Speeding causes 3x as many deaths as previously thought...

[heebeegeetee]

It seems.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8959cbb4-d3a3-1...

https://twitter.com/AndyCoxDCS/status/152575131436...

[vonhosen]

Seems a sensible move to record contributory outcomes following the full investigation rather than on the basis of what was only available initially at the scene.

[OutInTheShed]

A lot of weasel words, interchanging 'speed' and 'speeding' and 'breaking the speed limit'.

[motco]

Twenty's Plenty said:

At 20mph there is a negligible risk of death. According to the Twenty’s Plenty campaign group

There is negligible risk of death at any speed if you don't hit anyone. To say that it is unlikely that a pedestrian will be killed at twenty miles per hour accepts that hitting someone is inevitable - don't hit them at all and the speed is far less relevant. If speed per se killed people then thousands would be dying from police vehicles on a call, and fire appliances, and ambulances. Simply forcing an unrealistically low limit on everyone is not a solution, it is a sticking plaster. Quality of driving is vital, and this must be addressed. Anyone who is found to have been driving dangerously should be banned not for a period of months, but for at least a decade and obliged to take a new, more stringent test before their licence is renewed. Bah! Humbug!

[vonhosen]

motco said:

Twenty's Plenty said:

At 20mph there is a negligible risk of death. According to the Twenty’s Plenty campaign group

There is negligible risk of death at any speed if you don't hit anyone. To say that it is unlikely that a pedestrian will be killed at twenty miles per hour accepts that hitting someone is inevitable - don't hit them at all and the speed is far less relevant. If speed per se killed people then thousands would be dying from police vehicles on a call, and fire appliances, and ambulances. Simply forcing an unrealistically low limit on everyone is not a solution, it is a sticking plaster. Quality of driving is vital, and this must be addressed. Anyone who is found to have been driving dangerously should be banned not for a period of months, but for at least a decade and obliged to take a new, more stringent test before their licence is renewed. Bah! Humbug!

Mistakes/errors of judgement are inevitable, not equally in volume for everybody, but we all do make them at times when driving.

[motco]

vonhosen said:

Seems a sensible move to record contributory outcomes following the full investigation rather than on the basis of what was only available initially at the scene.

Of course, but you more than most know that there's almost never a single cause. A cascade of events might result from one act of incompetence and excessive speed may be an element of that incompetence.

I was almost wiped out by an Audi R8 travelling on the wrong side of two islands on a single carriageway 'A' road in a 40mph section between 50mph sections. The driver was obviously speeding but it was impatience and disregard for the rule of 'keep left' more than the speed that were the major factors. The collision, had it occurred, would have been catastrophic entirely because of the energy of a couple of tonnes travelling at a closing speed of >100mph with another two tonne hunk of metal. Luckily I was able to bring my speed down from 40 to 30 and avert the collision. I have footage complete with GPS data on disc but the police were unable to act because two weeks had passed before my video reached the correct desk.

[vonhosen]

motco said:

vonhosen said:

Seems a sensible move to record contributory outcomes following the full investigation rather than on the basis of what was only available initially at the scene.

Of course, but you more than most know that there's almost never a single cause. A cascade of events might result from one act of incompetence and excessive speed may be an element of that incompetence.

I was almost wiped out by an Audi R8 travelling on the wrong side of two islands on a single carriageway 'A' road in a 40mph section between 50mph sections. The driver was obviously speeding but it was impatience and disregard for the rule of 'keep left' more than the speed that were the major factors. The collision, had it occurred, would have been catastrophic entirely because of the energy of a couple of tonnes travelling at a closing speed of >100mph with another two tonne hunk of metal. Luckily I was able to bring my speed down from 40 to 30 and avert the collision. I have footage complete with GPS data on disc but the police were unable to act because two weeks had passed before my video reached the correct desk.

But that's the thing about choice of speed, it is the one thing that when coupled with other mistakes will largely effect the severity of outcome & why governments around the world seek to impose restrictions on its' use depending on road types/locations.

[Ardennes92]

motco said:

Of course, but you more than most know that there's almost never a single cause. A cascade of events might result from one act of incompetence and excessive speed may be an element of that incompetence.

I was almost wiped out by an Audi R8 travelling on the wrong side of two islands on a single carriageway 'A' road in a 40mph section between 50mph sections. The driver was obviously speeding but it was impatience and disregard for the rule of 'keep left' more than the speed that were the major factors. The collision, had it occurred, would have been catastrophic entirely because of the energy of a couple of tonnes travelling at a closing speed of >100mph with another two tonne hunk of metal. Luckily I was able to bring my speed down from 40 to 30 and avert the collision. I have footage complete with GPS data on disc but the police were unable to act because two weeks had passed before my video reached the correct desk.

That sounds like very poor road layout/design if it is easier to take two islands at speed on the wrong side rather than keep left

[martinbiz]

motco said:

Of course, but you more than most know that there's almost never a single cause. A cascade of events might result from one act of incompetence and excessive speed may be an element of that incompetence.

I was almost wiped out by an Audi R8 travelling on the wrong side of two islands on a single carriageway 'A' road in a 40mph section between 50mph sections. The driver was obviously speeding but it was impatience and disregard for the rule of 'keep left' more than the speed that were the major factors. The collision, had it occurred, would have been catastrophic entirely because of the energy of a couple of tonnes travelling at a closing speed of >100mph with another two tonne hunk of metal. Luckily I was able to bring my speed down from 40 to 30 and avert the collision. I have footage complete with GPS data on disc but the police were unable to act because two weeks had passed before my video reached the correct desk.

That unfortunately was bum info, the 14 days to issue a NIP in cases like this should be from when the Police were made aware of the incident, not from the date the possible offence occurred, this has been tested numerous times. The finer points of the law are often not the police's strong point. If you have only just notified them (the 14 days would arguably have started at that point) and feel strongly about it I would go back to them and point out their error

[2Btoo]

motco said:

I was almost wiped out by an Audi R8 travelling on the wrong side of two islands on a single carriageway 'A' road in a 40mph section between 50mph sections. The driver was obviously speeding but it was impatience and disregard for the rule of 'keep left' more than the speed that were the major factors. The collision, had it occurred, would have been catastrophic entirely because of the energy of a couple of tonnes travelling at a closing speed of >100mph with another two tonne hunk of metal. Luckily I was able to bring my speed down from 40 to 30 and avert the collision. I have footage complete with GPS data on disc but the police were unable to act because two weeks had passed before my video reached the correct desk.

As you imply, it sounds like the fact that the driver was on the wrong side of a traffic island was BY FAR the most significant factor in this case!

[Debaser]

If they’re going to combine ‘motorists who broke the speed limit and those who drove too fast for the conditions’ under speeding, they might as well claim speeding causes 100% of deaths.

[5s Alive]

2Btoo said:

As you imply, it sounds like the fact that the driver was on the wrong side of a traffic island was BY FAR the most significant factor in this case!

By far the most significant factor appears to be a 'rules don't apply to me me me' mindset. The very same that seems to apply in most RTCs.

[Roofless Toothless]

I have always thought that speed doesn’t cause accidents, but just stops you getting out of them.

[motco]

vonhosen said:

motco said:

vonhosen said:

Seems a sensible move to record contributory outcomes following the full investigation rather than on the basis of what was only available initially at the scene.

Of course, but you more than most know that there's almost never a single cause. A cascade of events might result from one act of incompetence and excessive speed may be an element of that incompetence.

