Safe Speed Forums

Why do the police & other tax collecting bodies stick to the mantra that speed kills? When I last looked, Schumacher (both) are very much alive - if speed kills they should be stone dead!

Why is there not more honesty - the problem, the SOLE problem is the ABYSMAL standard of driving in the UK - standards that would give a driver in Delhi rush hour the heebies!

The solution is simple - you kill with a car - the automatic assumption is of murder - LIFE sentence & you have to prove otherwise - would that not make drivers do something amazing - i.e. WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Errr no. So if a drunk walks out in front of you you go to jail for murder.

I think not. Thats like convicting a train driver for murder if someone jumps in front of his train.


Saw a program the other night on racing accidents. Before the Senna accident F1 had been fatality free for more than 10 years. Even though race speeds had gone up significantly. In the 70s there were often several fatalities a year.

They also said that 50% of all fatal accidents occure at a terminal velocity of less than 30mph.

We have been programmed to think that "speed kills" and it does not. Thats why the fatality rate is going up.

One law of selling is "never start to believe your own bulls*it" The powers that be would do well to learn this law.

It has got political now so common sense no longer applies.

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

Well there are times when it gets a bit shoddy, particularly during the evening rush hour when everybody seems intent on treading on everyone else's gonads to get home, but have you ever driven in, say, Cyprus ?



Dunno about this. It might satisfy our lust for justice after the event but, like SafeSpeed, I don't know whether the threat of punishment actually crosses the mind of a driver about to do something utterly stupid.

What does amaze me is just how far the authorities seem prepared to go in terms of prosecuting swathes of the otherwise law abiding citizens of this country, in order to achieve diminishing returns.

Rigpig - hm govt has now got itself in a corner - it can't get out and either the motorist or hm govt wins, unless we get a new govt which says that labour was wrong.The Tories are saying things are wrong,but will they admit that funding a police force with speeders money is wrong.
We wait and see if tone or howard get in and what they do

I'm with botach on this. I don't think that the tories will be successfull on the old Swingometer, but maybe they will get enough seats to stop the overpowering majority held by labour.

_________________
"Are you sh**ing me?"
"John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute."

We'll see.

blademansw - " you are fined 10000credits for saying tone can't be toppled and john spartan was wrong"

And Rigpig - hopefully - bladesw was wrong.

like you i live and hope that one day 80 mph is not a deadly motorway crime

LOL, I hope, dearly that I am wrong and Gordon Brown gets ousted. Sorry, I meant Tony

_________________
"Are you sh**ing me?"
"John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute."

I think it would be better to leave it at 70, and have the prosecution threshold start at 80, otherwise you will have some numpty doing 80 in a violent rainstorm, and not be able to do anything about it.
There is ALWAYS some numbskull pushing the envelope!

_________________
Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

True, but 70 mph in those conditions is not SAFE SPEED. We used to have a tool to deal with that - they were called Traffic Police. They could deal with someone driving inappropriately for the conditions - either a verbal warning, or potentially a dangerous or without due care prosecution.

Q. Can a Revenue Robot deal with inappropriate speed for road conditions?
A. No
Q. Can a Revenue Robot deal with someone tailgating or driving dangerously within the NSL?
A. No

So if they are to do with safety, speed cameras are clearly a waste of time. Speed limits are relatively minor factor in this - its needs to be thought of as more an "advisory" limit to be condsidered as a safe maximum in good conditions. The only answer is better driver education and training is order to reduce crashes. (I am talking about NSL, not urban environments)

The sooner that this fact is woken up to, the sooner the KSI figures will start to drop again.

_________________
"Are you sh**ing me?"
"John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute."

The "speed kills" lobby were hoping to get a result on the lines of the change in attitude on drinking and driving. 20-30 years ago it was socially acceptable to drive whilst over the limit and with little chance of being caught. Now it is unacceptable and if the BiB are called to a collision you will be breathalysed, end of story! This is not to say that some people aren't irresponsibly continuing to drink and drive - I am sure we all know people who do it but are unwilling to "shop" them.
The point is that the dangers of driving while incapacitated through drink (or drugs) are obvious.
Speed per se is not dangerous, but excessive speed for the prevailing conditions is. Doesn't make a snappy slogan though, does it? Whereas "speed kills" does make a snappy slogan. Mechanical devices can't yet distinguish between careful, observant, drivers breaking the posted limit and dangerous idiots. As we all know, only properly trained traffic police can do this, so why can't we have them back and in greater numbers. Just their presence will make a lot of drivers think twice before performing an illegal and/ or dangerous manoeuvre.

Why did speed cameras appear in the first instance? My guess is that too many motorists were not taking notice of signs such as "Dangerous Crossroads Reduce Speed Now" with the result that the impact of collisions was too often fatal. So if people don't drive sensibly they have to be made aware that too high a speed at a particular location is unacceptable. Parking a police traffic car at said location is effective but a rather expensive use of scarce resources, so let's have an electronic policeman! It works - speeds are reduced to the posted limit or less.
Anyway after a while, some bright spark realises the money-making potential and they start sprouting up in places where the safety value is dubious though various statistics are trotted out to defend the siting of them.
What is the result - all speed cameras fall into disrepute.

Cyclist - your last two posts - put in a nutshell.