150 mph M25 8-10

Author
Discussion

flemke

22,864 posts

236 months

Friday 27th March 2015
quotequote all
La Liga said:
Kawasicki said:
Red 4 said:
I doubt you'd make the comments you have on this thread if you had more experience of the driving standards in this country than me.
My opinion/comments are backed up not only by experience, but by basic statistics, i.e. UK roads are relatively safe.

Your experience and the statistics seem to clash.
Relatively basic data analysis also concludes there'll be more risk and death. So there needs to be the subsequent benefit to justify the increased risk and death.

Where is the increased benefit beyond people who enjoy driving faster?
The same could be said about a huge range of other activities: where is the increased benefit beyond those specific people who enjoy any minority interest?

The benefit lies in the fact that we all are members of various minority interest groups, and we respect the reasonable minority interests of others in return for their respecting our reasonable minority interests.



LoonR1

26,988 posts

176 months

Friday 27th March 2015
quotequote all
CAFEDEAD said:
LoonR1 said:
So it's a snapshot?
Yes, of ~755000000 vehicles.
three quarters of a billion cars in the UK? No wonder the M25 is like a car park.

flemke

22,864 posts

236 months

Friday 27th March 2015
quotequote all
La Liga said:
I don't think it's anywhere near half. The point is there's a degree of compliance and tolerance with any limit that allows people a little more scope than the absolute figure. If you raise it to 80, then some will drive faster. It's not as simple as that, but that's an overview of compliance.

The DFT report is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/23_02_1...
Two overall comments on the report:

- It was the fruit of the 2010 Department for Transport, the ultimate head of which was Gordon-didn't-have-a-driving-licence-Brown. Once is sceptical that, after at least 13 years of political correctness, the DfT was capable of producing reports that had no underlying ideological agenda.

- The report relies heavily on cost benefit analyses using Willingness-to-Pay methodology. WtP is a favourite of economists and social scientists because it makes their jobs a lot simpler. WtP does not, however, make sense, because in essence it asks people how much they would have to be paid in order to die - a literally absurd question. WtP also comes up with conclusions such as that a life in a rich country is "worth" as much as 40x what a life in a poor country is worth, which is self-evidently utter nonsense. (Btw, on the basis of willingness-to-pay, in the most recent analysis I have seen, the "most valuable" lives in the world were of people in Austria.)


Phatboy317

801 posts

117 months

Saturday 28th March 2015
quotequote all
flemke said:
WtP does not, however, make sense, because in essence it asks people how much they would have to be paid in order to die - a literally absurd question.
I understand it as being how much someone would be willing to pay to avoid dying - which is just as absurd, seeing as most people never see anything close to £1.8M in their entire lifetime.
Additionally, there seems to be the assumption that a death on the roads causes a much greater loss to society than deaths from any other cause. If each and every death really did cost £1.8M then the country would never be able to afford to have people dying.


Edited by Phatboy317 on Saturday 28th March 00:36

anonymous-user

53 months

Saturday 28th March 2015
quotequote all
flemke said:
The same could be said about a huge range of other activities: where is the increased benefit beyond those specific people who enjoy any minority interest?

The benefit lies in the fact that we all are members of various minority interest groups, and we respect the reasonable minority interests of others in return for their respecting our reasonable minority interests.
But everyone else is forced to share your minority interest because we're talking about one of the most fundamental features of our society. That waters down the minority benefits since changes affect everyone, and not just those with the specific interest.


flemke

22,864 posts

236 months

Saturday 28th March 2015
quotequote all
Phatboy317 said:
flemke said:
WtP does not, however, make sense, because in essence it asks people how much they would have to be paid in order to die - a literally absurd question.
I understand it as being how much someone would be willing to pay to avoid dying - which is just as absurd, seeing as most people never see anything close to £1.8M in their entire lifetime.
Additionally, there seems to be the assumption that a death on the roads causes a much greater loss to society than deaths from any other cause. If each and every death really did cost £1.8M then the country would never be able to afford to have people dying.
You express it more clearly than I did. Sometimes they ask people how much they would pay to reduce their statistical risk of injury or death, and sometimes they ask how much they would need to be paid (such as, wages for a higher risk job) to assume more statistical risk.

This is a fascinating area of debate, the start of which has been credited to Tom Schelling, who is a brilliant guy. Even brilliant people, however, do not always get it right.

There might be a place for "Value of a Statistical Life" methodology when it comes to allocating public resources: "Should we build a Kettering bypass or allow the NHS to prescribe a new drug for prostate cancer? Pick one." In a way, that is like-for-like.

