Safe Speed Forums

Methinks all are foolish, as well as possibly illegal.....

I've seen these loonies, gossiping in the middle of the A174......
(and footballs don't last long under the wheels. )

Hiya Peyote

Always like to see you posting here. very much from me, Ted and Vrenchen. I have Krissi visiting me today, and she and Mike say to everyone as long time lurks and occasional posters to thos cycling chatter fora They have gone back to cycling only chatter as chatting "driving standards and improving them" only seems to get them into "bother" in those boards I guess they have some sympathy for weepy - and why me, Ted and Wildy seek to reply hopefully re-assuringly - but with some tongue in cheek "tease/leg pull, banter and mischief in the case of the wild





I despair of the rat run situation. I think some bad road engineering can be part of this. I think we need to look at why the commuters use some side roads as a short cut.


I do not know where you get the 40% car ownership figure from. Most housholds around here are two/three car and I gather from an "Ask the Entire Family" spread across UK that they are experiencing likewise from the residential areas some of them live in. Not all live out in the wilds like the Mad Cats and the "tame and stray cats, frenzied felines and psycho pusses or tiggy tigers " (Yep - I lose count of them all )


But even so - I live at the bottom of a cul-de-sac myself. Chose the house 'cos of the driveway/landscape potential and the large garage

I still tend to look for traffic even though this is a quiet road. I do not ever cross a road if anything on wheels is approaching. You could say that Swiss gendarme did teach me a lesson for life. I have never forgotten what he said or the way he said this.

I think I have modelled my own dealings with the public on his example. He was not rude to me. He did not shout at me. He just explained very firmly in what way I had broken the Swiss law and why that law existed. I had just turned 14 years of age at the time ..

But basically - to summarise what he said to me so many years ago now

: we have a responsibility to others not to place ourselves and another person in any danger or nuisance. Absusing the roads by lack of consideration falls into this category.

I have never forgotten his logic or the nice, almost paternal way he said this to me at the time. He did speak decent English too. He did it in German and then in English to me.



As far as I am aware - only designated play streets have been officially recognised "play areas". These are dwindling in number though.

I do agree that our parks and those planning housing estates do not seem to cater for young children's need for outdoor play areas or even old folks' need for a nice peaceful garden area

I do agree that a social need here has to be addressed - so as families should have a safe haven to allow their kids to play relatively unsupervised within. When I was a lad - I recall the local park near to where we lived - had a play area for football, sailing toy boats, swings/see-saws/roundabouts and climbing frame .. and a warden on duty in the school holidays/after school in the summer. Council cut backs seem to have made these extinct. We all rode our bicycles to this play haven which I do recall using from age 3 -ish to age 15. It no longer exists. The toy boating pool is an overgrown mud pool. The play area with the swings etc has been converted to a skate board/BMX bike stunter facility (OK - that's good for the teenagers - but what about the tots/toddlers/infants/juniors? )


But all the same - roadways - unless specifically designated - are not play areas.



A roads of 30/40/50 /60 mph with houses on them are not "play areas"

You buy the house in the full acceptance of this fact of life at the time of purchase. I personally would not choose to buy a house - but some have no choice. Even so - you accept the conditions and take all known safety precautions :popcron: as relevant to your situation. I call it being responsible and able to make decisions. I enforce the laws. I do not and will not dictate to folk as to how they choose to live their lives. I willoffer, of course, advice as to how to keep safe/within the rubrics of the law and, hopefully, advocate reason.




Road use , as Wildy pointed out, has been heavily in favour of the rights of passage of the horse rider or hansom cab/pony /trap "driver." Ie the thing you cannot argue with


I am not going to argue with a horse pulling a carriage any more than I am going to argue with anything on wheels heading my way at speeds faster than I can realistically and knowingly out run

I still call it common sense/courtesy/safety led to wait at the kerb until the faster road user has passed me. I am only waiting mere seconds after all.



Unfortunately Peyote. This was one of those accidents which would have occurred if the car was stationary. This little boy for some reason broke free from his parent's hold. He ran in the direction of the road. Maybe the little chap saw a pal across the road .. but he will have seen something to captivate and focus on. It was pure tragedy that he did so apparently just as car passed.

From what I understand - he ran into this. There have been many other such tragedies from time to time. In the past - they never made the press.

I would say Wildy makes a valid point in requesting folk think of how this affected that driver. I have dealt with blameless "causers #" in extreme shocked trauma as well as "liable" and charged accordingly with an offence. But we do not and should not deal with those we charge with contempt. Sometimes it was a careless/undue care /negligent sslip - but that does not mean we treat them with disrespect or lack of understanding all the same. I think they accept their fines or jail terms with a learning curve if we do so. Rubbing a nose into a misdemeanour is as callous and unjustified as rubbing a puppy's nose into its own "mess" when house-training it. As in you don't do it


A cyclist would have been seriously injured in such a scenario - had this child run into a bicycle.




BUT
Peyote= I would say no one could be charged over what happened in the scene as reported.

My thoughts are with the child's parents and the driver and family. Pray God they each find solace and come to terms with loss and only recall the happy times with their child and that the driver accepts he couk#ld not avoid and makes peace with the family here.

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

On a slightly different tack, if the driver had swerved, missed the child and hit another predestrian or vehicle, would it be acceptable to sue the parents of the child for negligence?

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

I'm writing this as someone who has run into a child who suddenly ran across the road right in front of my car. Fortunately in this case no serious injury resulted, but the impact was definitely hard enough to cause serious injury or even have killed the child dead on the spot, that this was not the case was down to pure luck. I was 17 years old at the time, had passed my driving test after having been driving for less than a month, with a total of something like 6 or 7 months driving experience.

The circumstances were something like this .. it was over 30 years ago so I might not be entirely accurate. Busy town single caraigeway street, quite a few pedestrians around, including a mother with 2 children, the 2 children were having a bit of a carry on on the pavement, one of them then ran out into the road without looking, this is the one I hit. The incident was witnessed by many people including 2 off duty CID police officers.

After the incident, traffic police were called, skid marks measured, witness statements taken. A traffic officer later spoke to me and said words to the effect of ... you were not driving above the speed limit, there is no evidece that you were being in any way careless, there was probably nothing you could have done about it, and no charges were ever brought against anybody.

IMO there were two basic causes of the incident. One, a parent had allowed her kids to get into an excited state near a road, and two, me failing to take appropriate action on seeing children on the pavement in an excited state. As with most if not all accidents there was more than one cause, had either of the causes been eliminated, the incident would not have happened.

Somewhere back in this thread somebody wrote something like (think it was weepej?) after having an accident drivers will likely be more careful. At the time I thought I was being careful, but the reality is I just didn't have the experience or skills necessary to actually be careful. Yes on seeing 2 kids messing around on the pavement I should at bare minimum have slowed right down and had the brake pedal covered, seems like basic common sense now, but back then at 17 years old and with little driving experience and in reality a serious lack of proper instruction, I probably was of the opinion that so long as I wasn't breaking the speed limit and was paying attention I'd be fine... how very very wrong.

Since then I haven't become any more careful, I have always tried to be careful, but I have worked hard to develop the skills that allow me to actually be careful. If the exact same circumstances were to occur today I'm pretty confident that I'd be able to stop in time because I'd be applying COAST, I seriously hope I'd have recognised the danger, have killed my speed right down, moved over towards the centre of road, and have the brake pedal covered, or to have even completely stopped if the circumstances warranted.

During what little driving instruction I did have before passing my test, it maybe was never actually said, but was certainly implied, that if you are driving within the speed limit you and everybody around you will be pretty much safe ... this is totaly and so very tragically untrue. Nobody ever mentioned COAST or stressed the importance of its principals. The instruction I had was aimed merely to enable me to drive to a standard good enough to pass a driving test, nothing more.

The big problem with trying to improve road safety by introducing blanket speed limits is that road users are liable to think that because vehicles are travelling at or below that speed everybody will be safe, this is without question not the case, and to even promote that idea in any form whatsoever is to my mind criminally irresponsible. There is no law of the universe which guarantees that a child will only ever run onto the road at a distance sufficient for all vehicles to have adequate time to stop if that vehicle is travelling at no more than 20 mph. These events are completely random and impossible to predict, there have been cases of injuries occuring when people run or even walk into stationary vehicles.

I do think that the way forward is first of all to be absolutely truthful about the real causes of road accidents and to cease immediately practices such as using dodgy statistics to promote the latest big thing or any political agendas. Promote the idea that all road users have a duty of care towards all other road users, even when someone else has abandoned that duty of care towards you, and not to act in ways which encourage or are likely to result in anybody abandoning that duty of care.

I'm very sure the mother and both of her children were seriously traumatised by the incident, I never met them again, so can't really say how much impact it had on their lives. I do know that straight afer the incident I was a complete wreck, shaking uncontrollably without a clue what to do next, wishing I had never taken up driving at all, wishing I had taken some action when I first saw the children on the pavement, and seriously doubting I'd ever drive again, but you can't turn the clock back, its done now and nothing can change that. Even today over 30 years after the incident though the was no serious injury it still has an emotional effect on me, it was so very very close to being a terrible tragedy, and I still kick myself in the teeth for failing to realise the danger or do anything about it before it was too late.

A big thanks goes to those CID officers who took control of the situation, organised an ambulance, found me somewhere to sit away from the scene, and somehow organised a cup of tea. Also to the attending Traffic Police who acted with complete profesionalism and compassion.

My heart goes out to all those involved in the tragedy at the start of this topic, it is impossible to think that all of their lives have not been irrevocably changed and not for the better. I sincerely hope the parents can somehow come to terms with their loss, and that the driver involved can move on. I can understand the wish of the mother to have something done to reduce the chances of a similar tragedy occuring and support her 100% in that wish. I am not convinced however that a 20 mph speed limit is the best way to do this, I really do wish it was that simple, but its not, and I believe would likely make little or no difference without other measures being taken.

Rumbly






I think you did learn a lot from that experience from one sentence in your excellent and thoughtful post despite being so young at the time.

It's very likely again that neither you nor the parent could have foreseen this - and as you acknowledge - you were young and still very much on a learning curve.

COAST is more or less the criteria we use to assess candidates on our own tests as well as the DIS/Speed Aware invitees It should be part and parcel of all Bikeability to Driving Test requirements. Most certainly - it should be the main message out there as it does actually - er - control and rein in speeds

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Absoutely, as with air accident investigation, it is vital to separate "cause" from "blame".

If for the past fifty years we had taken the view that the primary cause of air accidents was bad pilots, then the skies would be a lot more dangerous.

_________________
"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 do feel we need to re-designate some roads back to their intended user.

Ring roads, trunk roads and principle roads should be for traffic
residential streets should prioritise the community,
the problem is often that on these streets planners have it confused.
My own road is designated traffic sensitive, c class road yet it is congested by pinch points and psudo cycle lanes.

The planning office tell you you can't reverse out, the highways then construct pinch points. We can't have street lights because it is a rural road, then they put up hundreds of useless road signs.

People won't use the motorway because it is congested, mainly because it is 10 years beyond its design lifespan. Like most towns and cities it is bound by rivers and rail and they won't spend the money improving the bridges.

_________________
Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Not sure what to make of this one... I don't, and probably never will, have children. I did, however, run into a road, with a brief glance for traffic, after a ~3 year old ran away from the nanny of a house I was working in last week. I can't help but think if I were a parent/guardian I'd have not let that situation evan develop. Easy for me to say, perhaps, as someone who had to wonder about the "right" way to grab a squirming child.

I dunno, to me it seems a simple case of pre-empting a situation, ie like the child reins doc mentioned. Many people seem to lack the ability to see all sorts of developing dangers untill, no joke meant, it smacks right into them.

Although, I've just been diagnosed with dyslexia/dyspraxia, I suspect my habit of addressing whats going to happen next when all around me are flapping about whats already happened has something to do with that.

_________________
Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

I didn't want to quote Rumbly's post, as its understandably long, but almost exactly the same thing happened to me about 35 years ago.

A small boy, I believe about 4 years old, ran into the road and ran straight into the rear left panel of my Escort estate. This happened right outside a Police Station and officers were there within minutes. I was totally shaken up and one of the pfficers told me that the mother had said the child "ran out after Marion" who turned out to be an Aunt walking on the opposite side of the road.

I received papers sometime afterwards, and after I had left the company whos car it was, and I and them were joint defendants in a case which lasted some time and resulted in the parents losing their case. The child was quite badly injured.

To this day, from time to time, I run those events over in my head to see if I could have done anything differently.

Mate - to you and Rumbly - I've seen motorists whether innocent of blame or liable and even open to prosecution in severe shocked trauma.

Those who keep "blaming and violating the driver" really have no idea what being involved in an incident means to each party involved - whoever caused it or whether a genuine accident.

Young Wildy is right when she asks folk to think about the driver in this case - how he must feel.. and his own life sentence of the eternal "if only,... what if I had done X instead of Y"

Like Rumbly and the driver in this case - I really doubt if you could have prevented the sudden excited charge into your car when the child spotted something across the way. I think the 9 year old brother in the case of one tragic toddler .. Aunty Marion in your case or whoever or whatever captivated little Connor so tragically will also feel a guilty burden for life too.

But the driver who collides by pure accident - no one "road safety" zealot does seem to address his needs for help over guilt and post traumatic stress. I do. I've seen too much over the career. Experienced for myself when it affected relatives too.

I would say to the likes of BRAKE/ROADPEACE to offer counselling to the drivers who are also victims here. Each accident is different and the criminal idiots? Let the courts decide their punishments. The genuines involved in unforeseen tragedy are each entitled to professional and medical help and help from a "charity" purporting to help "victims of roadside trauma"


But to Rumbly and Speedy alike - I know you will feel forever and nothing I can say will stop that. I would just say that neither of you could have avoided those incidents at the time and in all probability the other party accepted this as part of reconciling to the loss. Maybe a different age and values. Or perhaps I should say current middle class values place the child on a pedestal of worship whereas our own forebears wore plain glasses instead of rose tinted ones as far as their young were concerned

I think we will swing back to some of those basic down-to earth values and treat the child as a child and not a fellow grown up pal. which often results in a dropped guard or an error in judgement which can lead to tragedy.

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

MMmmm! Well I'm really not too sure about all that Aquila, "Nanny State" no I don't think so.......why then did the Tories run from it also?

No.........This disease came from the States, the ambulance chasers, the no win no fee brigade. The culture of if you can afford to pay then you can get away with anything....(I remember Gerald Nabaro) effectively changing the law when they won because we have: "case law" here in Britain.
Previous similar cases can be quoted.. e.g. Today we have very rich footballers..setting "case laws" for the future.

At one time, only the rich like Gerald Nabaro MP (Con) and his secretary could afford the Barristers to "get them off" from driving around a traffic island the wrong way in his Roller; "NAB 1" whilst he was drunk, (and of course his secretary was driving at the time wasn't she), and took the hit (probably for a price).......whilst the poor were getting fined heavily for not stopping properly at a Halt sign, or crossing a "solid line".
Now, even the poor can get........"no win, no fee" Not quite as good, but it helps..

From then on, Proof of who the driver was was needed for a conviction. (Quite right too).

Yes! Even the local "scrote" can now say: "prove it was me wot was drivin' mate"...Thanks to "Gerald Nabaro MP"(Con)

So Ask yourself again Aquila, Where did it come from? Personally, I've never known the poor to gain superior access to justice EVER.....in this Country........

What did Maggie call it again?......Trickle down? Yes, that's it!

........Nah! sorry, all you want is a get out for yourself, but sod all for the poor...

