Safe Speed Forums

I've NEVER said 'purely advisory'.

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

But correctly set for who?

Inexperienced and irreesponsible drivers need the lowest speed limits.

That makes the speed limit unrealistically low for experienced and responsible drivers in good conditions.

If we raised the limits to truly suit AVERAGE drivers in GOOD conditions we would speed up the inexperienced and the irresponsible considerably. We'd have at least 100mph as the motorway limit, for example. And what does that say to 17 year old Kevin in his Nova? Flat out everywhere?

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

If we take the "average driver" as one having 'median' quality driving ability (if we can define median quality driving ability), I'm not sure I'd like to see an average driver permitted to drive at 100mph. That sort of speed, unless on a very quiet road, requires superior (well above average) observation, anticipation etc.

It's arguable, I agree. But do remember we're talking LIMITS not TARGETS. And if it's a limit, then surely it should properly apply to 'best' conditions, which really does tend to imply a quiet road. And don't forget that the argument I presented is AGAINST setting limits for average drivers in good conditions.

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

[my bold]

I don't think so - and don't think you did either. The limit does need to be set for the average driver and 70mph is quite probably fast enough for the average driver, even in 'best conditions'; because, if the driver is only average, he won't (by definition) discriminate well enough between 'best' conditions and anything short of that anyway.

I'm trying to make up my mind if we have an argument of substance or semantics here, but I'm struggling to find the correct variables to try to pin down with better definitions.

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

What's an "average" driver?

Isn't our whole campaign (borne out by most statistics) on the basis that the vast majority of drivers are capable of chosing the safe speed for the conditions at the time? Those conditions would include individual driving skills.

_________________
Wake me up when the revolution starts
STOP the Toll Tax http://www.traveltax.org.uk

Ever noticed how threads sometimes divert to in-depth discussions about speed limits and speeding?

Fasinating stuff - I love it.

To me, this obsession with speed and exceeding limits, epitomises the strength of the SafeSpeed argument. It's this unjustified attention which is so harmful and distracting to road safety. It puts exceeding speed limits up on a pedestal it is never worthy of.

Anyone who can argue endlessly about speeding, proves the SafeSpeed case.

Exceeding a speed limit is always an offence but very rarely a dangerous activity on its own. And I don't need endless facts and figures or graphs or detailed reports to tell me that. I only need my eyes.

I can't remember when I last saw someone who was driving in an unsafe manner simply because they were exceeding a speed limit. Every day I see far worse activities. Driving too close to the vehicle in front. Use of mobile phone. No lights. Too fast, but within the speed limit. No signals. Lack of observation.

And it's this insane speed centric policy which falsely displaces the really dangerous activities way down the list of importance.

_________________
It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

Absolutely - it's so obvious isn't it?

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

To imagine you can somehow get an absolutely "correct" speed limit is a chimaera. A speed limit is by definition a blunt and imperfect instrument, and can only represent a rough approximation of conditions along the length of a road. If it is never, in any circumstances, "safe" to exceed a speed limit, then that speed limit is set far too high.

And you can do all the education you want, but if you insist on prosecuting people for minor technical infringements of a numerical limit where no safety violation has occurred, then it will be counter-productive and forfeit much goodwill.

In a sense (so long as they are broadly consistent in terms of application to road types) the absolute value of speed limits is of less importance than the approach to enforcement.

_________________
"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

I acknowledge the difficulty in your first question and tried to pin it down. In reality, the "average" driver (having median quality driving ability) is really not very good at all. And that is the strength of the SafeSpeed argument. If the average driver was actually quite good, it would be a lot harder to see how road safety could be substantially improved. One would have to conclude that crashes are really 'accidents' (whereas we know they are almost always avoidable, given reasonable application of not very demanding levels of ability). The fact that the 'average' driving ability is not very good shows how much scope there is for improvement, and how much more effectively road safety would be served if policy was aimed at achieving gradual, incremental improvements in driving ability instead of dumbing down the process by seeking to restrict speed simply to mitigate consequences of crashes.

But on the other side of the coin, our 'crap' median driver actually has a very low crash risk - something better than one injury crash caused per 600 driver years.

- The mean crash risk is 32m drivers / 200k injury crashes annually. i.e. one injury crash caused per 160 driver years.

- But the median driver has perhaps about 20% of the mean crash risk because of the very bad stuff at the bottom of the driver quality scale. I'm pretty sure that 80% of the crashes are caused by 20% of the drivers which would probably make the median risk of causing an injury crash more like 1 in 1,000 years.

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

Yes - there's plenty of scope for argument that the ratio is something other than 80:20 but it's impossible to argue that the bottom 50% is not responsible for more than 50% of crashes. Whatever the actual ratio, that rationally indisputable conclusion only serves to emphasise the validity of the underlying premise - that improving 'average' quality must to some proportionately greater extent, reduce the probability/incidence of crashes.

Should have said Advanced Drivers. My Dad was an instructor with them for several years and offered to get me an appraisal. Never took it up after going to a meeting where I met a bunch of sanctimonious, smug, do gooders who don't like cars. Sure they can't all be like that but if I was to invest in learning more it would be with anyone of the ex-police instructors out there who enjoy teaching safer fast road driving.

Barkstar

_________________
The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has limits.

Ah. You encountered an IAM 'backwater' then. I've met those too. I call them 'big I AMs'.

But you shouldn't let that put you off. Most IAM groups are much better, and some are brilliant.

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

And the other huge clue is the scope for improvement at the low end of the driver quality scale. In the region where drivers have 20 to 50 times the average crash risk, getting a grip on one driver is 20 to 50 times more effective at improving system safety than getting hold of an average driver.

So policing 'rogue drivers' is an absolute top priority.

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

your answer is proof of why we need

_________________
COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

I've been keeping up with you so far - but you've lost me now.

You've acknowledged that Speed Limits are usually wrong - not quite sure if you agree with PeterE about a correct limit being a chimera, and you now seem to think that mass education on the meaning of the words "Speed Limit" is the solution!?!

Unless you're playing with semantics, do you not think that the government has been performing "mass education" for years now?

_________________
It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

The current problem with speed limits is that they have become political, i know a lot of sections of road with inapropriate speed limits, the New A500 through stoke, remove the roundabouts replacing them with underpasses but keep the speed limit at 50 then there is the creeping 30's and 40's arround villages

I do not agree with PeterE - he has missed the point of the word "limit", hence my repetition.

I can't recall any Government message telling me that the limit is something to drive within, rather than at. The only mass thing the government seems to be good at is mass debate

I will try to explain this in simple terms for you:

This site suggests that a major problem with "the system" is that some drivers (swayed by government rhetoric and policy) assume that the speed on the sign is safe, and speed above that is inherently unsafe. This, I think we can all agree, is not true.

The problem is that the limits are often too low, sometimes (not as often) too high, and are inflexible for changing conditions.

Taking each of these issues in turn:
Too Low
Some drivers ignore the limits. The whole limit system loses credibility because of the drivers who ignore the limits. Most of limits were not always too low, but have become too low because cars (power, braking, even something as simple as tyres) have improved, roads have improved (surfaces, signage, engineering out things like difficult corners, bad cambers), and you could even argue that (some) drivers or driving capability has improved.

Too High
Some drivers assume the limit is a target, they don't drive "within the limit", they drive "at the limit". So when they scoot off NSL single carrieway into a field, there first reaction is "but I wasn't speeding".

Inflexible
The same road that can support a 60 mph journey in the dry becomes a nightmare in the wet. Stopping distances increase in the wet, snow and ice. Visibility reduces in the fog.

For me the most important thing is my comment on the second one - it's as simple as understanding that the limit is the outer edge of normally acceptable behaviour, not the norm to be adhered to. The first 2 issues can be addressed by the same thing - set the limit at the outer edge of acceptable normality (NOTE: Not the extreme outer edge of capability) and EDUCATE, EDUCATE, EDUCATE that the requirement for drivers is to drive WITHIN the limit set, not AT the limit set.

Just setting the limit higher without this education would be the wrong thing to do. Carrying out this education first, then raising limits where appropriate (motorways, as the best example) would work better. Then reducing the limits where it was necessary, but arguably if the driving public was starting to understand the within message as opposed to the at message, reduction would be less important.

Similarly, I've advocated flexible limits in the past, but I don't think these are really necessary if the within message becomes commonly observed. There may be a case where flexible INCREASED limits are appropriate - for example, standard motorway speed limit is 80, overnight limit is 100.

_________________
COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.