Speeding Does Not Cause Accidents
Discussion
Moonhawk said:
singlecoil said:
Speed kills isn't an argument, is a two word rallying cry, slogan, sound bite, what have you. No-one here is using it, except the anti-speed-limit campaigners in a continuation of their straw man argument.
The rest of us are trying to discuss this interesting subject sensibly. If you wish to do so too, I suggest you stick to what the people here are saying, not what pressure groups who are not part of this discussion are saying.
In that case why pick out one line of my post (which incidentally doesn't even contain the phrase "speed kills") rather than discussing the points I raised.The rest of us are trying to discuss this interesting subject sensibly. If you wish to do so too, I suggest you stick to what the people here are saying, not what pressure groups who are not part of this discussion are saying.
The "argument" I was referring to was the one which goes down the line of arguing that lowering speed limits lowers the risk of death or serious injury. Whilst that fact is patently obvious (you cannae change the laws of physics afterall) - the argument is always used unbounded and unqualified.
If we want to lower the risk of death or serious injury - what do we want to lower it to (or by how much)? What is an acceptable fatality rate on the roads, bearing in mind that we have to maintain a workable road transport network. Why isn't the current fatality rate, which is amongst the lowest in the world, the lowest at any point in the UKs history and still dropping (due in no small part to the massive advances in car safety technology) - already acceptable?
Are there other things we could be doing which would have a greater impact on the fatality rate, whilst at the same time having a lesser impact on the road transport network (e.g. highway code education on the national curriculum).
singlecoil said:
You are making valid points, but nobody here has said any of that stuff. You are arguing with people who are not present at this discussion. I get that the stuff you have heard and read elsewhere annoys you, but it comes across as a rant rather than a response to anything that anyone here has said.
Are you saying that nobody on this thread has used the argument that lower speeds lowers the accident rate or fatality rate (or vice versa).I only have to look back a few pages to see that clearly isn't the case.
I'm not against having that discussion - and lower speed limits are entirely appropriate in a lot of circumstances - but the argument to lower speed limits has to be qualified (and I have yet to see it happen)
Edited by Moonhawk on Thursday 23 October 18:25
Jon1967x said:
Back to the point, from Phatboy rambling arguments, the best I can make out is he maintains that time is more important than speed, and speed does not reduce the reaction time, to the extent that in a similar thread to this he says it can be argued that driving faster past a point on the road reduces your likelihood of an accident because you spend less time driving past it. He's also argued that if you driver faster you wouldn't be on that point of the road when a car might pull out because you'd have been past it already. If you subscribe to these kind of arguments then carry on.
er, try reading properly, then perhaps you wouldn't be going on about what you imagine I wrote.johnao said:
Jon1967x said:
I suggest that if you're going to join an argument then at least have the courtesy to understand the point being argued. I actually agree with most of your points but not all.
I fully appreciate the arguments and points being put forward. You started in response to my post...
johnao said:
Jon1967x said:
You really don't get it do you (referring to Phatboy). You go round a blind bend and find an obstacle in the road causing you to stop. If your are travelling faster you have less time because it's the distance on the road that's fixed. That's not to say you can't stop, you might, but then you might not.
No, I'm afraid it's you that doesn't get it.The mantra of "speed kills" is naive at best and misleading at worst...
The point of the argument was that the time you have is less the faster you go. That is stating the bleeding obvious to most people but not to Phatboy and has nothing to do whether that time was still enough to stop. I acknowledge it may still be.
You then go on to say...
johnao said:
In your example of driving around a "blind" bend it's not the absolute speed that's the issue, it's whether or not the driver is able to stop on his side of the road in the distance seen to be clear. The safe speed is therefore determined by the vision available. If you can stop in the distance seen to be clear, you'll be able to stop; if you can't, you won't, and you'll crash. See, it's really very simple and doesn't depend on speed limits or any other exhortants to slow down.
I don't disagree with the point about absolute speed - I agree its not. But I repeat its nothing to do with the argument that speed reduces the time to react.Simple question.. do you agree speed reduces your time to react? If its Yes then I don't understand why you're picking an argument and you've waded into a argument you didn't understand. If its No.. then please explain.
v12Legs said:
I don't think you're reading the stats correctly. Speeding was a contributory factor in 4% of all collisions, and 15% of fatal collisions. That means speeding drivers are far far more likely to kill someone rather than only slightly injure them, for rather obvious reasons.
Hardly surprising.Firstly, very low-speed accidents are very unlikely to be serious or fatal.
Secondly, speeding is very likely to be recorded as a contributory factor if the speed happened to be in excess of the speed limit - even if it had nothing to do with the accident.
Edited by Phatboy317 on Thursday 23 October 18:53
Moonhawk said:
To be fair - it is the logical conclusion to the argument.
A new challenger appears! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdumThis can join the Strawman fallacy, might keep him company.
singlecoil said:
I expect you will find that the majority of speed limits are set with safety in mind, the problem for you is that you disagree with most of them, and therefore have decided that they are not set with safety in mind.
Not at all.When the Parish Councils of Heversham, Milnthorpe and Arnside complained to the County Council about youths racing through their villages in excess of the 30 mph limit, Ian Stewart, the county councillor with responsibility for roads and highways (at that time) proposed to lower the limit in their parishes off the A roads, to 20 mph!
Clearly the fact that the complaint was about drivers EXCEEDING the existing limit had escaped him... so the parish councillors objected to a lower limit.
Meanwhile his paid ally Nick Raymond, the Highways Officer, who is a complete incompetent, who would probably never get another job in Highways management if he ever left his post, continues to play around with speed limits, chicanes, traffic lights and junctions, with absolutely no idea what he is doing, or what the affect will be.
The list of (expensive) changes he has made that have had to be REMOVED on safety grounds is growing every year.
This is one of his: http://goo.gl/maps/nqGAQ
It starts a couple of miles before, but this is the funny bit.
FIFTY MPH limit imposed... yet tiny narrow lanes off this road are NSL!!
The fence on the left, supposed to keep pedestrians and cyclists from conflicting with vehicles on the road has been removed at a cost of £8,000, as when vehicles struck it (numerous times) the rails turned into lethal spears!!!! Travel down the hill, and the double white lines zig zag from one side to the other of the central median, confusing drivers who try and pass a slow cyclist or (usually agricultural) vehicle, then suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of the double whites!
SAFETY??? COUNCILS??? Most of them have no idea what they are doing, and only use safety as an excuse to waste money.
Dammit said:
Moonhawk said:
To be fair - it is the logical conclusion to the argument.
A new challenger appears! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdumThis can join the Strawman fallacy, might keep him company.
Moonhawk said:
Are there other things we could be doing which would have a greater impact on the fatality rate, whilst at the same time having a lesser impact on the road transport network (e.g. highway code education on the national curriculum).
If every driver made sure that they could stop, on their side of the road, in the distance seen to be clear... that would be a good start. 
johnao said:
Moonhawk said:
Are there other things we could be doing which would have a greater impact on the fatality rate, whilst at the same time having a lesser impact on the road transport network (e.g. highway code education on the national curriculum).
If every driver made sure that they could stop, on their side of the road, in the distance seen to be clear... that would be a good start. Jon1967x said:
I don't disagree with the point about absolute speed - I agree its not. But I repeat its nothing to do with the argument that speed reduces the time to react.
That's not an argument. It's a claim which is clearly self-evident. Even I'm not so daft that I would enter in to an argument with anyone about a self-evident truth. I believe your interlocutor even disputes that's what he said or meant, but I see no need for us to go there anyway, it's pointless.My argument is that [as per, the actual subject of this thread]... speeding, per se, doesn't cause accidents. What causes accidents is inappropriate speed. A cause that can be removed if every driver "ensures that they can stop, on their side of the road, in the distance seen to be clear"... regardless of what the legal speed limit is.
Jon1967x said:
Simple question.. do you agree speed reduces your time to react? If its Yes then I don't understand why you're picking an argument and you've waded into a argument you didn't understand. If its No.. then please explain.
There's no need to be paranoid, I'm not picking an argument. I'm just stating what to me seems obvious. Every driver improvement course in the country, whether it be the IAM, RoSPA or any other Roadcraft based course will bang on about being "able to stop in..."When it comes to speed limits let me pose this question to you. Let's suppose that on your next drive your speedometer suddenly stops working or gives an obviously false reading, would you be a less safe driver as you continued your journey until such time that you could get it fixed?
It would be illegal, but insofar as safety is concerned, I'm sure the drive would be no less safe than before the speedometer fault occurred, notwithstanding that you did not have precise knowledge of whether your speed was legal or not. Why? Because you will have ensured that your speed was such that "you can stop in..." regardless of the legal speed limit. So, with your defunct speedometer if you drove at 25mph in a 20mph zone, despite your speeding, you would not have had an accident because..."you can..."; if you can't, you'll probably crash.
johnao said:
Jon1967x said:
I don't disagree with the point about absolute speed - I agree its not. But I repeat its nothing to do with the argument that speed reduces the time to react.
That's not an argument. It's a claim which is clearly self-evident. Even I'm not so daft that I would enter in to an argument with anyone about a self-evident truth. I believe your interlocutor even disputes that's what he said or meant, but I see no need for us to go there anyway, it's pointlessI'll try to explain it another way:
You're travelling along a road at 30mph (44fps) and as you're approaching a junction, a car pulls out of the junction when you're 88 feet away. You have two seconds to react and stop.
But let's say that you started your journey exactly one second earlier, but all else has remained the same - you travel at exactly the same speed, etc. But now, at the precise instant that the car pulls out from the junction, you're now only 44 feet away, and so you have 1 second to react and stop.
