Safe Speed Forums

I doubt this tragic incident will have the loonies calling for speed cams on the railways.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4201632.stm

Why should it? Was the train exceeding the speed limit for that stretch of track?

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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

Or, if you insist on being pedantic:

29.9mph.

Whatever happened to travelling at a speed at which you can pull up on your own side of the tracks in the distance you can see, and, more importantly can reasonably expect to remain, clear?

Imagine someone coming up with the excuse for a road accident that it was OK to do 100mph down the Southall High Street because every pedestrian he could see was on the pavement at the time ?!?!?!?!?!?!

Or, if you insist on being pedantic:

29.9mph.

Or is there some special reason why this reasoning doesn't apply to trains?

Oh, I know:

They take miles to stop and can't steer round hazards like kids on the track.

And are massively more pedestrian unfriendly than HGVs and Buses, never mind cars.

Classic!

You couldn't make it up!!

Well, sorry, if Twenty's Plenty on the real roads, in that case Ten's Tempting Tragedy on the rail roads.

They can start slowing down miles back from ANY point at which someone might get onto the tracks.

To 10mph.

After all:

If it saves just one life!

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Is this guy real, if this was school he'd have a big red line through that lot.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

All he's doing is showing how the same logic that people apply to judging speeding involving cars can be applied to trains.

The crucial difference is that pedestrians have right of way on roads at all times, but not on railway tracks.

Presumably you will be advocating the same on airport runways. After all, just imagine the consequences if 400 tons of 747 hit a child who had accidentally strayed

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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

Isn't the whole point that he isn't advocating it, he's pointing out how ludicrous that line of thinking is?

I'm not at all sure that is what he's doing, given that from his past record he seems to have an obsessive hatred of railways.

Perhaps he was frightened by a train when he was a small child.

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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

IMO You cannot apply the same logic to speeding cars as you can to speeding trains, purely because of thier stopping distances. That is why trians are so dangerous.



Yes stevei, and people should not be on the railways by law, should they? Railways are dangerous by nature just as airports runways are (nice one PeterE) This is due to the physical size/weight of trains and plains, and the stopping distances involved. If people want to wander, or throw themselves onto the railway lines then they have to take the consequences.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

And effectively the same applies on motorways, which are dedicated roads for motor vehicles where pedestrians are banned, and you can drive in a reasonable expectation of not encountering a pedestrian. That is the road comparison, not all-purpose roads which pedestrians have a right to use.

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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

Yes Pete motorways too, and that's why IMO there would be no logic in even contemplating giving pedestrians right of access.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

I'm not advocating anything.

I'm just holding up a mirror to people who are.

If they don't like what they see.................

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Care to present any evidence of that?

If you must know I really like trains.

And have very fond and happy childhood memories of them (and trams and trolley buses and canals and....)

And there's nothing I like better than taking a leisure trip on a boat or a steam train.

But that doesn't mean that I'm going to recommend that my employers put in a £10 billion railway, or even a £0.2 billion tram track, between the office and the workshops.

Nor that I'm going to deny the fact that, despite being fenced off, the railroads are as dangerous as the real roads.

And if they can't stop kids getting on the tracks, then the train drivers, like any others, should take the appropriate level of care, and drive at the appropriate speed.


PS As a train lover, would you like to tell us how many people the average car driver runs down and kills.

And how many people the average train driver does?


PPS Lauren is a girls' name.

But I won't hold it against you.

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But your not comparing apples with apples are you? A pedestrian is commiting a criminal offence by being on a motorway/rail line/runway, where as they aren't on Southall High Street. With the perhaps exclusion of motorways* it's very much a predetermined act to trespass on the railways or airfields.

*It's just possible(though it would be very difficult) that a pedestrian could mistake it for a normal road.

You cannot apply the logic that trains should go slower purely because they take miles to stop (and can't steer round hazards) and are so dangerous?

So, you're saying that HGVs should have higher speed limits than cars, and not lower?!

Been to the pub lunchtime?!!!!!!!!!!!



Here we go.

Contrary to the train lobby, the majority of rail deaths are not suicides.

Even if they are, how many road deaths are?

And how many were dead at the wheel (I'm personally aware of two accidents caused by a wicked evil speedophile corpse)?

Oh, and "road deaths" include pedestrians killed by cyclists (comparable numbers per passenger mile as by motor vehicles) and even bus passengers tripping as they alight, hitting their heads on the kerb, and killing themselves.

Oh, and 85% of pedestrians killed in a collision with a motor vehicle were to blame themselves for the accident.

"If people want to wander, or throw themselves onto the" roads "then they have to take the consequences."

Wouldn't you agree?

And roads aren't "dangerous by nature"?

It's idiotic comments like that.

And like:

"pedestrians have right of way on roads at all times"

That gives the UK the worst child road fatality rates in the EU, despite having the safest drivers.

Do you drive?

Have you read the Highway Code?

Did you know there was a pedestrian section at the very front?

Have you read it?

Have you heard of obstructing the Queens Highway?

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I'm speedily (sorry George) coming round to Georgeda's way of thinking:

UK drivers aren't fit to be allowed on the roads!

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Sorry.

With you now.

You're saying that on fenced off railways, due to the fact that they are analagous to motorways, trains run, not at 186, or 175, or 125, or 100, or even, as they take miles to stop, and can't steer round hazards, and are so dangerous, at 70, but at, say, 30.


But on the approach to level crossings, and along motorway embankments where vehicles frequently come off onto the tracks, or unfenced sections like where those two kids were killed on a picnic, they go at something like 10mph.

Cos they'se so big and heavy and dangerous and take miles to stop.

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Since when did an RTC necessarily have to involve speed or speeding for any casualties involved to later justify a camera?

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Right, I'm with you now:

If they made it legal to trespass on the railways you'd solve the problem of deaths on the railways.

Well, actually, only about half of it.


And where, exactly, do people get the idea it's legal to run out into the road in front of traffic.

Oh, it's from driver's and motoring forums propagating garbage like its legal to run out into the road.

It's not even legal to use a zebra crossing if you obstruct the traffic unreasonably!

Just because the PC PCs never do anyone for it doesn't make it legal.

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Jeez

Is it any wonder Georgeda and his/her/its ilk always get the upper hand?

Is it any wonder we have 6,000 sCams but a fraction of the motorways or national standard roads per head, per car, per acre, per GDP, per anything you like, in comparison with any other developed nation?

Is it any wonder you almost never get anyone prosecuted for rail or bus (or tram) accidents but millions of motorists are prosecuted?

Is it any wonder that trains use low duty fuels, buses reclaim most of theirs, but motorists pay around 350% fuel duties and contribute a sixth or a seventh of the exchequer's entire revenue?

Much of which goes to subsidise trains and trams and buses and cyclists and pedestrians.

Is it any wonder, I'm beginning to realise, motorists get everything they deserve?

There are around 350 deaths on the railways each year. More than the number killed as a result of accidents involving "illegal" speed

Just thought you would like to know..

The first death on the railways occured on the day the first line was opened in 1830. The similar arguments were used against railways on environmental and safety grounds that are made against cars today....nothing changes does it..

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Speed camera policy Kills