Weighing the value of a personal freedom against the statistical likelihood of additional KSIs is not the same thing. In that case, it's not like-for-like, but rather a hypothetical number that is maybe measurable against a purely abstract concept.

I believe that the current reckoning of the abstract value of a statistical life in UK is IRO £1.2m (this is exclusive of foregone net contribution to GDP, which is most of what get the total value up to IRO £1.8m). With a population of 64m, this is saying that abstract value of all UK lives is about £76 trillion. Value of all assets in UK is approx 10% of that number, so what all people theoretically would be willing to pay to avoid death is 10x more than what they actually have. That is to say, when people answer the hypothetical questions regarding what it's worth to them to preserve their own lives, they're playing with monopoly money.

At the same time, it is obviously unfair for a rich person to be able to be able to pay 10x or 100x as much to stay alive as a poor person is able to pay. Their lives should be "worth" the same. Hence we have the NHS.

There is plenty to be debated on the question of speed limits and, more broadly, British road safety, but bringing "the value of a life" into it as though that were some scientifically validated number takes us down a cul-de-sac.


flemke

22,864 posts

236 months

Saturday 28th March 2015
quotequote all
La Liga said:
flemke said:
The same could be said about a huge range of other activities: where is the increased benefit beyond those specific people who enjoy any minority interest?

The benefit lies in the fact that we all are members of various minority interest groups, and we respect the reasonable minority interests of others in return for their respecting our reasonable minority interests.
But everyone else is forced to share your minority interest because we're talking about one of the most fundamental features of our society. That waters down the minority benefits since changes affect everyone, and not just those with the specific interest.
But at the same time, the "advanced" driver is forced to accept the increased risk imposed upon him or her by nearby drivers who might be lighting a fag or adjusting the radio or having a conversation or, most commonly, who under all circumstances do not drive well.

It is not sustainable to argue that, for economic reasons, we should tolerate mediocre driving simply because it is within the posted speed limit whilst condemning less risky driving simply because it is outside the posted limit. Speed is an easy thing to measure, but using it as a catch-all proxy for overall risk is misconceived.




LoonR1

26,988 posts

176 months

Saturday 28th March 2015
quotequote all
flemke said:
But at the same time, the "advanced" driver is forced to accept the increased risk imposed upon him or her by nearby drivers who might be lighting a fag or adjusting the radio or having a conversation or, most commonly, who under all circumstances do not drive well.

It is not sustainable to argue that, for economic reasons, we should tolerate mediocre driving simply because it is within the posted speed limit whilst condemning less risky driving simply because it is outside the posted limit. Speed is an easy thing to measure, but using it as a catch-all proxy for overall risk is misconceived.
So what's your solution? Flood the roads with police to monitor ever single driver? Fit a black box to all cars?

flemke

22,864 posts

236 months

Saturday 28th March 2015
quotequote all
LoonR1 said:
flemke said:
But at the same time, the "advanced" driver is forced to accept the increased risk imposed upon him or her by nearby drivers who might be lighting a fag or adjusting the radio or having a conversation or, most commonly, who under all circumstances do not drive well.

It is not sustainable to argue that, for economic reasons, we should tolerate mediocre driving simply because it is within the posted speed limit whilst condemning less risky driving simply because it is outside the posted limit. Speed is an easy thing to measure, but using it as a catch-all proxy for overall risk is misconceived.
So what's your solution? Flood the roads with police to monitor ever single driver? Fit a black box to all cars?
I would not call it a "solution", but an improvement would be to offer an advanced driving licence to those who would qualify for it. That licence would entitle the holder to make certain judgments for him(her)self, such as speed outside of built-up areas, turning left on red, and crossing a solid line.


Jim1556

1,771 posts

155 months

Saturday 28th March 2015
quotequote all
LoonR1 said:
So what's your solution? Flood the roads with police to monitor ever single driver? Fit a black box to all cars?
Only give a licence to those who can pass a driving test, a HGV driving test (to assess spatial awareness more thoroughly), AND can do a sub 9 min lap of the Nurburgring in a car with less than 230bhp! wink

Doubt I'll ever get in power though, I'd put a 2 child cap on benefits, abolish inheritance tax, limit immigration to people we actually need (qualified with job offers), disband the House of Lords and ensure no one in the public sector earned more than the PM...

