Safe Speed Forums

Yes, but do you actually drive at 20 everywhere on the off chance that a 'hole' herd of deer jump out at you?

I bet you don't.

This does raise an interesting point, mind you. I automatically drive my (country lane) commute faster than normal in the late evening/night and on the rare occasions (like this am) when I go later and share the road with the school run numpties, rather slower.

As I believe my speed is consciously largely determined by being able to stop in half the distance that I can see (we're talking single vehicle width lanes), I'm subconsciously risk-managing.

Cashmere Obedience, speed was not the CAUSE of the accident you describe. It merely exacerbated the injuries once the chain of events was put into motion.

Reducing speed MIGHT mitigate the effects of an accident, but it will not alter whether you have an accident or not. That depends on a whole number of factors.
SPEED can save you from an accident, placing you ahead of an incident, or it might magnify the injuries as in the incident you related.

To illustrate this: travelling at 50 mph a deer might jump out in FRONT of you, which at 65 might have jumped BEHIND you - it's that sort of sequence which leads to accidents, not mere speed.

Every driver is different... some are more alert when driving faster... some are less alert when driving slowly - yes there is a difference, because we are assuming a uniform standard of driving from all, when in fact there is a huge variation in the abilities of drivers you encounter.

The single most important thing when driving, is OBSERVATION.

This week, in Barrow-in-Furness, just a short distance from our nearest TESCO superstore, a baby died in hospital after a tragic accident on her parents driveway... SLOWLY... and with apparently with insufficient observation.

In February 2007 a 17 year old youth died about a half mile from my home. The impact speed was low, but his car was spun awkwardly, and he broke his neck.
If I drove so slowly as to completely eliminate the risk of repeating his accident, I would become a hazard to other drivers, or if somebody came around a bend and found my car dawdling , I might even be at risk from somebody running into the back of me!

Feel free to drive slowly - but be aware of what is going on around you - both in front and behind, and remember COAST = CONCENTRATION, OBSERVATION, ANTICIPATION, SPACE & TIME

Botach's illustration of avoidance causing more injuries, reminds me of the Titanic. Recent research shows that had the Titanic simply rammed the iceberg head on, instead of trying to turn away, and tearing a gash in her hull, she would have remained afloat.

Good luck, and stay safe.

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

There's one thing to say about an inflated sense of importance. People don't know - they are so important in their own world that it stops reality from impinging. There's been a lot of work been written up about the human ego - people still have ape-like instincts. You sometimes see it on the roads, don't you?

I completely agree with Ernest and you remind me of an accident I was involved in, on my motorbike; a SMIDSY.

I was still young when it happened, about nineteen years old back in 1978/9, and I remember thinking ‘do I hit the car head-on or try and swerve?’ It’s incredible how quick you can think and react in these circumstances. I decided to keep the brakes on in a straight line to scrub off as much speed as possible and hope for the best.

Now I can’t prove it of course but I’m sure I did the right thing. If I had tried to veer off there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the consequences would have been worse. He would have side-swiped me instead, so my leg would have had the full impact and goodness knows what else.

What actually happened was I hit the front side of the car, flew over the handlebars in a somersault, landed on his bonnet and a finally rolled onto the road in a heap. I was badly bruised and shaken but otherwise okay, well, I was after about two weeks. If I had been going slower I may have lost my lower limbs on the handlebars or impacted directly into the car instead of being launched higher.

The first words out of his mouth were “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you” followed by “It was my fault”, (the very thing you are meant not to say but gulit was written all over his face). There were witnesses, not that I needed them, and I learnt a valuable lesson the hard way: Never, ever, trust traffic at a junction! No matter if you make eye contact or whether you have right of way.

If I am ever in a similar position again I would probably do the same, keep it straight. Whether it’s a car or a deer, that would be my advice to anyone but as always it depends on circumstances.

We can’t possibly live a bubble. There is risk in life and always will be and that’s a fact of life. If we all drove at 20 mph everywhere I’m sure the KSI rate would decrease, so for me it’s a compromise between effective safe transportation verses potential danger. The 'Act of God' you witnessed Cashmere would shake anyone up but, at the risk of being insensitive, you have nothing to fear from driving at speed so long as you use COAST.

Experience is a hard teacher because the test is first, the lesson afterwards.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I'd like to ask about that. When never trusting traffic at a junction, do you slow down? What else do you do by not trusting traffic?

If they already have their nose poking out it’s likely a sign they have been there a while and are ready to take the next ‘clear’ gap. I may be doing the speed limit if there is no traffic but I always slow down at any junction where there is traffic ready to launch.

There is an effect which I read about in MCN long ago, (called looming I think), which essentially talked about how the size of a large vehicle was perceived to be going faster. (This is certainly the case when I am on my bicycle! ) Therefore, on a motorbike you can be made more noticeable depending on which part of the road you choose to occupy and maybe even wobble left and right on the approach to the junction to show more of yourself. It makes drivers think!

My bike is a ‘loud’ orange colour instead of Ninja black. I’d rather be a live un-cool biker than a dead trendy. And talking of loud, I may even blip the throttle near the junction if there is any doubt in my mind. There’s a lot of truth in the saying “loud pipes save lives”

I’m not saying it cannot or will not happen to me but you can certainly put the odds more in your favour and lessen the effect if the unthinkable ever does happen. So far so good…

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Yes. It contradicts an earlier post (by someone else) that suggested that speed was not a big issue. Would you slow down at certain junctions even where there is no visible traffic yet?



But one common thing many people actually do when perceiving danger is to slow down. Does that work better than, say, speeding up, staying the same, swerving around?

It all depends on the circumstances. There is no 'one size fits all', which is what you seem to be angling at. I think the poster was making the argument that a higher speed is not necessarily indicative of more danger, but that’s just my take.

One cannot make the statement that X mph is the safe limit for a road under all conditions or indeed that slower is always better. COAST encompasses all aspects of road safety! This includes speed which is just one part of a very complex and random problem. i.e: How much traffic, good weather or bad, the state of mind or sobriety of other drivers, rural verses urban, uphill or down etc…

No-one can ever know what they are likely to encounter when they take to the road. The dreadful and deadly situation we have today is the notion that so long as they are not speeding then they are doing nothing wrong or worse still they think that it makes them a good safe driver.

To answer your question, at times I have accelerated well above the speed limit to avoid an accident or make a safe overtaking manoeuvre for example. I have cruised at 85 mph in France and 110+ mph in Germany. To do so on an English road which has exactly the same layout may be illegal, but not necessarily unsafe. Unfortunately, this is where some people here have completely and wrongly pigeon-holed Safe Speed as pro-speed. (The hint is in the name otherwise I’m sure Paul would have called it Fast Speed instead)

People try to bang the speed kills drum when in fact they are simply bent out of shape about people not sticking to a law. Fair enough I say! If that is your argument then put that across but please – don’t mix speed with safety. It does no-one any favours whatsoever.

Edit to add: I'm not attacking you BTW, when I say "you".

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Yet many people do seem to slow down when they sense danger. That is what I have seen on the motorways and streets. Why do they slow down when the speed makes no odds?



That's interesting. I imagine the times I have slowed when I have felt risk, and the times when I have speeded up. For me, I'm more likely to slow down. Do you usually slow down, or speed up? Is it 50/50, or are you more likely to speed up when there is a risk of (say) crashing? What is the ratio likely to be?

I don't think anyone here has said that it makes no odds. You are taking something that wasn't said out of context. (If that's possible )



Are you trying to nail me down to a percentage so you can then attack my figure?

I'm glad to say I haven't much experience of imminent danger these days because I use COAST. Prevention is better than cure and a good driver will not only drive well but also allow for other drivers’ mistakes too. (As much as possible). I don’t want to shout “I was in the right” from a hospital bed.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

To get back to the OP’s question, I think many people are “so scared of being caught breaking the law, they stick to WAY below the limit”. I regularly follow drivers doing 25 mph or less past cameras in a 30 mph limit in my area.

I have always said that you don’t need to flood the whole land with cameras; you need only to plant enough and prosecute enough. There isn’t anyone I know who hasn’t either been done or doesn’t know others who have, so either the whole nation of drivers have turned into killers in the past ten years or it’s something else.

There is a doctor where I work whom always has to go out with another clinician because he can’t drive. As more get banned, they will either leave the country or I guess we will spend more money on licensed escorts. Think I’m lying? (Just thought I’d let you know where some of the taxpayers money and inefficiencies are going).

I also think that the OP’s third point is happening. I now tend to travel at ~60 mph on motorways to get a good mpg.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I'm after a rough order of magnitude. This is related to Gestalt psychology, which deals with visual pattern perception. There are rules that relate to how we perceive proximity (things close together appear to be related), shapes (things which are similar in shape could be related), closure and continuity (we fill out the gaps), and symmetry. We short circuit the thinking process and involuntarily rush to judgement thousands of times each day. In any case, we visually perceive events and we decide on their meaning instantly. When we sense danger ahead, is our first response to rush at it, or to slow down?

Not trying to be factitious but it sounds more like a question for a psychologist or Desmond Morris perhaps. It’s too esoteric for me but maybe others have some relevant input or references…

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Did you sign Paul Smith's petition to scrap speed cameras Big Tone?

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/scrapcam/

There's a difference between slowing down for specific hazards and driving at a consistently slower speed than necessary.

Are you saying people who poodle about at 50 everywhere are doing so because they sense a kind of constant background danger hum?

Not sure how it’s relevant to this thread but yes; without hesitation.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

There is the "constant background danger" - look at the post above about the deer that jumped out - there can be no dispute about that, really. But anyway, let's look for a minute at people who drive at "a consistently slower speed than necessary". Who says what the necessary speed is? The other driver, or you? I wasn't aware there is a general necessary speed. Let us know if there is one, we all need to know about it, surely?

But that's not where I'm going, either. I'm on about Gestalt psychology - a force that makes us rush to judgement on scant evidence without even being aware of the fact that we have made a judgement!

Look, there is a Human Action Cycle at play when we are driving. We make goals, we translate those into actions, we perceive the outcome, we judge if it is what we want, then we replan and start again. The Gestalt psychology aspect appears in the "perceive and judge" stages. Gestalt psychology is unreliable; we sometimes subconsciously determine that things are safe when they are not. Then we crash.

There are at least two ways to offset the effects of natural Gestalt psychology. One involves training ourselves to rely more on conscious judgements. The other way is to reduce the impact of mistakes. One way to reduce the impact of mistakes is to slow down. That has the additional benefit of mitigating against events outside your own control (jumping deer, other drivers' errors)...

We should make basic knowledge of Gestalt psychology part of the driving test.

Interesting. I hadn’t heard the term before but do we really need to know it in order to be a better driver?

I’m sure there are racing drivers and riders whom have never heard the term either but are nonetheless still great in their field. They have simply practiced and, together with a natural propensity, have become very good.

In other words, I don’t need to understand the how or why the motor neurons inter-connect in order to move my arm. I simply move my arm in accordance with my wishes and with training, (as you mentioned), I can become a better driver or mover of my arm to accomplish the task.

I don't see how it differs very much from being a pedestrian and using my legs to run, jump and avoid accidents. We seem to get by pretty well each day without knowing about Gestalt psychology.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Of course it's only the tip of the iceberg. Gestalt psychology shows that we see things that aren't there and we don't see things that are there. We also have other psychological phenomenon - as people, we see what we want to see. It happens all the time, and causes us all a lot of trouble. We all need to know about these abstract thought processes - many people think their thoughts are controlled and concrete, and it takes a lot to convince them how vulnerable they are in reality.



I was thinking about transport, not sport. Sportsmen learn to compete, while drivers learn to share. That's the basic difference there.



Many people end up in hospital (or the morgue!) because they rush to judgement!

But there are places where I know I won't have a deer jump out on me as there are no hedges. So why drive as if one will in those areas? Therefore no background danger hum.



There must be one, or you wouldn't be able to fail your driving test for failing to make progress. By and large, on a decent, straight section of road, in a decent unladen vehicle, there's no reason to go significantly slower than the posted limit, especially the way limits are being reduced these days.

However, as I've said upthread, there's nothing wrong with driving as slow as you like if you don't like going faster, providing you don't force others to do likewise.

When my delivery van's loaded up and I can't go that fast, I do everything in my power to let other drivers by. Though you do get the odd numpty that clings to your back bumper and just won't overtake....