I was almost wiped out by an Audi R8 travelling on the wrong side of two islands on a single carriageway 'A' road in a 40mph section between 50mph sections. The driver was obviously speeding but it was impatience and disregard for the rule of 'keep left' more than the speed that were the major factors. The collision, had it occurred, would have been catastrophic entirely because of the energy of a couple of tonnes travelling at a closing speed of >100mph with another two tonne hunk of metal. Luckily I was able to bring my speed down from 40 to 30 and avert the collision. I have footage complete with GPS data on disc but the police were unable to act because two weeks had passed before my video reached the correct desk.

But that's the thing about choice of speed, it is the one thing that when coupled with other mistakes will largely effect the severity of outcome & why governments around the world seek to impose restrictions on its' use depending on road types/locations.

But is a blanket rule of twenty mph going to be effective? Few will obey it as few obeyed the previous thirty mph limit rigidly, and anyone who is determined to ignore the law will ignore it whatever the posted limit. In a residential 30mph road where I lived for thirty five years, as it was a local cut-through many users treated it as if it was 40mph or more in their blind dash to get to work. Numerous schemes were proposed and ultimately abandoned including a pair of buried sensors that linked to a short pillar that a police monitor crew could connect to. It was never used to my knowledge and I lived in eye line of the pillar from my front windows. After almost forty years of faffing they have installed speed cushions, and of a size that larger vehicles can almost straddle them to minimise the effect. My suggestion was not a speed camera nor any road surface devices like the cushions, but a set of traffic lights with red light camera. These lights would be on green at all times unless the approaching vehicle was travelling above the limit. At which point the lights would change to red and remain red for a 'long' time. If the perpetrator ignored them they would be photographed and prosecuted. Like the famous linked run of speed governing traffic lights on the Bath Road past the Slough Trading Estate back in the 1960s, drivers would soon learn that 30 was the fastest speed at which the road should be travelled!

[anonymous-user]

When they start including 'driving like a tt' as a contributing factor it might start being relevant rather than more supposed evidence for the 'speed kills' mantra and back to 4mph limits while following someone with a red flag.

[dundarach]

Without all this bullst again, we all know that the faster you're going, the bigger the bang!

Anyone saying anything else is being argumentative, which is fine.

Speed is one factor which unfortunately exponentially increases the severity of anything else that is going wrong.

So crap driving plus speed is more significant that crap driving at 5 mph!

Texting, drink, drugs, poorly maintained mechanics, are all made more significant with speed.

Speed alone doesn't kill, however it must (by the very physics of two things hitting each other quickly) be significant in the rate of fatalities.

TLDR - Drunk driving in parked car, ain't going to kill you as often as one you're doing 100mph in - statistics duh!

[Drawweight]

‘ This included motorists who broke the speed limit and those who drove too fast for the conditions’

This is redefining someone who skids at 10 mph on an ungritted road as a speeding motorist.

[andyalan10]

Debaser said:

If they’re going to combine ‘motorists who broke the speed limit and those who drove too fast for the conditions’ under speeding, they might as well claim speeding causes 100% of deaths.

Oh I was so nearly in 100% agreement with you.

But what about those cases where someone in a parked car is hit by a falling tree, or the car rolls off a cliff because the brake is not correctly applied?

Yes 99.5% of road deaths are cased by excessive speed*

• This figure comes from research in which I wrote some numbers down until one looked about right.

[Chrisgr31]

I am sure that they want us to return to travelling by horse and cart. Yes the faster you are going the greater the chance of injury but surely we would be better off ensuring collisions dont occur in the first place.

On the A26 through Herons Ghyll the speed limit was the national limit, the limit was reduced to 50 after a number of accidents. there were m ore accidents were people were driving at more than 50 so they reduced the limit to 40. Whats the point when people werent sticking to the existing limit? Needless to say no one sticks to the new lower limit.

I think a significant issue is that vehicles are too easy and comfortable to drive. The outcome is drivers are not concentrating as they used to. They have conversations on phones, play with music settings etc. If you are driving you should be driving only and giving it your full attention. Reducing speed limits wont help as drivers will think driving is even easier and pay even less attention.

[anonymous-user]

As they say..

Lies, damn lies and statistics.