Or if you started your journey 2 seconds earlier, you would arrive at the junction at the precise instant the car pulls out and so you would have zero time to react.
It also follows that if you had started your journey two seconds later you would have four seconds to react, and so on. Also, if you had started out three seconds earlier, you would be 44 feet past the junction when the car pulls out, and so there would be no problem whatsoever.
Now, had you varied your speed even slightly anywhere along your journey, it would also have affected your arrival time at the junction by at least a few seconds.
So your arrival time, and therefore the time you have to react in any such situation, is dependent in a non-deterministic, uncorrelated and unpredictable fashion by myriad different factors, including your speed.
In other words, in any situation you have the cards you're dealt, and those cards include the speed you happen to be doing.
Jon1967x argues that if you encounter an obstacle around a blind bend then the time you have to react is lessened by the speed at which you enter the bend (together with the distance between the bend and the obstacle), and I agree in that instance - you have a fixed distance relationship to when you first see the obstacle, and therefore the relationship does exist.
But I would argue that blind bends are very few and far between, in comparison to straight(ish) roads where the same fixed-distance relationship simply doesn't exist.
Edited by Phatboy317 on Thursday 23 October 23:25
I
I'm interested to see why you think it's a self-evident truth, whereas it seems to me to be a fairly fundamental misunderstanding.
...and so onJohnao - there you have it... The self evident truth that you and I can see (the blind bend is just one example, but any event unfolding in front of you applies the same logic) and the one you don't even think it's worth debating is disagreed with by phatboy. Now do you understand why I query your interjection and feel you don't understand the argument? I'll let you try and convince phatboy
Phatboy317 said:
johnao said:
Jon1967x said:
I don't disagree with the point about absolute speed - I agree its not. But I repeat its nothing to do with the argument that speed reduces the time to react.
That's not an argument. It's a claim which is clearly self-evident. Even I'm not so daft that I would enter in to an argument with anyone about a self-evident truth. I believe your interlocutor even disputes that's what he said or meant, but I see no need for us to go there anyway, it's pointless...and so on
Edited by Jon1967x on Friday 24th October 06:32
We could try a thought experiment that abstracts things from the situation a little.
Phatboy - if we are in the park, say 20 feet apart, tell me in which of the following scenarios it would be easier to catch the ball (all other factors remaining equal):
A. I throw a gentle, looping underarm, the ball travels at ~20mph toward you.
B. I wind-up and throw a fast ball, the ball travels at ~80mph toward you.
The answer is A - because you have 0.7 of a second to establish the trajectory of the ball, the velocity, and then calculate where it's going to be when it reaches you.
This compares to 2 where you have 0.17 of a second to perform all of the above processing, and move your hands to the correct spot.
As you would expect from the speed of B being four times that of A, you have 25% of the processing (reaction) time when trying to catch the second ball.
In your example above you change the inputs, so of course you have a different output - what you basically gave was a fixed point (the junction) then varied the time of departure. Which ensured a different time of arrival. This has nothing to do with reaction time, so your thought experiment didn't actually have any meaning at all in terms of the point you were trying to make.
Try again - to prove your point that higher speeds DO NOT reduce reaction times, you'll have to come up with a scenario in which ball B is as easy as ball A to catch.
Phatboy - if we are in the park, say 20 feet apart, tell me in which of the following scenarios it would be easier to catch the ball (all other factors remaining equal):
A. I throw a gentle, looping underarm, the ball travels at ~20mph toward you.
B. I wind-up and throw a fast ball, the ball travels at ~80mph toward you.
The answer is A - because you have 0.7 of a second to establish the trajectory of the ball, the velocity, and then calculate where it's going to be when it reaches you.
This compares to 2 where you have 0.17 of a second to perform all of the above processing, and move your hands to the correct spot.
As you would expect from the speed of B being four times that of A, you have 25% of the processing (reaction) time when trying to catch the second ball.
In your example above you change the inputs, so of course you have a different output - what you basically gave was a fixed point (the junction) then varied the time of departure. Which ensured a different time of arrival. This has nothing to do with reaction time, so your thought experiment didn't actually have any meaning at all in terms of the point you were trying to make.
Try again - to prove your point that higher speeds DO NOT reduce reaction times, you'll have to come up with a scenario in which ball B is as easy as ball A to catch.
Edited by Dammit on Friday 24th October 07:32
singlecoil said:
Dammit said:
Moonhawk said:
To be fair - it is the logical conclusion to the argument.
A new challenger appears! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdumThis can join the Strawman fallacy, might keep him company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanaticism
irocfan said:
well seeing as we're reducing things to stupidity I'll join y'all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanaticism
Come on- you'll have to do better than that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanaticism
Try making a reasoned contribution rather than a very basic debating tactic and then getting your knickers in a twist when called on it.
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