Safe Speed Forums

Looking at all the reports of seen of examples of bad driving such as tailgating and lane hogging, perhaps what is needed is for experienced drivers to be recruited to report on such things.
If there were a mechaism for reporting dangerous driving, this could result in the offender being sent a warning notice. If a driver accumulated more than a given number of such warnings, they would have to perhaps submit to training or in extreme cases (perhaps where the training tdid not result in an improvment) be disqualtifed until they can retake (and pass) the driving test.
It may be that the advanced drivers doing the reporting would need to have some sort of quaslification, IAM or RoSPA. But the presence of such people on the road would mean that the bad drivers would never know whether the driver of the car they were cutting up or obstructing or tailgating was qualified to report them or not.

What do you all think?

Trouble with evidence, and accuracy of statements.

What if one of the recruited has a gripe with a neighbour, or VIC are taken down wrongly. it's bad enough 'out there' without other members of the public trying to pin crap on each other!

You could avoid the deliberate gripes by insisting that a given reporter could only make one report about a specific driver in a given timeframe, and it would take reports from two or more reporters covering two or more separate incidents before any discipline would be applied. Also, give the person reported the right to object if they felt they were being victimised in that way, or if they could prove they were not at the location where the incident occurred. If victimisation was proven the reporter would lose his right to report.

Seen this:

http://www.roadsupervisors.net ?

(I don't 'agree' with either version - I'll explain later...)

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

OK, I've got a few minutes...

The fatal problem in asking the public to identify and report bad driving is that far too many members of the public can't safely tell good driving from bad.

I think there might be good linkage into the idea as replies to the following develop:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewt ... 4378#54378

It's a question of perception - something that looks dangerous to joe public might be someone else's carefully planned and perfectly executed overtake.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

And, if you want to see some examples of one-sided bad driving reports, check this site out...

www.baddriving.com

Look at the bad driving reports. I think you need to register to see the full monty so to speak.

Oh, and check-out this weeks vote while your there

Is next week's vote "have you stopped beating your wife?"

_________________
Less Kodak, more Kojak.
In times of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

As I recall it, the Road Supervisors concept involves specially trained individuals observing other drivers, not the general public, so in theory they would be able to make an informed judgment.

The problem is that in reality, witnessing genuinely bad driving is relatively rare, but you do see lots of little niggly things. If people were constantly being reported for minor faults the scheme might not go down too well.

There is also the same issue as with speed cameras - how do you know who was driving?

_________________
"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

if you believe that to be true then consider yourself invited on a bike ride.
If that doesn't take your fancy then just stand on any road around London (where the traffic is actually moving) and try to find someone who's actually leaving more than half a second gap to the car in front.


that is far more of a problem but if they can force people to incriminate themselves for the cameras to work I'm sure they could do the same for this.

I don't believe it does. Having reviewed the Road Supervisors web site (fairly quickly it must be said) I found no such suggestion.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Looking for the positive in the spirit of brainstorming, how about a reporting system for emergency braking?

Anyone who emergency brakes frequently must surely be guilty of poor hazard perception or poor judgement.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

or does a lot of track days. My point being that the system would need some sort of bypass.

Or likes to know how much grip they have available in the current weather conditions, so will find somewhere quiet to test their brakes.

No, it says clearly they should be specially selected individuals, not just any member of the general public.

See:

http://www.roadsupervisors.net/EA.Road_ ... utline.htm

which says they would need to have passed a Road Supervisors' exam.

I agree it doesn't say much about actually training them in driving.

_________________
"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Quite true but I wasn't talking about Joe Public, I was talking about experienced drivers with an advanced driving qualification for good reason. Such people ought to be reasonably good at distinguishing dangerous and safe driving.

True, but I'd rather they braked late than crashed. Discouraging drivers with poor hazard perception or anticiapation from braking when necessary would not be good. But giving then some training to try to improve their driving is a good idea.

I've had my new car since March, and I still don't know if the ABS works. Perhaps if it snows I'll find out!

Sort of re inventing the wheel , is it not?

Seem to remember in the dim and distant past we had people like that, specially and highly trained drivers , and totally impartial, part of who's job was to spot poor driving and try to educate the culprit.
Seem to remember that somewhere up north ( Durham??) they still pursue this old fashioned trait and have the lowest accident rate in UK.
Would suggest that this would be the path to follow.

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

This would be dealing with a problem, not preventing bad driving.

Totally disagree with having road supervisors or such.
I am amazed at such a suggestion really, when so many of you are against any sort of police or nanny state. Then the debate would be about road supervisors and not speed cameras.

How about looking at the cause of 'bad driving'. (Driver education, behaviour etc).

True. Furthemore, the discussion on indicating and the friction generated in that thread demonstrates how many different 'schools' of advanced driving would need to be recognised.

So you see it works! The only problem with those people though is that they are easily recognised. People will only modify their driving when they think they are being watched. You only have to look at the effect of a patrol car on a motorway, and the bunching and congestion it causes, to see that.