Safe Speed Forums

With the current emphasis on enforcing speed limits, I agree that we really need some mechanism for making it clearer to drivers what the speed limit is. Perhaps some sort of international standard communications protocol where all new cars can be fitted with a receiver for a signal emitted by a roadside transmitter, so that cars can show the speed limit on the speedo, and perhaps optionally allow the driver to set the vehicle to emit an audible warning if the speed limit is exceeded, or if the driver wants, they can set the car to be incapable of exceeding the speed limit. If enough people activate this option, the common complaint that you get a queue of traffic close up behind you if you try to drive at the speed limit will be solved, and driving at the speed limit will become a much less hazardous activity.

Before we did all that, don't you think we'd need some evidence that the speed limit is worth enforcing to this degree? In all the work I've done I haven't found any...

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

This is where we fundamentally differ, and always will. I'm in favour of enforcement of appropriately set speed limits, as I want to be able to guarantee my safety from prosecution, I don't want to have to rely on arbitrary and random discretion from police officers. So if we're both confronted with a 30mph limit on a road that we think it is typically safe to drive at 35mph along, I would like rigid enforcement of a 35mph limit, and driving aids to assist me in abiding by that limit without the problems of having my attention diverted from where it should be, whereas you would be happy with discretionary enforcement of the 30mph limit, such that you can probably get away with driving at 35mph most of the time.

I do believe that the majority of the problems that are currently caused by speed cameras would go away if we had total enforcement. E.g. traffic can't divert to an alternative speed-camera-free road if there aren't any such roads.

What? Hold it right there! You think we should pick an enforcement practice to give you the chance to feel free of risk of prosecution? Before we went down that route, we would first have to determine that it wouldn't kill people.

We're about a million miles away from being able to make the determination since the evidence from multiple countries is pointing very much towards the idea that strict speed limit enforcement is deadly.

Safety first eh?

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

But is that evidence always in the context of driver distraction in having to look at their speedo, look out for speed cameras etc? I'm advocating getting away from that - if we have saturation enforcement, there's no need to look out for cameras, because they're everywhere, and if we have driver aids to assist you in not exceeding the speed limit, you no longer have to check your speedo, we can get back to people focusing on real hazards, and driving at an appropriate speed within the limit. I'm not aware that there is anywhere in the world that is like this, so there will be no evidence either way, I'm just trying to address the shortcomings of the current situation in a manner other than going back to how things were before speed cameras.

There's two problems with that, stevei. First is that it doesn't encourage drivers to set an appropriate speed, it just makes it easy for them to comply with the limit. HGVs are now limited in such a way as to prevent them from exceeding the speed limit on motorways, but you'll know what a pointless exercise this is if you've ever reduced speed on the motorway in the pouring rain and then been overtaken by several lorries driven by mind-numbed drivers who no longer think for themselves about what makes a safe speed. (Not having a pop at truckers generally, as I know full well that many don't drive like that. It's just the ones that do who scare me.)

Second problem is that you favour total enforcement of appropriately set limits, and many are quite inappropriate these days. I can think of two or three local NSL dual carriageways which ought to be more like 50. Total enforecment does no good there. OTOH we have plenty of local roads that have inappropriately low limits. Best example is another dual carriageway that used to be NSL and is now 50, and has an NSL single carriageway crossing it. So you can legally drive faster on the road that is less appropriate for high speed driving than you can on the dual carriageway that was designed with high speeds in mind. Interestingly the dual carriageway becomes NSL a little further down, and I've recently noticed that this is at the border between Berkshire and Surrey. It seems that Berkshire believe that NSL is acceptable but Surrey decided to lower the limit. Double . On roads with inappropriately low limits total enforcement could be acheived but is quite pointless so long as the limit bears little or no relation to what is actually safe.

_________________
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

My personal opinion is that the greatest killer is 'culture damage' - alterations in beliefs and safety priorities. I believe that differences in safety culture make the Belgian and Austrian motorways 4 times more dangerous than ours, and that we're damaging our culture and making it much more similar to the Belgian culture.

So there's no comfort whatsoever in your suggestion.

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

I totally agree, I'm in favour of speed limits being appropriately set. By allowing people to get away with exceeding inappropriately low speed limits, we are making those limits tolerable. If we rigidly enforce them, they will become intolerable, and there will be more pressure from the public to change them. You'll soon find all these mothers who keep telling us to "think of the children" will quickly change their tune when they've racked up some points from driving above the speed limit somewhere where even they think the limit is much too slow.

That's the thing thoough. We're not. We've allowed enforcement to become obsessed with numerical speed, and from that we're getting drivers who feel maintaining a legal speed is more important than maintaining a safe speed, and drivers who've encountered so many silly limits that they are starting to expect them to be too low and are more prepared to ignore them - and the next one they ignore might be set about right!

Both types are worrying as they're the result of a policy that encourages people not to think, or at least to make assumptions which is really just as bad. I feel that the safest drivers are the ones who think constantly about what they're doing. The second I see and assume either that it's the safest speed to drive at or that it's wrong because the last one was, well, I'd say someone should drag me out of the car and drop the keys in a river. Above all else we need drivers that think, and our current policies are working against that, albeit inadvertantly.

_________________
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein