Safe Speed Forums

You think people think that? Really? Have you asked anybody or are you just making it up?

OK, it's a fair cop, I'll ask you NOW then...

..when you say:


Do you believe it, or were you just making it up?

'cause the funny thing is, I hear quite a few people saying that (without me asking them)!

So let me get this right we are now going to do what CHILDREN claim is better for roads ?
Where is there ANY scientific or engineering basis in that ?
ALL proper authorities know, that you never use the public to help you make or formulate new policies. For road safety is must be based on solid scientific and engineering facts.
This entire report is just hearsay and speculation, based off influenced children - it should be treated with the contempt that it deserves. Perhaps they should list all the questions too.

If the children are this bad at travelling on the roads then I will suggest that all those involved need to attend and learn from some proper cycling and road safety lessons, and very urgently indeed.

I also fail to see how the other mentioned groups have any real bearing on this press release, other than perhaps to try to make it sound credible?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

For the last decade or more, road safety has been in the hands of children, non drivers and incompetents.




For the first two statements, I would ask how they know this.

For the second two statements i would suggest (as Claire has already said) that there is something seriously wrong with their road sense and attitudes. I walked miles to school from the age of 5 (alone) and cycled to school from the age of 11 (road speeds were much faster then too). The only time I can say I had been hit or nearly hit was by the indicator of a big bus that hit me on the shoulder as i walked along our narrow high street. I doubt if he was going more than 10 MPH so speed wasn't a factor.

i was never worried about being hurt by traffic.

So either kids are being brainwashed into growing up with a nervous compex and fear about nothing or they are doing something seriously wrong and need serious training/education.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Yes I agree, so STOP fear mongering and scaring kids to death about imaginary dangers about big bad cars and teach them some road sense....DOH!

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

I'd love to meet all these people who are scared to travel !
Take them out on their own roads and show them how they can do so safely and without fear.

I have not found a road in the UK (and I travel all over the place) where I have ever felt in fear or scared.
Sometimes i have had to wait to cross or had to walk further to use a proper crossing.
I think it has to be a reflection of propaganda and the perception and one's own ability to manage risk. (Unless someone is phobic of course or has a medical condition.)

Really ? You really cannot travel safely anywhere?
What do you understand by the phrase "safe speed"?

What do you understand by 'driving to conditions'?

If traffic management is done badly then the main arterial routes clog up and people start to use any other viable road to make progress. Moving is making progress so it is better than not moving, and stopped is just boring. I think it interesting the correlation between the trams and accidents ... be nice to have links to see the precise figures (if you can?). It is of course 'free space' that enables the ability to travel. When things clog up or even become grid locked, then everyone has reached the ultimate failure for people to allow another's travel. the yellow box camera idea was to try and ensure people had a place to travel into but with traffic lights only allowing so few through it just backed things up. Enforcing people to act one way does not make them better just more begrudging and perhaps more selfish on other occasions.
In other words you have to change the attitude and education to have any chance of improving the ability.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

I am now looking out the book I have to find the figures, but they were quite surprising to me, at least. Of course, if modern medicine and trauma techniques had been available, the 1910 death rate would have been much lower, but we are all children of the times we live in. There certainly seems to be a different attitude to risk when one views my video of Manchester Picadilly circa 1910 !!

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Good manners maketh a good motorist

In virtual life -he would .In london Traffic ,more like 16 mph. ( As per some of his posts).

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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

OK, some figures and info from my history of Manchester trams..........

No figures for horse drawn vehicles because no registration was required. Note that the Manchester city area was much smaller at this period.

Manchester 1911-1913
1911
31 fatal 1168 non-fatal
630 motor cars, 45 Goods vehicles (76 permitted to travel at 12 mph the max speed allowed).

1913
44 fatal 1298 non-fatal
1529 motor cars, 85 goods vehicles

Mechanically propelled vehicles (incl trams) responsible for 66.3 of fatal, and 74.7% nonfatal. with trams at 16% and 26% respectively. Trams outnumbered all other mechanical vehicles by 2:1

"Recklessly driven" motor hackney cabs capable of 38mph were a growing problem according to the police. (no surprises there !!)

1902 Concern about congestion - report by Chief Constable - police-controlled junctions increased from 23 to 40, and later, 56. (no traffic lights as the technology had yet to be developed)
1911 Tramways Committee set up special sub-committe on street congestion.
1913 Watch committee ask for report from Chief Constable.
Subsequently - tours of other cities at home and abroad
- debates at intervals from 1911-1914, then again in the 1920s and early 30s

Horse drawn vehicles, (mainly goods) - 6609 in 1911 census, 76% of the total traffic in 1914. over 30% of these vehicles were 2-axled
Proposals made for one-way streets but only implemented in 1938, but caused chaos.
Proposal made for huge tramway station in Piccadilly with nearly 10 tracks.

