Think! Wassat then?
Discussion
I witnessed an incident yesterday that got me thinking about the Government's Think! campaign. Just outside my house, on the A5 in the middle of town, a Transit drove straight into the back of a juggernaut cab. Quite apart from wondering how the hell the Transit driver managed to hit something that big, in a 30 limit, with roadworks signs all over the place, it was what happened next which astonished me.
The cab and van pulled over to the side of the road to assess the damage (terminal to both vehicles, so he must have been travelling some), leaving a pile of broken glass, plastic and other debris in the middle of the road about 20 yards behind them. The first couple of cars coming down the hill saw the debris, waited till there was a gap in the oncoming traffic and pulled safely around the whole scene.
However, in the couple of hours that followed, I only saw a handful of other cars do the same. Almost everyone else was following so closely behind the car in front that they had no idea there was an incident ahead, and had to come to rather a sharp halt when the car in front realised. It was quite amusing watching some people try and pick their way through the least damaging debris once they realised they had left it too late to pull round the whole lot!
But it got me thinking... Whenever I come up behind stationary traffic on a main road, I always leave a "safety gap" ahead of me in case someone behind can't stop in time. In this scenario, I would have left plenty of room to see the debris in time and not have to drive through it. I've also seen it mentioned on here, and in magazine articles, as an advanced driving technique (they certainly didn't teach it when I took my basic driving test). Given that 99% of the driving population will never take any further tuition once they've passed their test, do you not think the DfT (or whoever it is these days) should run a series of "Think!" adverts explaining the benefits of some of these defensive driving techniques, in short soundbite format, using something like the incident above to explain why they could be useful?
I know I'm preaching to the converted on here, but does anyone know how to put suggestions forward to the people behind the "Think!" campaigns? At least some "public information films" like these might have a better effect than the usual "Speed Kills" mantra...
The cab and van pulled over to the side of the road to assess the damage (terminal to both vehicles, so he must have been travelling some), leaving a pile of broken glass, plastic and other debris in the middle of the road about 20 yards behind them. The first couple of cars coming down the hill saw the debris, waited till there was a gap in the oncoming traffic and pulled safely around the whole scene.
However, in the couple of hours that followed, I only saw a handful of other cars do the same. Almost everyone else was following so closely behind the car in front that they had no idea there was an incident ahead, and had to come to rather a sharp halt when the car in front realised. It was quite amusing watching some people try and pick their way through the least damaging debris once they realised they had left it too late to pull round the whole lot!
But it got me thinking... Whenever I come up behind stationary traffic on a main road, I always leave a "safety gap" ahead of me in case someone behind can't stop in time. In this scenario, I would have left plenty of room to see the debris in time and not have to drive through it. I've also seen it mentioned on here, and in magazine articles, as an advanced driving technique (they certainly didn't teach it when I took my basic driving test). Given that 99% of the driving population will never take any further tuition once they've passed their test, do you not think the DfT (or whoever it is these days) should run a series of "Think!" adverts explaining the benefits of some of these defensive driving techniques, in short soundbite format, using something like the incident above to explain why they could be useful?
I know I'm preaching to the converted on here, but does anyone know how to put suggestions forward to the people behind the "Think!" campaigns? At least some "public information films" like these might have a better effect than the usual "Speed Kills" mantra...
Maybe I'm cynical but I think it would be a long way down the priorities of the authorities.
Only yesterday I was watching that '..at 40mph you'll kill me...' advert and it occurred that there is no positive education of the kids any more. I can't remember the last time I saw a Green Cross Code advert.
Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
Only yesterday I was watching that '..at 40mph you'll kill me...' advert and it occurred that there is no positive education of the kids any more. I can't remember the last time I saw a Green Cross Code advert.
Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
rsvmilly said:
Only yesterday I was watching that '..at 40mph you'll kill me...' advert and it occurred that there is no positive education of the kids any more. I can't remember the last time I saw a Green Cross Code advert.
Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
I hate that advert. For one thing, I'm sure that the statistics used to show that the survivability was 80% at 20 mph and 50% at 30 mph, so I don't particularly trust it when it says slowing from 40 mph to 30 improves survivability from 20% to 80%. And for another, it completely misses the point that 10 mph difference in speed makes relatively little difference compared to looking out for hazards. I can slow from 40 to 30 in half a second or so, which is tiny compared to the time taken to notice a child if you're looking the wrong way.
I know this is probably really anal, but one of the things I hate the most in those adverts is that the person getting clobbered is always preceded by the sound of skidding tyres. It subconciously instills the belief that the quickest way to stop is locking the wheels: the biggest problem being that if the car's making a lot of fuss, it feels like you're stopping quicker.
I also think more emphasis should be put on people not walking blindy into the road! A human can stop in a footstep, is small squishy and can be difficult to see; a car takes thirty feet to come to a halt, is big, generally a bright colour and made of stuff slighty more solid than a child's femur. In shipping, the sailboat is expected to move out of the way of the supertanker for the same reasons, and works because it makes perfect sense.
My way of driving is that you should always drive at 7/10 of what you judge to be safe, that way you automatically factor utter disasters into your road postion, speed etc hopefully to the point that the car in front could stop dead and you would still be able to avoid it.
I also think more emphasis should be put on people not walking blindy into the road! A human can stop in a footstep, is small squishy and can be difficult to see; a car takes thirty feet to come to a halt, is big, generally a bright colour and made of stuff slighty more solid than a child's femur. In shipping, the sailboat is expected to move out of the way of the supertanker for the same reasons, and works because it makes perfect sense.
My way of driving is that you should always drive at 7/10 of what you judge to be safe, that way you automatically factor utter disasters into your road postion, speed etc hopefully to the point that the car in front could stop dead and you would still be able to avoid it.
MrKipling43 said:
I know this is probably really anal, but one of the things I hate the most in those adverts is that the person getting clobbered is always preceded by the sound of skidding tyres. It subconciously instills the belief that the quickest way to stop is locking the wheels: the biggest problem being that if the car's making a lot of fuss, it feels like you're stopping quicker.
In some ways it is quicker for most drivers - while locked wheel friction may be some way below threshold braking, it is normally easier for the celebrated man in the street to lock the wheels than it is to brake at the limit. The other thing is that most people react well but don't brake hard enough - hence the development of Brake Assist and its ilk.
The one to watch out for is moving from a car with ABS to something that doesn't - something I forgot about when a dog ran in front of me a couple of weeks back...still stopped though, hard on and off the pedal.
"Hit me at fifty, I die. Hit me at 40, I'll die most of the time. Hit me at 30 and I'm likely to survive.
Teach the b**ger to cross the road carefully and the lights and it won't be a bloody problem!!!"
"Hit me at fifty, I die. Hit me at 40, I'll die most of the time. Hit me at 30 and I'm likely to survive.
Teach the b**ger to cross the road carefully and the lights and it won't be a bloody problem!!!"
The one that always made me curse out loud was the silver car trying to stop at the zebra crossing, with a commentary along the lines of "if you'd been travelling at 30mph you'd have stopped here."
I always thought "if you'd have had rear brakes that worked, you'd probably have stopped even sooner..."
Seriously though, does anyone know who's responsible for producing the adverts? Is it the DfT?
I always thought "if you'd have had rear brakes that worked, you'd probably have stopped even sooner..."
Seriously though, does anyone know who's responsible for producing the adverts? Is it the DfT?
hallmark said:
I always thought "if you'd have had rear brakes that worked, you'd probably have stopped even sooner..."
Given the child standing in the middle of the road and therefore clearly visible to the driver, it seems to me that the driver who gets within two seconds of running the child over before reacting is probably driving without due care and attention. The advert should have started by saying, "If you were paying attention you would have stopped just out of shot to the left. Now here's what happens if you aren't paying attention ..."
Back when I was doing this for a living (investigating accidents, rather than running children over), the research indicated that average reaction time for an unexpected incident was between 0.75 seconds and 1.5 seconds. Any more than that and it was considered for without due care. Grossly beyond that and it was considered for dangerous driving.
StressedDave said:
Back when I was doing this for a living (investigating accidents, rather than running children over), the research indicated that average reaction time for an unexpected incident was between 0.75 seconds and 1.5 seconds. Any more than that and it was considered for without due care. Grossly beyond that and it was considered for dangerous driving.
It just goes to show it's best to keep the unexpected incidents to a minimum - if that makes any sense - i.e. try to expect everything!
Best wishes all,
Dave.
hallmark said:
The one that always made me curse out loud was the silver car trying to stop at the zebra crossing, with a commentary along the lines of "if you'd been travelling at 30mph you'd have stopped here."
I always thought "if you'd have had rear brakes that worked, you'd probably have stopped even sooner..."
I always thought "if you'd have had rear brakes that worked, you'd probably have stopped even sooner..."
"If you let off the brakes here, you'll be able to steer around the cute squishy instead of sliding hopelessly into them."
Now that would be useful driver education...
townrow said:
Maybe we should build a child sensor into sat nav - as I'm sure that gets more attention these days than the road!
I'll tell you what - I have one of these instruments of the devil, and I simply couldn't mount it on my windscreen and drive. The blind spot and big distracting object in the field of vision just drove me utterly crazy.
I tried it mounted low on the centre console, but that took it out of my comfortable distance for an instrument scan, so again no go.
In the end I found I could mount it on the dashboard in such a way that the only thing obscured is the trip computer. This has worked well; it's in my usual instrument scan, except when I have the satnav in the car, the last instrument in the scan order is telling me I'm hopelessly lost instead of telling me I'm getting terrible fuel economy.
I think they're good; but speaking as someone who quite often works with that sort of road data for a living, you should never place anything approaching blind trust in them. And people who think they need to "turn left" the instant the device tells them, without observing or signalling, really ought to be kicked in the head a lot.
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