speed limits: do they work? (of course not)

[anthonym]

It's been a while since I posted here, in fact I am not sure if I ever have, just cannot recall. I'll see my time and posts count when I post this.
I am interested in changing the world's (UN, EU, WHO, BMJ) approach to speed. To recognise that speed does not kill - every time someone breaks the speed limit, someone doesn't die., for example.
Seems to me that ALL the anti speed pressure comes from vested interests. For example years ago when HMG threatened to shut down 50% of the railway network, Transport 2000 was set up by rail unions (and others anti car) to drive cars off the road through taking the joy out of driving, they then leveraged other anti car groups and since then "charities" have used the bereaved as weapons and politicians are faced with mums and kids bearing placards demanding speed traps - all because the idea that passing over an empty piece of tarmac at one speed as compared to another speed alone is going to cause death on said empty piece of road. Since ancient times it has been seen that attempts to force change on the people do not work, and this includes driver behaviour. People respond to support and education, not threats. Threats are responded to with counter measures and in the case of enforcement alienates society from the police who need support from said society in order to protect said society. "plod" are part of society and their being tasked with criminalising 50% of drivers, who by the way are the responsible adults who in the rest of life make that society work, is really not a good idea, especially when it has been shown that not only do speed traps not work, neither do political speed limits.

Question I have here is, is PH a place to find like minded people who may be interested in doing something about all this? Change would not be fast, but it could be made inevitable - debunking the faulty research has been done (that's not for here, too long and complex and as we know BS beats brains especially online), but being right doesn't achieve anything on its own, especially in the face of well funded vested interests, well organised and professional. They will first and always "attack the man" as can be seen in every case where individuals try to take on the establishment - get yourself on Breakfast TV and you will find yourself up against a nine year lass who tragically has lost her daddy in a road crash. Nothing to be said. You lose.

Anyone prefers to engage by pm is welcome.

oh yes, knowing PH, you can take the piss, mock (both keyboard simple for puerile idiots) - or get involved. DO SOMETHING. Question is: what? Stopping the carnage is what it's about - because that is not what is going on, to the profit of those involved.

How is it that the population of drivers are the only group excluded from representation in road safety policy?

In my view it is all about respect. The law and government has to respect the people. Failure to do so will mean the people do not respect the law and government, which leads in the end to anarchy, in this case on our roads. You cannot force drivers, you must lead them with support and education etc. Radar signs, not radar traps, for example.

Anthony - petrolhead and pissed off with the bull.

Let's create a rebellion. F R E E D O M !!!! Stay awake, Stay sharp, Stay alive!

Edited by anthonym on Friday 14th August 10:23

Edited by anthonym on Friday 14th August 12:32

[anthonym]

Dammit said:

In which case I have some magic beans that I am sure you'll be interested in.

TO DAMMIT whoever you are.

your activities here suggest you have a vested interest in trashing road safety (edit: he is a cyclist car hater), probably to your own profit - or you are a troll or both.
your failure to contribute anything meaningful and to engage in hostile mockery suggest you have a hidden agenda.

should you wish to join in informed debate I expect you would be welcome, but currently your behaviour is no more than a troll - despite having x thousand previous posts - it seems having engaged in posting large numbers of previous posts is no guarantee of acceptable behaviour nor of hidden agendas or vested interests.

GENERALLY PH

Seems to me it is wrong of those in here to attack new posters without any mercy whatever - ask yourselves why some never or rarely post. The poor quality of the troll like responses makes it no surprise.

Any real troll, vested interest holder, hidden agenda follower, will not be affected by your hostility, only those who would join you in your interests are the ones you hurt. As such you destroy only what you claim to be your own interests in things where speed matters.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

A lot. First step is to gather together, I was hoping PH is an obvious place, but the (quite frankly) trolls make me wonder.

That said I do see some sensible responses (THANK YOU) and I see also what I have seen elsewhere, that there is a desire to effect change, but a hopelessness about it being possible. I believe it is possible. However at present it is a case of divide and conquer, motorists are divided in to individuals who alone are powerless. There are I gather 40 million motorists in the UK, I do not know if that includes bikers though many are both. There are groups on the internet, but none have millions of members.

The carnage on the roads needs to be stopped. It is not being stopped. Current methods are not working and the powers that be are wondering why, saying that MORE enforcement of what is not working is the only way.

I say different. Responsible adult drivers can be trusted and must be respected. How one goes about this is a different discussion. The desire to make a beginning has to start somewhere. Sections of society trying to force their methods on another unrepresented section is wrong. What we need is working with motorists to the common good.

So how about right here?

Anthony

Edited by anthonym on Friday 14th August 13:01

[anthonym]

so we have detractors as follows:

DAMMIT a cyclist who thinks engaging in abusive mockery followed by "argument" is acceptable.

and to my surprise

HantsRat who appears to be a serving traffic police officer - is that right?

[anthonym]

Type R Tom said:

Here we go again, another "I have a driving licence, therefore I am an expect on all things to do with roads".

Highway engineer .

[anthonym]

heebeegeetee said:

What carnage though? Driving is very, *very* safe. I mean, you can make it less safe if you want, but nevertheless overall it is incredibly safe.

I expect you will now post some figures out of context - some figures that will have some high numbers no doubt - but I doubt you'll post them in the context of millions/billions of miles being driven daily in complete safety.

http://brake.org/

http://www.brake.org.uk/campaigns/flagship-campaig...

[anthonym]

robinessex said:

Ok. Firstly, there is an organisation doing it's best for the motorist, it's called ABD.

http://www.abd.org.uk/
http://www.abd.org.uk/topics/speed_limits.htm
http://www.abd.org.uk/topics/speed_cameras.htm
http://www.abd.org.uk/topics/road_safety.htm

ALL PH'ers should belong to it. They have published numerous papers re speed limits, how to determine them, their implementation, inappropriate levels etc. So Mr OP, if you are really keen to 'do something', join up, and I'm sure they will be delighted with your offers of assistance.

Excellent post. Thank you.

[anthonym]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I think if you are trying to detract from that post and desire to be understood it will be helpful if you explain your reasoning, possibly without religious references, though it is of course entirely up to you if you want to offer any foundation for what you have to say - unless it's no more than how you feel in which case enough said.

[anthonym]

tapereel said:

What evidence do you have that any kind of drivers stick to the limit because they think it is what speed they can and should drive at? I don't know anyone who does that nor have I seen any sort of study or evidence that anyone does.

Seemslike you want evidence of any view contrary to yours but won't evidence the justification for your views.

Drivers driving at the "speed on the stick" ... complete bollix IMHO.

pot calling the kettle black. Where is YOUR evidence?

[anthonym]

Dammit said:

robinessex said:

Ok. Firstly, there is an organisation doing it's best for the motorist, it's called ABD.

http://www.abd.org.uk/
http://www.abd.org.uk/topics/speed_limits.htm
http://www.abd.org.uk/topics/speed_cameras.htm
http://www.abd.org.uk/topics/road_safety.htm

ALL PH'ers should belong to it. They have published numerous papers re speed limits, how to determine them, their implementation, inappropriate levels etc. So Mr OP, if you are really keen to 'do something', join up, and I'm sure they will be delighted with your offers of assistance.

In the same way that UKIP are doing their best for Britain.

The ABD are, to a man, thick as a prison door with the ethics of Lord Janner.

Interesting. Evidence please. Maybe you can persuade me.

[anthonym]

Dammit said:

No problem, here you go: http://www.abd.org.uk

that is not evidence, that is a link to their web site.

[anthonym]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Doesn't seem to stop you making all your own replies, whether I reply or not or whether you are clear about what I mean or not, and you say not. That suggests any further reply I make to you will receive your standard detractions based on your beliefs (no evidence offered), which is to waste my time since you are not the audience to whom I write. Others here are and I clearly do not need to add anything for them. You are welcome to explain your beliefs if you want to, and I will read with interest.

If you can refrain from hostility that would be helpful, as you say passive aggressiveness is not constructive and you engage in it too, though less passive methinks. You will no doubt understand that responding to hostility without being aggressive is difficult. If I engage in anything that has any appearance of being aggressive or hostile I regret it and certainly do not have that intention.

[anthonym]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

You think this is a little weird.
You say you are not clear what I am advocating, but go on to offer me guidance if I were advocating whatever it is you think I might be... advocating.
And you assume something about a paper you have linked to. Enter "speed kills" into google and in .37 secs there are 11.5 million hits.

My opening post says what I have to say to you.

I refer you there - and perhaps brake.org .

I suppose I could ask you what you would do about the issue of increasing deaths on the roads, aside from what appears to be nothing, but I won't.

Anthony

[anthonym]

robinessex said:

I believe in the USA an experiment was tried where speedos were blanked out. The majority drove SLOWER.

I have (previously) spent hours searching for that paper. Clues welcome.
I suspect it may be part of a larger project as it is not apparent on its own.

edit: I believe it was a Texas based paper

Edited by anthonym on Saturday 15th August 17:37

[anthonym]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

you sure about that?