Edited by Jim1556 on Saturday 28th March 20:38

LoonR1

26,988 posts

176 months

Saturday 28th March 2015
quotequote all
flemke said:
I would not call it a "solution", but an improvement would be to offer an advanced driving licence to those who would qualify for it. That licence would entitle the holder to make certain judgments for him(her)self, such as speed outside of built-up areas, turning left on red, and crossing a solid line.

That makes no sense based on your earlier comment. You can't say "Here's a greater increased due to others inability, so you can drive faster around them. Off you go."

flemke

22,864 posts

236 months

Saturday 28th March 2015
quotequote all
LoonR1 said:
flemke said:
I would not call it a "solution", but an improvement would be to offer an advanced driving licence to those who would qualify for it. That licence would entitle the holder to make certain judgments for him(her)self, such as speed outside of built-up areas, turning left on red, and crossing a solid line.

That makes no sense based on your earlier comment. You can't say "Here's a greater increased due to others inability, so you can drive faster around them. Off you go."
That was not the point.
You objected to a good driver's driving faster on the basis that that put other drivers, including bad drivers, at increased risk.
I stated that it made no sense to object to the good driver's increasing risk when his total risk created was still less than that created by a bad driver.

I think your thesis is that one should not create unnecessary risk to others, and that driving at, say, 90 rather than 70 would be creating unnecessary risk.

My thesis is that we all create unnecessary risk to each other every day, and that the criterion for judging the tolerability of that risk should be not whether one group approves of the source of that risk, but should be rather what is the degree of that risk.

I fail to see how, when 2 people are creating the same kind of risk (driving with others on public roads), we can tolerate the one creating more risk (through bad attitude, physical or mental inability, lack of training, lack of experience, illness, etc) whilst constraining the one creating less risk. It makes no sense.

I would not constrain the poorer driver creating more risk, because I believe that the level of poor-driver risk that we currently tolerate is about right, relative to the poor driver's right to pursue his/her own interests.

At the same time, I would liberate the good driver to the extent that he/she is allowed to create some additional risk, so long as it did not exceed the risk that we already tolerate in other drivers.



Phatboy317

801 posts

117 months

Saturday 28th March 2015
quotequote all
LoonR1 said:
flemke said:
I would not call it a "solution", but an improvement would be to offer an advanced driving licence to those who would qualify for it. That licence would entitle the holder to make certain judgments for him(her)self, such as speed outside of built-up areas, turning left on red, and crossing a solid line.

That makes no sense based on your earlier comment. You can't say "Here's a greater increased due to others inability, so you can drive faster around them. Off you go."
A good driver is one who knows when and where they can drive faster without imposing extra risk on others.

vonhosen

40,198 posts

216 months

Saturday 28th March 2015
quotequote all
flemke said:
LoonR1 said:
flemke said:
I would not call it a "solution", but an improvement would be to offer an advanced driving licence to those who would qualify for it. That licence would entitle the holder to make certain judgments for him(her)self, such as speed outside of built-up areas, turning left on red, and crossing a solid line.

That makes no sense based on your earlier comment. You can't say "Here's a greater increased due to others inability, so you can drive faster around them. Off you go."
That was not the point.
You objected to a good driver's driving faster on the basis that that put other drivers, including bad drivers, at increased risk.
I stated that it made no sense to object to the good driver's increasing risk when his total risk created was still less than that created by a bad driver.

I think your thesis is that one should not create unnecessary risk to others, and that driving at, say, 90 rather than 70 would be creating unnecessary risk.

My thesis is that we all create unnecessary risk to each other every day, and that the criterion for judging the tolerability of that risk should be not whether one group approves of the source of that risk, but should be rather what is the degree of that risk.

I fail to see how, when 2 people are creating the same kind of risk (driving with others on public roads), we can tolerate the one creating more risk (through bad attitude, physical or mental inability, lack of training, lack of experience, illness, etc) whilst constraining the one creating less risk. It makes no sense.

I would not constrain the poorer driver creating more risk, because I believe that the level of poor-driver risk that we currently tolerate is about right, relative to the poor driver's right to pursue his/her own interests.

At the same time, I would liberate the good driver to the extent that he/she is allowed to create some additional risk, so long as it did not exceed the risk that we already tolerate in other drivers.

The law doesn't tolerate poor or inattentive driving. That's what Sec 3 RTA is there for.

Phatboy317

801 posts

117 months

Saturday 28th March 2015
quotequote all
vonhosen said:
flemke said:
LoonR1 said:
flemke said:
I would not call it a "solution", but an improvement would be to offer an advanced driving licence to those who would qualify for it. That licence would entitle the holder to make certain judgments for him(her)self, such as speed outside of built-up areas, turning left on red, and crossing a solid line.

