Discussion
If speed kills: (was thinking about this on the way to the local shop which is next door to a taxi firm)....
Cabbies / Private Hire drivers do speed - even if they dont do any more than the average driver, they do 3 to 4 times as much mileage and therefore they will be speeding 3 to 4 times as much (with very simple maths).....
So, are they 3 to 4 times more likely to kill someone?
Extrapolating the figures slightly, image if Polly Toynbee was correct and its a 1 in 200 chance of being killed on the road.... you would increase the chance to between 1 in 66 to 1 in 50..... christ you are taking your life in your own hands when getting in a cab....
Or is it all bollox and cabbies are no more dangerous than anyone else - even though they might speed more and cover much more mileage...??
I know what I think....
P.S. Pete, Trucks have tachographs for maximum speed ono motorways as well as A roads. For example, they are supposed to do 40 on A roads - thats 20 MPH less than the speed limit, but are they statistically safer? If so then call me a Illegal immigrant and let me hitch a ride....
Cabbies / Private Hire drivers do speed - even if they dont do any more than the average driver, they do 3 to 4 times as much mileage and therefore they will be speeding 3 to 4 times as much (with very simple maths).....
So, are they 3 to 4 times more likely to kill someone?
Extrapolating the figures slightly, image if Polly Toynbee was correct and its a 1 in 200 chance of being killed on the road.... you would increase the chance to between 1 in 66 to 1 in 50..... christ you are taking your life in your own hands when getting in a cab....
Or is it all bollox and cabbies are no more dangerous than anyone else - even though they might speed more and cover much more mileage...??
I know what I think....
P.S. Pete, Trucks have tachographs for maximum speed ono motorways as well as A roads. For example, they are supposed to do 40 on A roads - thats 20 MPH less than the speed limit, but are they statistically safer? If so then call me a Illegal immigrant and let me hitch a ride....
At some point there's going to be an interesting case when someone questions why in the EEC state that it's OK to drive at 85mph on a motorway in one country or 150mph on a motorway in another country but not OK to drive at 75mph on a motorway in this country ?
But the same british driver is safe to drive in germany or France or wherever at higher speeds and "be safe"
woof said:
At some point there's going to be an interesting case when someone questions why in the EEC state that it's OK to drive at 85mph on a motorway in one country or 150mph on a motorway in another country but not OK to drive at 75mph on a motorway in this country ?
But the same british driver is safe to drive in germany or France or wherever at higher speeds and "be safe"
Although there is an unfortunate argument that the roads in this country are sh1t compared to most other european countries...so you may be safer driving faster. Not that this should be an excuse to have low limits, it should be a reason to fix the
roads.
im not saying they are perfect and im sure any continental PHers would be willing to vent their anger. However, they can actually handle the fact that different lanes move at different speeds and if you are in the wrong lane you move.
It would be interesting to see the accident rate of german autobahns, compared to our motorways. I expect it would show that speed doesnt kill.
It would be interesting to see the accident rate of german autobahns, compared to our motorways. I expect it would show that speed doesnt kill.
The 1 in 200 is actually true. However it all depends upon how you look at it. This figure is derived from all the people that died in the UK over a year. IE if you're going to die this year you have a 1 in 200 chance of it being on the road. If I said you had a 0.5% chance that doesn't sound as dramatic.
Since aprox 600,000 people die in the UK each year in simple terms you've got a 1 in 100 chance of dieing anyway. Combining that with the chances of it happening on the road thats a 1 in 20,000 in real terms (or 0.00005%, sounds a lot better).
As always the devil is in the detail. This is with out breaking it down to how many of these deaths were pissed pedestrians, driving a car, stupid school children or had been trampled by a horse.
Since aprox 600,000 people die in the UK each year in simple terms you've got a 1 in 100 chance of dieing anyway. Combining that with the chances of it happening on the road thats a 1 in 20,000 in real terms (or 0.00005%, sounds a lot better).