Note: the figures are quoted from the book, but have not been verifed from the historical documents

Book: The Manchester Tramways - 90 years of progress - Yearsley and Groves Nov 1988, revised 1991

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Good manners maketh a good motorist

You evidently don't have much experience of teenage boys Despite having a poorly developed ability to evaluate the dangers of their environment, teenage boys tend to think that they are indestructible: and are very subject to peer pressure These are evolutionary processes which ensured that a significant number of them survived to adulthood. In modern society where, if only because of the shortage of burial plots, we would like everyone to reach adulthood there is an extra responsibility on adults to make allowance for the foibles of youth.

To say that we all have exactly equal responsibility for road safety is patently ludicrous. The more able must always use their ability to protect the more vulnerable. And that is particularly true when those more able are in a position to inflict severe damage, such as being at the wheel of a motor vehicle.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

And in the last decade KSIs have fallen by ~36%. Perhaps children and non drivers are not that incompetent

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Then you must never have walked on a country road. There are many country roads which, being narrow and lacking pavements or walk-able verges,are so inimical to pedestrians, so dominated by rapidly moving traffic, that any pedestrian who was not fearful would soon meet his maker.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Whilst I can see that 'equal responsible' might not be how things might 'end up', doesn't mean that people should therefore be less responsible for their own actions. So all people must be responsible for their own actions all the time.
Where those who are more capable can assist others who make mistakes by making greater allowances, it means that those who are less capable need to 'up their abilities' to try to reach those who are better.
It does not mean that we must all become totally reliant on those who have better abilities !

I think what may have been meant is that we are all fully responsible for our own actions.

Either those that have more ability are better or not, they cannot then just ignore all that ability and suddenly turn all the way to the other end of the scale and turn their car into a 'weapon'. That part of your point IMHO is ridiculous.
That fails to allow for any recession, volume and density of traffic. There has been far to much of a push from those that think that 'public opinion' should form Rd Safety, and anyone that takes that seriously only shows their ignorance as to how real road safety is formed and understood.

You are wrong. I was born in an area walking around country roads! Our own driveway was at the very blackspot point ! Yet we looked out and took very great care - we knew what to do to ensure our own safety! I still walk many country roads with no pavements and I survive just fine. You are not 'talking your life in your own hands' when walking a country road!!
The question is why is there a generation (as it seems to be coming across), who seem so very scared ?
Is it that they do not have 'in their toolbox' anything to give them knowledge to keep them safe ?
So they get more and more scared instead of building from knowledge, confidence and then experience to be safe?
Or have they simply 'learned to be scared'?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

The stats that I have found from Manchester:

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

I found this US link which points to another factor surround pedestrian accidents:

http://www.kffjlaw.com/blog/2012/08/dis ... rous.shtml

It's one I've observed as a hazard in the UK on numerous occasions...

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

I wonder if we have now reached the point of 'distracted saturation' with gadgets?
How can we now instil successfully 'think about what you are doing' and 'concentrate'.
Whilst we all know that we can from time to time and only when safe, glance at a speedo, the time or our route or adjust change the media whilst driving we know that when more concentration on those tasks is needed we need to stop.
So 'doing things safely' has to be the key as we are 'interested' in keeping us safe and well, whilst having interest in doing a task well.

In our own UK stats 60% of all KSI involved pedestrians last yr. That is very high indeed.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Absolutely. I agree. I have to say that I will not have a sat nav in my car. These days, smartphones and android phones have sat nav capability. I tried to use one - voice only I hasten to add and it proved so distracting, I pulled to the side of the road and turned it off.

I've been taught that safe driving is more to do with effective observation than staring at the speedometer all the time.

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Anyone who tells you that nothing is impossible has never bathed in a saucer of water.

That is quite ludicrous. Would you say that a baby should be held responsible for damage caused when he throws his rattle out of his pram. Of course not, it is the nanny pushing the pram who is resposible.



I never suggested total reliance. But peoples abilities develop with age and, whilst the forum's answer to Stephen Hawkins believes that all those of restricted ability should not be allowed out unsupervised, |I don't think that that is either practical or desirable. Growing children need to be exposed to danger in order to acquire the instincts to deal with it. And during that learning phase every adult is to some extent in locus parentis


I never suggested turning a car into a weapon. My point was that the consequences of not making the appropriate allowance for the foibles of youth are likely to be much more serious if you are behind the wheel of a car.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Did you miss the smiley

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I fail to see the difference between directed by a machine or being directed by a fellow human being in the passenger seat with a map on her lap. Except that the machine doesn't get annoyed when you tell it that it is doing a lousy job.
Trying to navigate by reading road-signs and street names is a far bigger distraction.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown