Safe Speed Forums

Eh, what?

I already stated 20 is not a target, it's a limit. It's illegal to drive too fast regardless of the limit. A 10mph limit would be silly, why are you suggesting I would want such a thing?

You can see the video, there are kids all over the road, the bus driver should clearly be travelling more slowly.

Did you read the article, it says there are no figures for that.

Didn't stop you grasping at the conclusion that 20mph limits have caused an increase in incidents though did it? Strange that.

Are they having a laugh? if they don't know who does know and what exactly are we paying the overpaid public servant idiots for then? Maybe it should read..." The DfT do know but don't want to release the figures because it would be an embarrasment to them and people like Weepy"

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

I think I should put all of Weepej's pathetic arguments to rest once and for all with an incident I observed not 2 days ago whilst dropping little Odin off to school.

I have oft waxed lyrical about parental responsibility, however, we are approaching the school. One of little Odin's friends spots his friend(little Odin), and runs staight into the road in front of a white van. White van man amazingly manages to get van stopped prior to turning little chav (this is what we refer to little Odins friend as) into pate (a lot of tyre smoke involved). Chavs' mother, rather than thanking white van man for preserving the life of her child, turns the air blue with anecdotes of speeding!
I am quietly left thinking, how about controlling you child missus?
Doubtless had the van driver in question not had such good reactions this would have turned into a media sensation resulting in a speed limit reduction.
For good measure, I estimate the van was travelling in the area of 20 mph.

Weepej - Comments?

Hmmmm... 30 wouldn't be a target, it would be a limit as well. Why are you so keen on 20 limits then? Certainly shows the (er, "limits") of speed limits doesn't it? Travel at a safe speed for the conditions. I doubt you'll find a single person on here that disagrees. Rigorously enforce (and then reduce and even more rigorously enforce when found not to be delivering the expected benefits) speed limits? I think this illustrates just how pointless that is!

So not entirely unpredictable. And certainly didn't appear from nowhere.

And if you don't expect kids to vault railings at the side of the road or in the middle of a busy dual carriageway then you are driving different roads to me.

Have you watched it yet?

Insomuch as he/she was driving in a cycle lane: yes. If he/she had not done so he/she would not have hit the boy.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

That's a bit unfair, don't you think? It's one of those "virtual" cycle lanes like they have in Ambleside - i.e. the road isn't wide enough but they've just gone and painted it on anyway! The bus is simply too wide to fit in what's left.

The cycle lane has broken rather than solid line, the lane is not wide enough for a bus and the other lane is right turn only.

The bus driver managed to avoid hitting the kids wandering along the cycle lane so there was a gap to the railing. While it looks to me like the bus was going too quickly given the jay walkers the only speed that contributed to the accident was speed at which the kid ran at and vaulted over the railing.

The speed of the bus may have altered the severity of the injury, however it could be either way. It looked like a glancing blow, if the bus had been going fractionally slower the lad could have ended up under the bus.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

All this is very interesting. I have got a very detailed book on the history of Manchester trams, and also a video showing, inter alia, Manchester city centre, (Piccadilly and Market St), before the First World War. The video shows almost unbelievable congestion and traffic, and this was in fact the subject of serious concern and investigation by the City Council. Very slow moving vehicles are seen holding up everyone else, and at the time serious study was given to building new roads in the centre. WW1 put the kybosh on most plans, and the trams were scrapped from the 1930s onwards.

Of course it (the circa 1910 traffic), all takes place at around 10-15 mph or less , horse carts, trams, bikes, etc all jostling for space with pedestrians nipping in and out seemingly oblivious to the traffic. One thinks, how on earth did they not have serious accidents with all this traffic ? Well, of course they DID, and the details are given in the tramways book and interestingly they are broadly comparable with the current accident record in Manchester City Centre today with fatalities recorded regularly.
The congestion was severe because everything had to proceed at the speed of the slowest vehicle, which is many cases was a man walking leading one or two horses pulling a laden cart. Of course, those who know Manchester will say, so what's changed ? The traffic still proceeds at around 10 mph maybe 20 on a good day !! Think about this, though. It is the embodiment of this concept of "free space, no priority", yet most people couldnt wait to see improvements and the elimination of slow moving vehicles.

So I don't think just putting in blanket 20 mph limits is the answer. However, I do think there should be consideration of introducing 5 mph bands up to 40 mph, thus giving new 25 and 35 limits. In continental Europe with speeds in 10 kph increments, this represents around 6 mph so if they can do it so can we. IMHO 25 limits would be very useful in places where 20 mph is too slow.

PS : There seems to have been no mention on this forum of the raising of the Netherlands default motorway limit from 120 to 130 kph from September this year. So far, I understand this has made no difference whatsoever to the safety record of their motorways, probably because most people were already proceeding at 130 kph !!

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Good manners maketh a good motorist

Well ,my suggestion is to be realistic and follow safety risk assesments. One way of avoiding facial damage is not to stick bottom lip out. I'd sugest in the absence of answering the growing multitude of unanswered queastions you engage brain before making assumptions you can't prove. Or better still ,quote the source .( Or have I asked another question you might decide to avoid).

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Tell me something Weepej, if the road is clear and there will be times when the busiest street is, why is a 20mph limit so important? It still gets back to a safe speed is relative to conditions and as conditions are constantly changing so does a safe speed.

I have not been able to get the link to work, but I assume the boy vaulting the safety barrier was a teenager and as such should have a brain that allows him to think for himself. Therefore, has he not a responsibility to other road users? Even if the bus was doing 10mph fierce braking could end up with a passenger being injured, or if the bus had swerved to miss him, could have had another innocent road user killed. All road users not just drivers have a responsibility for their own and others safety. This to my mind is the problem these days, the message coming across is pedestrians and cyclists can do what ever they want and other road users will look after their safety. Unfortunately in practice this does not work, the best person to keep you safe is you and not to rely on other road users and if you are unable to do this then you should have with you a reponsibile person who can.

Couldn't agree more! That, to my mind, is the fatal flaw with just automatically "making everything the motorist's fault". Shared space = shared responsibility! It really is the only way you'll get casualties down. If not that, all you'll succeed in doing is getting more money out of the insurers of power-driven vehicles, but you won't actually prevent the carnage.

Cos it would cost far too much money to have a variable limit, and frankly, in our towns and cities, why travel faster than 20 anyway, you're not going to get anywhere any quicker!

At night too, just the time to keep the speed down really.

To add, there is no such thing as a safe speed.

Even on main roads?

That would vastly extend journey times, not least for buses.

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"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

ha ha ha ...no you are right any sort of movement is likely to get you killed....ha ha ha

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

You are generalising too much, I can think of plenty of towns and cities where at certain times of day 20mph would be a totally unnecessary.

So there is no such thing as a safe speed? If you have an area with clear vision around you, unless something is going to fall out of the sky in front of you, of course a speed can be safe. The art of safe driving is, considering what you can see, what you can't see and what you may see, and then driving accordingly.

That's the thing really. People talk about the average traffic speed in such-and-such a city and then make the assumption that there's no point in traveling faster than it because you won't get there any quicker. What actually happens is that there are some congested roads where the traffic speed is low, and there are others where it is not. It's patently obvious to anyone (or ought to be!) that if you're not on one of the congested roads all you will do by sticking to the average speed for the whole city is holding up traffic elsewhere!

No. I said blanket 20mph speed limits with exceptions for some roads.

If you think (or choose to think) when I say 20mph I mean every single road then no wonder you get so uppity when they're mentioned!