As always the devil is in the detail. This is with out breaking it down to how many of these deaths were pissed pedestrians, driving a car, stupid school children or had been trampled by a horse.
chief-0369 said:
im not saying they are perfect and im sure any continental PHers would be willing to vent their anger. However, they can actually handle the fact that different lanes move at different speeds and if you are in the wrong lane you move.
It would be interesting to see the accident rate of german autobahns, compared to our motorways. I expect it would show that speed doesnt kill.
From page:
www.safespeed.org.uk/international2.html
Best Regards,
Paul Smith
Safe Speed
www.safespeed.org.uk
chief-0369 said:
ok thats my theory out of the window
Quoting the web site:
The speed kills argument would be greatly facilitated if there was a correlation between the motorway speed limit and the fatal accident rate of different countries. Unfortunately for the "speed kills" proponents no such relationship exists. All the countries listed have Motorway speed limits between 62.5 mph and 82 mph except Germany which has no limit. The UK has the safest Motorways and a speed limit somewhere in the middle of the range. (70 mph)
Let's look at Germany where the Autobahns famously have no speed limit. Germany clearly shows as one of the safer countries (it's around twice as safe as Belgium or Austria for example). Perhaps Germany isn't quite so famous for having some of the most antiquated Motorways in Europe. But it's true. They were the first to build, and they have tight junctions, short slip roads and proportionately more two lane Motorways than most of the other countries. So we should expect the German Autobahns to be "quite dangerous" by design.
It's great to note that UK Motorways are the safest in the list. Obviously we're doing something right, but when you compare the UK with the other countries it's obvious that there's no relationship between speed limit and motorway fatality rate. Other factors must be far more important.
There's an 8:1 variation between the UK and Hungary, but only a 2:1 variation between the UK and Germany. If anyone thinks for a moment that the speed limit in Germany might be the main factor which makes the Autobahns twice as dangerous as the UK motorways, please also consider why the Belgian and Austrian Motorways are twice as dangerous as the Autobahns. And if that's not enough you'll have to explain why the Hungarian Motorways are twice as dangerous as the Belgian Motorways.
In Poland and Hungary, it might be reasonable to assume that economic conditions affect the fatality rates.
But whatever it is that's killing in those countries at the top of the scale, it isn't speed is it?
Best Regards,
Paul Smith
Safe Speed
www.safespeed.org.uk
puggit said:
Paul - any increase in motorway fatalities in the UK since middle lane morons started hogging the centre lane (more) in recent years?
Not much change since about 1993.
Uk motorways: deaths per billion vehicle kilometres:
old mileage method:
1991 2.92
1992 3.11
1993 2.49
new mileage method:
1993 2.33
1994 1.91
1995 2.08
1996 1.95
1997 1.94
1998 1.82
1999 2.01
2000 1.83
2001 1.98
2002 1.89
Best Regards,
Paul Smith
Safe Speed
www.safespeed.org.uk
Most motorway miles in the UK are done at 5mph in all the congestion though! (I'm being facetious, but it may not be far from the truth!) In m limited experience, continental motorways run at higher speed than most of the UK ones. There's just not enough roads.
I think numpty's have always middle lane hogged. I remember 10 years ago coming across a car in the middle lane of the M6 at 3am with nothing around. I was in a truck, so flashed the numpty, he moved out of the way, then straight back into the middle lane. It was another 5km before I swa another vehicle!
I think numpty's have always middle lane hogged. I remember 10 years ago coming across a car in the middle lane of the M6 at 3am with nothing around. I was in a truck, so flashed the numpty, he moved out of the way, then straight back into the middle lane. It was another 5km before I swa another vehicle!
As a Hungarian resident I was horified to see your statistics Paul. I think you would also find that the majority of accidents here are caused by male agressive behaviour. The road policing here is very poor, you practically never see police on the motorways, thus agressive driving is unpenalised. Around towns at lower speeds it is sustainable, the higher speeds on motorways (130kmh/81mph) mean more serious results. I have seen some really dangerous and stupid driving here, I hope the UK does not go the same way with the reduced traffic policing.
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