Safe Speed Forums

True, but in the meantime a good second best is to recognise these different needs - and abilities - and focus our driver training on encouraging all the different types of driver to interact with each other without needless conflict.

At the moment all we seem to be doing is to force everyone down to the standard of the worst driver, instead we should be encouraging drivers to improve, and encouraging everyone to tolerate each other's differing needs.

It seems we live in an increasingly intolerant age. Where I live it seems there are moves afoot to ban just about every pastime on the say-so of intolerant minority groups. Water ski-ing gets banned next year, off road driving and motorcyling looks like getting the chop shortly after. Next I guess will be mountain biking, mountaineering and maybe even sailing if we don't do something about it soon. None of these things cause any real damage, nor any annoyance to anyone with a normal degree of tolerance, but they are being unreasonably banned nonetheless, in the name of Political Correctness.

I see this as being part of our current Orwellian road policing culture. We are actively encouraging motorists to be intolerant of anyone committing "speed crime". Just like our impending local water ski-ing ban the technique is to take a legitimate minor issue such as safety or noise, distort it's effects out of all true proportion, then use this as a basis to justify putting a stop to it.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

On the other hand, you don't need to have any DIY skills to tell the difference between a well-built and a wonky shelf. Since skilled drivers aren't the only people using the roads, I don't see why they should be the only people allowed to contribute to the road safety debate.

But nobody disputes that drivers crash unless they respond to what's happening around them. What is in dispute is your "driver response is 42 times more important than pre-accident speed" claim. If you don't define "driver response" properly, there's no way your hypothesis can be tested ( for example, by collecting driver response, pre-accident speed and accident severity data for a number of accidents ). If your claim can't be falsified, it can't be described as scientific.

It's "scientific" in the sense that it's valid and worthy to inform a research objective. It isn't scientific data.

Its value in informing research objectives is considerable.

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

Chumps - they only allow those with aptitude train anyway! So we all have aptitude within this profession.

As for our exams - we only get three attempts - and the pass rate is low.


An you try working 70-120 hours per week as junior and then opening those books after shifts!

Had no time for golf back then!

Pal is excellent surgeon - he just got attack of nervees on driving test day. Happens to lots of people. Heck - even know of some IAMs who took 4-5 attempts to pass L-test.

It is question of confidence gain and experience once you have passed. That is why the assessment style would be better than full re-test - re-test should be last resort for real numpties!



How d'ya know we have not got in place already!

They are called NHS managers! Only they get cross if we go too slow!!

Common sense is out as well - bench book for judges bans terms such as "mental illness" "she" And any thing which has suffix "-man"

Apparently - such terms are not "politically correct" as they "offend"

As for banning water-skiing, etc, -it is ridiculous. Bit like the Swiss banning alpine sports. (Though ski-ing off-piste is a bit of a no-no now as "too dangerous" )

Should we ban horse racing, steeple chasing, white water rafting, parachuting etc cos they are a "bit fast and racy!"

Should we ban golf? Might get struck by lighning at 18th hole! Or rugby - could break my neck in a tackle! Oh - let's ban footie - might break a leg!



Nanny state gone mad!

Totally agree - mate!

That's a great slant on it! Captures the whole argument very well I think.

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-mike[F]
Caught in the rush of the crowd, lost in a wall of sound..