road, (especially in Germany, Austria / Italy). This happened on both the motorways and especially on "normal" roads.

Of course speed kills (you wouldn't do much harm if you weren't moving). I disagree that slapping 30 / 50 mph limits everywhere is going to solve the problem though. The real issue is that of inapproprite speed for the conditions combined with a lack of concentration and a general lack of good driving skills.

You also may have the issue that when pedestrians see that the road has a 30 limit on it, they aren't always as vigilant. Roads are dangerous places, and I wish the powers that be would spend a bit more time educating the public to this side of the problem rather than constantly laying everything on the shoulders of the driver. Yes a driver may be speeding, but shouldn't the public be aware that they didn't ought to walk out in front of cars etc...

At this rate we'll be back to having blokes with red flags walking in front of us everywhere...

Iain

Dr Nick

This is very interesting and supports a theory I have been considering for some time.

I appreciate BarryK's comments about faking injury for money but you can't easily fake death and these stats went up too.

Lets face it, if you are a vigilant driver/rider, the chances of you getting caught speeding are still fairly slim. We all think this, even if its not true! On this basis adhering to the speed limits has always been discretionary.

Before the recent blight of stupidly low speed limits in so many unnecessary places I, and I assume many other people, respected the speed limits a lot more. We had a greater tendency to keep to the speed limits because they seemed more rational.

Now that all the stupid 30 limits (and even some 20s) are popping up everywhere, and the 40 limits in deserted countryside round where I live have appeared, some people just don't give a **** any more.

So I think people are actually driving faster hence more accidents.

Its stupid to say that speed does not kill. If you were stationary there would be no accidents and I'm sure the stats show fatalities are proportional the faster you go. But its difficult to get to work in a stationary vehicle and we all have to work to pay our taxes. So a sensible balance is needed.

IMO the balance is now way too low and abusing speed limits consequently is at an all time high!

Your comments please. Am I talking total B*****s or what?

NotoriousREV

camk, actually speed does not kill, what usually kills in accidents is either rapid acceleration and/or deceleration of the human body or penetration/impact injuries.

What is wrong about the Government's attitude to speeding is that it places all blame for accidents on the motorist, without better education for pedestrians. It forces drivers to stop thinking for themselves and comply with a specific speed beause a sign says so.

We need better driver education, better pedestrian education, realistic speed limits on every road and no GATSO's (except red light ones, they do a good job!). If a road is an accident blackspot it must be redesigned so that it is safer.

marty_t3

If there are no accidents then there will be no deaths or injuries. Emphasis should be on,

1) removing the reason behind accident blackspots, not just trying to reduce speed on them. (ie. better signposting, improved visibility)

2) better driver training with more emphasis on observation and 'reading the road'. What i've learned about judging the road came from the last 10 years of driving experience... not my driving lessons. It should be more prominent on driving tests these days, especially with the increased volumes of traffic.

3) realistic speed limits where people are comfortable to stick to them. This will in turn cause less frustration and increase concentration. It will also give people more respect for the posted limit and therefor more reason to abide by it.

4) A reduction in the amount of road works (portable blackspots) and other temporary obstructions. Why not fix the roads 24/7. Works would be finished in less than 1/2 the time and would therefor reduce driver frustration, decrease journey times and result in less cars on the roads at any one time.

Not one of these requires speed cameras or spot fines. Just common sense.

(most of these have already been mentioned... just thought i'd repeat what i think are the good bits)

[Edited by marty_t3 - 10/25/2002 3:35:09 PM]

Pete Croney

Dr Nick I agree.

My comment about speed not killing is that it isn't the speed that kills (30 mph kills just as effectively as 60mph) but it is the lack of awareness of the driver.

If drivers are aware of other road users, pedestrians and the associated hazards, they rarely hit them.

I was not saying that driving at a speed totally unsuitable for the conditions will never kill anyone, as it frequently will.

Chrisgr31

Well I am firmly of the opinion that speed does not kill. Inappropriate speed does. For example it might be safe to go past a school at 3am at 50mph, however passing the same school at 20mph at 3.30pm might be foolhardy.

Take the A2 northbound into London just past the M25 where it is still dual carriageway. The limit has recently been reduced and cameras sprouted everywhere. Yes there were regularly accidents on this stretch of the road, but I am prepared to bet that most were caused by idiots steaming up the road in the rush hour straight into the back of the stationary traffic.

What I think we need is more variable limits on the motorways, 20mph limits past schools at entry and leaving time and in heavily populated streets and other areas where there are lots of pedestrians. In return however the motorway speed limit should be raised.

I believe that many more people would stick to the limits if there was an obvious reason for them, where the limit seems arbitary they will be ignored and the risk of being caught taken.

camk

Iain,
I'm here in Germany most of the year and spend 3/4 days a month in the UK and definately I need to speed up when I come home to the UK and slow down when i come back to Germany, this is backed up by my levels of anxiety on being too slow out of Heathrow in my Hertzmobile and down M4 and frustration on the country roads here as they drive like old ladies. I'm in Belgium every 2 weeks and they are definately slower than the South of England. I'm often in France and Denmark(4/5 times a year).

Dr Nick,
I agree with you in that people are actively ignoring limits as they don't respect them.

NotRev,
your being pedantic, without speed(speed=0) you cannot have any acceleration or deceleration as a result of contact. Therefore you need speed or motion or whatever you want to call it.

Pete,
Its not the actual speed that kills but the energy behind it and therefore the higher the speed the more energy the higher the likelyhood of death. Therefore A specific speed does not kill but more speed increases likelyhood of death, 'SHOULD' an impact occur. More speed does not mean more deaths, just more likelyhood of Death should an accident occur.

Cheers
Cammy

RB170

So Camk what you're saying really is that speed doesn't kill, lack of driver training to deal with increase in stopping distance etc is the thing that kills.

NotoriousREV

Cammy,

Surely reducing the speed limits is treating the symptoms of a crash without treating the cause. Do you know where the majority of fatal road accidents occur? It's not on the motorway where we drive the fastest, therefore it can't be speed that's killing all of these people.

There is no other form of transportation where accidents are seen as inevitable and unavoidable. If aircraft were treated like cars, they'd be reduced to flying at 3 inches off the ground, after all, falling from 20,000 feet kills.

There are better approaches to road safety than applying inappropriate speed limits. The current approach is a complete cop-out, it makes for good "league table" short-term sound bites, but not for actual road safety.

Pete Croney

We are getting somewhere now.

The only thing that actually kills is accidents/impacts.

It very easy to say that a driver hit something because they couldn't stop in time, so they were going too fast.

It requires a bit more understanding to say that they hit what they did because they weren't concentrating.

Concentration will result in speed changes to match the conditions and hazards that are presenting themselves with the ability to stop.

My point is that if I drive at 90mph down an empty dual carriageway, concentrating on the road ahead and the traffic behind me, I am a criminal. If I drive at 29mph past a school or down a high street, in a totally vacant state of mind, oblivious to what is happening around and in front of me, then that is fine.

As the classic example and my all time pet hate of other road users, how many people have followed a car as it approaches an open and clear roundabout, for the driver to suddenly stop on the line and look around to see if its clear to proceed?

DavidRB

Exactly. All of the anti-speed policies fail to take into account human behaviour. People need a level of difficulty/risk to make them concentrate. Driving slowly does not equate with driving safely. Less speed does not equate with a reduction in the likelihood of accidents. As the figures show, reducing the speed limit to one that is too low actually increased the numbers of accidents.

If it was as simple as speed kills, motorways would have the most accidents and deaths. But they don't. According to DETR figures, motorways see only four percent of total road injuries, three percent of the killed and seriously injured and five percent of fatal casualties, despite taking nearly 15 percent of the traffic volume. Urban areas account for 70 percent of all injury accidents, with more than 50 per cent of deaths and injuries occurring on main roads.

Having driven in Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and Sweden, I disagree about our driving being faster. Leave the autoroutes in France & Italy and they all seem to drive at 100mph. One thing I can say for certain is that we have the safest roads in Europe.

[Edited by DavidRB - 10/25/2002 5:39:45 PM]

MarkCSC

I used to live in Suffolk (up until 2 months ago)and I'd say that 95% of all the 30mph speed limits they introduced were needed. For instance out side my dads house it was a national speed limt zone (60mph) on one side of the road were 25 houses and on the other a childrens playground. People would drive along this road a 60mph because the sign said they could. Anyway it is now a 30mph zone and most people stick to it.
Saying that there are still the **** who drive at 30mph thinking they are safe and don't antisipate things, such as kids running along the road towards the playground are probably going to run across the road near the enterance.
Posting limits does make people think unfortunately

camk

Rev's,
what I'm saying is that if people drove slower the probability of accidents falls as they are more easily avoided. No where in any of my replies have i said otherwise(I've tried not to anyway )

Pete,
i agree that speed as a factor is not the single cause but it is ALWAYS a factor in accidents. The control and reduction of accidents is so complex that the 'Authorities' take the simplest approach. Which is drive slower.

All,
I'm trying to show an open approach. i know that accidents are made up of many factors like road design,cars,people, concentration,speed and conditions. Speed may not always start accidents, but once it starts then its probably the single biggest factor to the outcome. The best approach is set speeds that 95% of people will obey 95% of the time, if you then put low limits on accident zones and police then toughly you'll get better compliance.

Cheers
Cammy

camk

DaveRB,
I'll have to bow to your superior experience then on driving in Europe, I'm only doing 30K per year . People definately abide by speedlimits here much more rigidly than at home. I'd happlily bet your mortgage on it On the m/Ways its faster here but less so in Belgium where they stick to 130. there is no way that people drive faster on Country roads here than in either S of England or even Scotland.
If there is a limit here people slow for it , even on the A/bahns when it drops down. Thats simply because this is where the law is enforced e.g. Roadworks or through villages. Thats the places you see cameras on.

Cheers
Cammy

camk

DaveRB,
The major reason for less accidents on M/Ways is that there is less opportunity for oncoming collision and conflicting traffic situations(no junctions or roundabouts) plus a real low number of pedestrians. I'll bet there are more deaths per accident on M/Ways, due to the velocity of them.

Regards
Cammy