That makes no sense based on your earlier comment. You can't say "Here's a greater increased due to others inability, so you can drive faster around them. Off you go."
That was not the point.
You objected to a good driver's driving faster on the basis that that put other drivers, including bad drivers, at increased risk.
I stated that it made no sense to object to the good driver's increasing risk when his total risk created was still less than that created by a bad driver.

I think your thesis is that one should not create unnecessary risk to others, and that driving at, say, 90 rather than 70 would be creating unnecessary risk.

My thesis is that we all create unnecessary risk to each other every day, and that the criterion for judging the tolerability of that risk should be not whether one group approves of the source of that risk, but should be rather what is the degree of that risk.

I fail to see how, when 2 people are creating the same kind of risk (driving with others on public roads), we can tolerate the one creating more risk (through bad attitude, physical or mental inability, lack of training, lack of experience, illness, etc) whilst constraining the one creating less risk. It makes no sense.

I would not constrain the poorer driver creating more risk, because I believe that the level of poor-driver risk that we currently tolerate is about right, relative to the poor driver's right to pursue his/her own interests.

At the same time, I would liberate the good driver to the extent that he/she is allowed to create some additional risk, so long as it did not exceed the risk that we already tolerate in other drivers.

The law doesn't tolerate poor or inattentive driving. That's what Sec 3 RTA is there for.
How many people are prosecuted for poor and inattentive driving, in comparison to the number prosecuted for speeding?

vonhosen

40,198 posts

216 months

Saturday 28th March 2015
quotequote all
Phatboy317 said:
vonhosen said:
flemke said:
LoonR1 said:
flemke said:
I would not call it a "solution", but an improvement would be to offer an advanced driving licence to those who would qualify for it. That licence would entitle the holder to make certain judgments for him(her)self, such as speed outside of built-up areas, turning left on red, and crossing a solid line.

That makes no sense based on your earlier comment. You can't say "Here's a greater increased due to others inability, so you can drive faster around them. Off you go."
That was not the point.
You objected to a good driver's driving faster on the basis that that put other drivers, including bad drivers, at increased risk.
I stated that it made no sense to object to the good driver's increasing risk when his total risk created was still less than that created by a bad driver.

I think your thesis is that one should not create unnecessary risk to others, and that driving at, say, 90 rather than 70 would be creating unnecessary risk.

My thesis is that we all create unnecessary risk to each other every day, and that the criterion for judging the tolerability of that risk should be not whether one group approves of the source of that risk, but should be rather what is the degree of that risk.

I fail to see how, when 2 people are creating the same kind of risk (driving with others on public roads), we can tolerate the one creating more risk (through bad attitude, physical or mental inability, lack of training, lack of experience, illness, etc) whilst constraining the one creating less risk. It makes no sense.

I would not constrain the poorer driver creating more risk, because I believe that the level of poor-driver risk that we currently tolerate is about right, relative to the poor driver's right to pursue his/her own interests.

At the same time, I would liberate the good driver to the extent that he/she is allowed to create some additional risk, so long as it did not exceed the risk that we already tolerate in other drivers.

The law doesn't tolerate poor or inattentive driving. That's what Sec 3 RTA is there for.
How many people are prosecuted for poor and inattentive driving, in comparison to the number prosecuted for speeding?
That doesn't mean that poor & inattentive driving is tolerated, it just means that speeding is easier to detect/prove.

flemke

22,864 posts

236 months

Sunday 29th March 2015
quotequote all
vonhosen said:
flemke said:
LoonR1 said:
flemke said:
I would not call it a "solution", but an improvement would be to offer an advanced driving licence to those who would qualify for it. That licence would entitle the holder to make certain judgments for him(her)self, such as speed outside of built-up areas, turning left on red, and crossing a solid line.

That makes no sense based on your earlier comment. You can't say "Here's a greater increased due to others inability, so you can drive faster around them. Off you go."
That was not the point.
You objected to a good driver's driving faster on the basis that that put other drivers, including bad drivers, at increased risk.
I stated that it made no sense to object to the good driver's increasing risk when his total risk created was still less than that created by a bad driver.

I think your thesis is that one should not create unnecessary risk to others, and that driving at, say, 90 rather than 70 would be creating unnecessary risk.

My thesis is that we all create unnecessary risk to each other every day, and that the criterion for judging the tolerability of that risk should be not whether one group approves of the source of that risk, but should be rather what is the degree of that risk.

I fail to see how, when 2 people are creating the same kind of risk (driving with others on public roads), we can tolerate the one creating more risk (through bad attitude, physical or mental inability, lack of training, lack of experience, illness, etc) whilst constraining the one creating less risk. It makes no sense.

I would not constrain the poorer driver creating more risk, because I believe that the level of poor-driver risk that we currently tolerate is about right, relative to the poor driver's right to pursue his/her own interests.

At the same time, I would liberate the good driver to the extent that he/she is allowed to create some additional risk, so long as it did not exceed the risk that we already tolerate in other drivers.

The law doesn't tolerate poor or inattentive driving. That's what Sec 3 RTA is there for.
The law may not tolerate it, but as a society we do tolerate it. If we did not, it would not be so common. Poor or inattentive driving, which can take many forms, is cited as a contributory factor in RTAs vastly more frequently than exceeding the speed limit is cited.

Regardless of what the law literally tolerates or does not tolerate, the fact is that, as with most groupings of human beings, amongst drivers the quality of performance forms a pyramid. There are many more drivers at the bottom who drive at the lowest, barely legal standard than there are drivers at the top who drive at the highest standard.
That was the point - we choose to let the worst barely scrape by. By doing that the worst drivers create, and society tolerates, more absolute risk than what would be created by allowing the best to take, possibly, slightly more risk than they do now.
Although there will be a large group of drivers in the middle, there is something slightly ridiculous in allowing the worst (legal) drivers to dictate that the best drivers may not increase the overall risk, when the worst drivers are already creating the most risk of all.

Phatboy317

801 posts

117 months

Sunday 29th March 2015
quotequote all
vonhosen said:
Phatboy317 said:
vonhosen said:
flemke said:
LoonR1 said:
flemke said:
I would not call it a "solution", but an improvement would be to offer an advanced driving licence to those who would qualify for it. That licence would entitle the holder to make certain judgments for him(her)self, such as speed outside of built-up areas, turning left on red, and crossing a solid line.

That makes no sense based on your earlier comment. You can't say "Here's a greater increased due to others inability, so you can drive faster around them. Off you go."
That was not the point.
You objected to a good driver's driving faster on the basis that that put other drivers, including bad drivers, at increased risk.
I stated that it made no sense to object to the good driver's increasing risk when his total risk created was still less than that created by a bad driver.

I think your thesis is that one should not create unnecessary risk to others, and that driving at, say, 90 rather than 70 would be creating unnecessary risk.

My thesis is that we all create unnecessary risk to each other every day, and that the criterion for judging the tolerability of that risk should be not whether one group approves of the source of that risk, but should be rather what is the degree of that risk.

I fail to see how, when 2 people are creating the same kind of risk (driving with others on public roads), we can tolerate the one creating more risk (through bad attitude, physical or mental inability, lack of training, lack of experience, illness, etc) whilst constraining the one creating less risk. It makes no sense.

I would not constrain the poorer driver creating more risk, because I believe that the level of poor-driver risk that we currently tolerate is about right, relative to the poor driver's right to pursue his/her own interests.

At the same time, I would liberate the good driver to the extent that he/she is allowed to create some additional risk, so long as it did not exceed the risk that we already tolerate in other drivers.

The law doesn't tolerate poor or inattentive driving. That's what Sec 3 RTA is there for.
How many people are prosecuted for poor and inattentive driving, in comparison to the number prosecuted for speeding?
That doesn't mean that poor & inattentive driving is tolerated, it just means that speeding is easier to detect/prove.
And so we do just that - in spades

Driving in the dark carries more risk.
So we could undoubtedly save lives by making it illegal to drive in the dark. We could then simply prosecute those caught driving between the hours of 6pm and 6am, never mind that it's not necessarily dark inside those hours or light outside of them.
That's similar to what we do with speed limits, isn't it?


Edited by Phatboy317 on Sunday 29th March 00:23

vonhosen

40,198 posts

216 months

Sunday 29th March 2015
quotequote all
flemke said:
vonhosen said:
flemke said:
LoonR1 said:
flemke said:
I would not call it a "solution", but an improvement would be to offer an advanced driving licence to those who would qualify for it. That licence would entitle the holder to make certain judgments for him(her)self, such as speed outside of built-up areas, turning left on red, and crossing a solid line.

That makes no sense based on your earlier comment. You can't say "Here's a greater increased due to others inability, so you can drive faster around them. Off you go."
That was not the point.
You objected to a good driver's driving faster on the basis that that put other drivers, including bad drivers, at increased risk.
I stated that it made no sense to object to the good driver's increasing risk when his total risk created was still less than that created by a bad driver.

I think your thesis is that one should not create unnecessary risk to others, and that driving at, say, 90 rather than 70 would be creating unnecessary risk.

My thesis is that we all create unnecessary risk to each other every day, and that the criterion for judging the tolerability of that risk should be not whether one group approves of the source of that risk, but should be rather what is the degree of that risk.

I fail to see how, when 2 people are creating the same kind of risk (driving with others on public roads), we can tolerate the one creating more risk (through bad attitude, physical or mental inability, lack of training, lack of experience, illness, etc) whilst constraining the one creating less risk. It makes no sense.

I would not constrain the poorer driver creating more risk, because I believe that the level of poor-driver risk that we currently tolerate is about right, relative to the poor driver's right to pursue his/her own interests.

At the same time, I would liberate the good driver to the extent that he/she is allowed to create some additional risk, so long as it did not exceed the risk that we already tolerate in other drivers.

The law doesn't tolerate poor or inattentive driving. That's what Sec 3 RTA is there for.
The law may not tolerate it, but as a society we do tolerate it. If we did not, it would not be so common. Poor or inattentive driving, which can take many forms, is cited as a contributory factor in RTAs vastly more frequently than exceeding the speed limit is cited.

Regardless of what the law literally tolerates or does not tolerate, the fact is that, as with most groupings of human beings, amongst drivers the quality of performance forms a pyramid. There are many more drivers at the bottom who drive at the lowest, barely legal standard than there are drivers at the top who drive at the highest standard.
That was the point - we choose to let the worst barely scrape by. By doing that the worst drivers create, and society tolerates, more absolute risk than what would be created by allowing the best to take, possibly, slightly more risk than they do now.
Although there will be a large group of drivers in the middle, there is something slightly ridiculous in allowing the worst (legal) drivers to dictate that the best drivers may not increase the overall risk, when the worst drivers are already creating the most risk of all.
By that rationale we tolerate speeding, as it is common.
As far as contributory factors in fatalities exceeding the limit/inappropriate speed are right up there are causation factors. Higher than tailgating, drink/drug driving, mobile phone use etc etc.
Where there is sufficient evidence against the worst drivers action would be taken, it can't where sufficient evidence doesn't exist.

vonhosen

40,198 posts

216 months

Sunday 29th March 2015
quotequote all
Phatboy317 said:
vonhosen said:
Phatboy317 said:
vonhosen said:
flemke said:
LoonR1 said:
flemke said:
I would not call it a "solution", but an improvement would be to offer an advanced driving licence to those who would qualify for it. That licence would entitle the holder to make certain judgments for him(her)self, such as speed outside of built-up areas, turning left on red, and crossing a solid line.

That makes no sense based on your earlier comment. You can't say "Here's a greater increased due to others inability, so you can drive faster around them. Off you go."
That was not the point.
You objected to a good driver's driving faster on the basis that that put other drivers, including bad drivers, at increased risk.
I stated that it made no sense to object to the good driver's increasing risk when his total risk created was still less than that created by a bad driver.

I think your thesis is that one should not create unnecessary risk to others, and that driving at, say, 90 rather than 70 would be creating unnecessary risk.

My thesis is that we all create unnecessary risk to each other every day, and that the criterion for judging the tolerability of that risk should be not whether one group approves of the source of that risk, but should be rather what is the degree of that risk.

I fail to see how, when 2 people are creating the same kind of risk (driving with others on public roads), we can tolerate the one creating more risk (through bad attitude, physical or mental inability, lack of training, lack of experience, illness, etc) whilst constraining the one creating less risk. It makes no sense.

I would not constrain the poorer driver creating more risk, because I believe that the level of poor-driver risk that we currently tolerate is about right, relative to the poor driver's right to pursue his/her own interests.

At the same time, I would liberate the good driver to the extent that he/she is allowed to create some additional risk, so long as it did not exceed the risk that we already tolerate in other drivers.

The law doesn't tolerate poor or inattentive driving. That's what Sec 3 RTA is there for.
How many people are prosecuted for poor and inattentive driving, in comparison to the number prosecuted for speeding?
That doesn't mean that poor & inattentive driving is tolerated, it just means that speeding is easier to detect/prove.
And so we do just that - in spades
They deal with/prosecute where sufficient evidence exists, whatever the offence.