How Safe is it to Break the Speed Limit? VERY!
Discussion
So apparently 15,000,000 drivers break speed limits every day. Most drivers will of course do so many times a day. So let's suggest very conservatively there might be 150,000,000 incidents of a speed limit being broken every day. I don't want to get silly here, but I'm going to to make the point, if each person's speeding incidents sum to just 10 minutes a day then that equates to 2861 years of "speeding" each day!
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If you were to believe the one third speed-related lie then three people die each day as a direct result of these 150,000,000 incidents (2861 years) of a speed limit being broken. Though I think many of us will consider it more likely that just 1½ people a day will die purely as a result of somebody driving too quickly.
Wow! What a safe bunch of drivers we Brits are eh? Harldy carnage is it considering considering the huge number of vehicle movements and "speeding" incidents each day.
So I wonder how many speed cameras it would take to reduce 150,000,000 (at the very least!) incidents of "speeding" every day to start saving these 1½ to 3 lives. It's not viable. Bear in mind too that a proportion of these deaths are caused by pedestrians stepping in front of moving vehicles and they STILL have a great chance of being killed if the impact is at 30 rather than 35 or 40 rather than 46! And a massive number of speed cameras would do nothing to save the remaining 7 to 8½ poor souls who would still die every day as a result of a mis-guided road safety policy.
It's no wonder the speed camera strategy isn't working! Anyway, as many of us on here know - they're looking at the wrong problem!
"Reg"
. If you were to believe the one third speed-related lie then three people die each day as a direct result of these 150,000,000 incidents (2861 years) of a speed limit being broken. Though I think many of us will consider it more likely that just 1½ people a day will die purely as a result of somebody driving too quickly.
Wow! What a safe bunch of drivers we Brits are eh? Harldy carnage is it considering considering the huge number of vehicle movements and "speeding" incidents each day.
So I wonder how many speed cameras it would take to reduce 150,000,000 (at the very least!) incidents of "speeding" every day to start saving these 1½ to 3 lives. It's not viable. Bear in mind too that a proportion of these deaths are caused by pedestrians stepping in front of moving vehicles and they STILL have a great chance of being killed if the impact is at 30 rather than 35 or 40 rather than 46! And a massive number of speed cameras would do nothing to save the remaining 7 to 8½ poor souls who would still die every day as a result of a mis-guided road safety policy.
It's no wonder the speed camera strategy isn't working! Anyway, as many of us on here know - they're looking at the wrong problem!
"Reg"
Surely then it's a case of many speed limits being wrong in the first place.
Obvious examples:
NSL on motorways and near motorway standard dual carriageways. More than half of the survey admitted to breaking the motorway limit yet they are the safest roads.
The 40mph speed limit for trucks on NSL single carriageways.
Many NSL limited roads changed to 50mph because of isolated blackspots that require an engineering solution.
This tends to give the general public contempt for speed limits that are necessary so compounding the problem.
Anyhow - one good thing to come out of it - joined SafeSpeed today after hearing Paul Smith on the radio.
The truth is out there!
www.safespeed.org.uk/
>> Edited by tim.tonal on Monday 7th February 15:59
Obvious examples:
NSL on motorways and near motorway standard dual carriageways. More than half of the survey admitted to breaking the motorway limit yet they are the safest roads.
The 40mph speed limit for trucks on NSL single carriageways.
Many NSL limited roads changed to 50mph because of isolated blackspots that require an engineering solution.
This tends to give the general public contempt for speed limits that are necessary so compounding the problem.
Anyhow - one good thing to come out of it - joined SafeSpeed today after hearing Paul Smith on the radio.
The truth is out there!
www.safespeed.org.uk/
>> Edited by tim.tonal on Monday 7th February 15:59
I think that's right Tim - many speed limits are anachronistic or inappropriately low.
Just to put the above another way, Mr Average would have to drive in excess of UK speed limits for around 3000 years solid during which he might be involved in a collision killing 1½ to 3 people. Mr IAM/Rospa would probably get away with it altogether. More emphasis on training please you useless prats in the DfT.
Please tell me if I've lost the plot completely today!
Just to put the above another way, Mr Average would have to drive in excess of UK speed limits for around 3000 years solid during which he might be involved in a collision killing 1½ to 3 people. Mr IAM/Rospa would probably get away with it altogether. More emphasis on training please you useless prats in the DfT.
Please tell me if I've lost the plot completely today!
good idea just imposible to implement. 90% of motorists use guess work on the motorway. cause no instructor ever tells them how to do it.
ok i know everyone on here knows how to drive and do so in a safe an responsible manner, but do we really have full control?
80% of modern cars still don`t have ABS and Passanger Airbags, Impact bars ETC. safety features that we supposedly expect from our modern hatches.
Cars are more dangerous now than ever before, we are tricked into believing that there safer so we drive faster, when the real danger is we are so dis-jointed from the road its closer to an arcade game than actually driving.
the only plausable solution is to irradicate human error. and have Autopilot for motorways, compulsory for every car, then were not actually driving so we can`t make mistakes.
ok i know everyone on here knows how to drive and do so in a safe an responsible manner, but do we really have full control?
80% of modern cars still don`t have ABS and Passanger Airbags, Impact bars ETC. safety features that we supposedly expect from our modern hatches.
Cars are more dangerous now than ever before, we are tricked into believing that there safer so we drive faster, when the real danger is we are so dis-jointed from the road its closer to an arcade game than actually driving.
the only plausable solution is to irradicate human error. and have Autopilot for motorways, compulsory for every car, then were not actually driving so we can`t make mistakes.
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