[anthonym]

vonhosen said:

It doesn't matter which percentile you use, it won't tell you the maximum safe speed in optimum conditions.

You made a statement as fact about maximum safe speeds. I called you on it & asked you to back it up.

You can't.

Rather than accuse of pedantry, you could just admit that your statement was wrong.

he isn't wrong.

[anthonym]

heebeegeetee said:

I see nobody really address my earlier question of "what carnage?"

I still say that, given the millions/billions of road user journeys and miles every day, week and year, the casualty rate is incredibly low. Isn't this a game of chasing ever-decreasing returns?

The roads are possibly safer than homes or hospitals. If the aim is to save life, wouldn't it be better to target the money somewhere else?

Brake are clear about the carnage. www.brake.org.uk

[anthonym]

here's a bit about the 85th percentile speed, just googled and scan read.

http://metrocount.com/downloads/flyers/Speed_analy...

[anthonym]

Pete317 said:

Moonhawk said:

I wonder if the powers that be have looked at the relationship between smartphone use and pedestrian accidents? The number of pedestrians I see walking around completely absorbed in their smart phones and with earphones in, apparently oblivious to the world around them is definitely on the increase. I have seen dozens simply cross a junction or walk out into a road without even looking.

With the vast amount of data which is painstakingly gathered by investigators for each and every KSI accident nowadays, you would think they would by now have a very good and detailed picture of what actually causes the accidents.

So why do they seemingly remain so tight-lipped about it?
Why are we still having to guess from basic statistics?

Yes I too find that very frustrating. Whenever I pass an accident spot I always wonder what happened, how and why. Yet whenever I look for the information it's just not available; except as interpreted by someone else, which is of no help at all to me. I have here the entire database of UK 2014 accident data and, while some of it really is heart wrenching (looking at the death stats of the very young) and while it is interesting to analyse the data, it still doesn't really tell me what happened. Assuming a perfectly capable driver, how on Earth did they find themselves involved? Vague responses don't help, such as "go more slowly", which as far as I can see in most cases would not have prevented the crash. And "crashing more slowly" isn't accident prevention, it's just a counsel of despair in the absence of real solutions, which seems to me if drivers are excluded from the knowledge of what happens, is not going to change.

If anyone wants the stats I'll find where I got them from; there are hoops (not insurmountable) to jump through and I am not allowed to simply share the data - which is frustrating in itself. It's available for Excel, in CSV. It's a huge amount of data and argument rages about how accurate it is based on forms completed by the police STATS 19 I think it is.

Anthony


edit to add:

http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/

Study Number 7752 - Road Accident Data, 2014

Edited by anthonym on Sunday 16th August 14:29

[anthonym]

tapereel said

"Police and councils benefit only by the offender paying for the enforcement costs. Quite frankly I think that is exactly who should pay, not you and not me. What a great shame offenders committing other types of offences cannot pay the costs of detection and disposal of their offences. That would relieve council tax and income tax payers of a massive burden. There should be a new set of laws to enable this."

end quote

My thoughts about this:

We have a three part constitution, the legislature, the courts and the police. Each is independent of the others and that separation underpins our society's freedoms.

I am rather uncomfortable with this concept:

" Police and councils benefit only by the offender paying ..." especially when the word "only" is omitted from the sentence.Then we have "Police and councils benefit ... by the offender paying... ". There is a very short step from "benefit" to "profit" when we read this: "Police and councils profit only by the offender paying..."

One can reasonably argue that "benefit" and "profit" are interchangeable; in tax law this is well established and taxed.

The idea of ANY arm of the pillars of our constitution profiting from crime is I think fatally flawed. These pillars of society must not only be, but they must be seen to be completely free of inappropriate influence or motivation. I am tempted to say especially the police who need to be whiter than white if they are to be respected by society as a whole. The idea that police profit from speed enforcement is already a genie long out of the bottle. Rightly or wrongly.

I am not going so far as to say that fines are the proceeds of crime, but it is not a giant leap if the legislative and the police are benefiting as quoted above.

I quite see the temptation of the idea of criminals literally paying for their crimes, but seems to be it is a very slippery constitutional slope especially also where the courts are excluded - which is the reality; this is "due process denied".

All fraught with problems, despite the apparent attraction of logic by those involved.

Anthony

[anthonym]

vonhosen said:

You can't escape it.

Fines go to public funds, the Police are funded from public funds.
Government controls the funding they get from public funds

You are of course at liberty to generalise as you wish, but you are just not in control of how other's view it.