I may agree with you that the "scrote" needs taming, and by demographic disposition, more must be prevalent amongst the lower classes than the rich because of shear numbers. But let's get the "rich" scrotes too!........Money has never made a Gentleman.

Nabaro should have been hung up to dry IMO......A toffee nosed scrote if I ever saw one.....

OK, so I'm having issues with understanding this : -



You seem to say you're not any more careful, but you apply skills that result in you being more careful?

So you are more careful right?


And then you write this, which shows that these days you'd probably pass such a situation covering your brake pedal, which surely is being more careful (more careful than you originally were): -




If this is the case I think its very sad that people have to experience the horror of killing/hitting a child before they modify their behaviour.

Not on its own, no, neither do I, however, I would like to see more 20 limits, and yes possibly time active ones around areas where there is pedestrian traffic during certain times of the day, but not others.

Taking it to the extreme I'm certainly not up for cutting areas of town in two by putting up barriers and rengineering entire areas simply so cars can go a little bit faster without having to worry about dealing with people on the road.

I got the impression a while back that some people on here would rather cut villages in two and have a motorway style road through it, rather than simply slow down and be more careful.

You see I think a lot of drivers who see a situation ahead that could end up in this type of result DON'T slow down because : -

• they don't want to deal with an idiot all over the back of them pressuring them to go faster
  
• they simply don't want to "inconvenience" the car driver behind them by slowing down (when they feel they should)
  
• or of course simply don't want to slow down anyway
  

So, a 20mph limit would mitigate all three reasons I've listed here for maintaining a more unsuitable speed for the situation.

If you were right about this then you would see less accidents in 20mph limit areas, but you don't according to the stats. This is what I would expect as I see 20mph limits as being generally neutral in effect. Most are in areas where you would have to be a muppet to exceed 20. And the muppets are not likely to take any notice of the sign at the side of the road.

Er, what stats?

Reams of them showing that KSI rates are lower, much much lower, when 20mph areas are introduced, and one case where Safe Speed produced some figures from that appeared to indicate otherwise, but even it couldn't explain why this result came out, whch has led people to write to my local paper as if this "finding" was gospel and all others were wrong.

Er, what reams?

Weepej - we do not have blanket 20 mph on normal A roads. Nor should we.

Portsmouth's 20 mph relates to a route through the town centre. One of the family units uses Britanny Ferries from Portsmouth and found that there was no blanket 20 mph operating there. - just the main town centre routes through which you could not really drive much faster anyway

The Wild has posted up stats on here relating to Germany and Switzerland which do have more 20 mph urbans than prevail in the UK. These stats seem to indicate more accidents occur on these roads than elsewhere. Per the report which Wildy summarised in English and verified via a Babel Fish version (which confirms her translation and of a better standard than Babbly as she call it ) - they seem to be saying that dense volume and poor behaviour on the part of EACH road user to some extent are the prime causes

Highway Code Rule 152 is COAST based advice as regards driving in built-up areas

As is Rule 206 as regards dealing with hazards and "vulnerables"




Interestingly, Rule 218 relates to the old "Play Streets". These are now "Home Zone" (blue rectangle with bloke/kids/house and CAR" on them. and "Quiet Lanes" (Green rectangle with man and child/horse/bicycle and CAR) on them.



These are defined as "places where people can be using th whole street for playing.. community events or other leisure activity.

Very interestingly it says



Again we are back to COAST, courtesy and neighbourly negotiation with each other on our roads

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

That often happens to me and I've long since given up bothering about it. I suggest you shouldn't, either.

As far as I can gather, a hoon means going for a spirited drive that is of course safe, but also somewhat enthusiastic and exuberant, etc.

If that's not the right explanation perhaps somebody can put us right.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

You picked up on the bits which prove Rumbly learned a lot from this experience as a youngster. I think Rumbly is trying to say that despite that sharp learning curve - he accepts that it's constant learning all the time and we can never assume to know it all

I still think there was little he could have done in this particular instance of the absolutely genuine accident with tragic outcomes for all involved..

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

I think this is a fair definition - but I think it's part of the vernacular used by track day enthusiasts

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.