Safe Speed Forums

Let me describe two accidents to you. I was present at one, and heard first hand from an eye witness of the other.

1. I was a passenger, travelling to work in the morning, on a bus on a busy A-road with a speed limit of 60 mph (These are the most dangerous roads in terms of the number of fatal accidents). A car driver was 'stuck' behind a truck travelling towards us. I don't know how fast the bus or the truck were going, lets say 55 mph each. The guy in the car decides to overtake, he badly misjuges the time he has (That bus is travelling toward him in excess of 110 mph!) what does he do? Turn the wheel and put his car in the ditch? Brake hard and return to his place behind the truck? No. I watched him accelerate...he survived but needed some dental work after he hit his face on the steering wheel. No-one on the bus was injured in the collision. He was a lucky risk taking speeder!

2. A driver stuck behind a slowish moving line of traffic on a busy A-road, 60 mph limit. This guy really put his foot down and attempted to overtake 5 cars (most of will have seen this attempted - or done it!). There is no traffic coming from the opposite direction, so that's OK, right? No. A Lady pulled out of a junction to his right and his car smashed ito hers. He survived slightly injured, her car was split in two. She survived with some minor injuries, her child was thrown out of the back seat (yes the seat belt was used) and killed. The kid was unlucky, the speeder threw his 22 pennies and the kid's heads all came up...

Conclusion - most people are crazy some of the time, and some are crazy most of the time. The slower we drive the fewer of us will get badly smashed up. It's common sense mate - go on, admit it!

Avoiding reckless overtaking is indeed safer. I can't see what either of those two accidents have to do with speeding.

the 2 situations you've desribed involve in case (a) one person being completely stupid and in case (b) two people being completely stupid. Presumably the woman that pulled out of the junction was driving slowly, it didn't stop her from not looking, why do you think it would stop anyone else from being stupid?

Were the overtakers actually exceeding the speed limit? (not forgetting the fact that speedos overread)

Was ‘speeding’ the cause of these crashes or were they cases of case of poorly judged/executed manoeuvres?

go on, admit it!

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

What I should have said is, none of the regular posters on this site support irresponsible driving of that kind. We want the nutters off the road.

The camera partnerships don't lift a finger to stop that kind of thing: they're more interested in people driving safely at 80mph on a desterted motorway.

Okay here's the most important parts from your first description. Firstly, you state the speed limit is 60mph and that the vehicles involved are travelling at an estimated 55mph. You say that the combined speed when they are heading towards each other is 110mph so still 55mph each.

So you have described a situation where nobody involved has broken the speed limit at any point.

You even state the cause of it all yourself when you say the guy in the car badly misjudges the time he has to overtake.

Now I don't agree with the misuse of speed but it's quite clear here that speed was not the issue here at all. If all the vehicles involved were travelling at 40mph misjudgements by poor drivers could still be made. Similarly, it's possible to have a safe overtake happen at over 100mph.

I think you should concentrate less on the speed and instead be asking why the driver that made the mistake didn't have enough road sense or road education to realise he should not be attempting to overtake in the first place.

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I think you should concentrate less on the speed and instead be asking why the driver that made the mistake didn't have enough road sense or road education to realise he should not be attempting to overtake in the first place.[/quote]

Exactly!

Why do these people assume we are all in favour of reckless speeding?
Safespeed! SAFESPEED the website is called SAFESPEED
In future Nevatre would you please read the posts on this forum then you might get a clearer insight in the thinking of it's members instead of jumping to the wrong conclusion.

We need to cut a bit of slack to new users. It's bad enough that they have to run the gauntlet of differing opinion...

When you see the 'L plate' go easy. That's what it's there for.

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

Actually, if both the bus and lorry were travelling at 55mph then they were the ones speeding. The speed limit on a S/C for a bus being 50mph and for a lorry 40mph. As has been said, this kind of wreckless overtaking is not condoned here in any sence. As for the driver in incident b, he was breaking the law by overtaking that close to a junction anyway and as has already been said, the woman coming out of the junction is as much responsible as the overtaker.

These kind of incidents can happen at any speed. A friend of mine was knocked off his bike last week by someone pulling out of a junction infront of him. He was travelling at about 20mph and approaching a red light. We aren't a bunch of speedfreaks here, we want to examine the root causes of accidents. Excessive speed CAN be a root cause, but excessive doesn't always mean above the speed limit.

Welcome to the debate. Hope you enjoy your stay!

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

To paraphrase from another thread - your logic is flawed.
I assume that what you're trying to say is that some people do crazy things at times so we should all drive slower to increase our chances of survival if and when we encounter such 'crazies'. But that does not follow.
In your first example, the overtaker was the 'crazy', so what you're really saying is that the bus should have been travelling slower in order to mitigate the outcome of the inevitable collision.
In your second example, the woman encountered the 'crazy' when she pulled out of the junction. How fast was she going? 20mph? 10mph? Her lack of speed certainly didn't prevent her child from being killed, did it?



Common sense also tells us that the earth is flat.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

You are of course quote right Paul, but the posting style of that individual suggests the're not interested in discussion. I think that most (if not all) of us replied in the same posting style as Nevatre so I don't have any problems with it. Also, no 'hello's or introductions could amplify my point.
Nevatre, I'll be very happy for you to prove me wrong.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Quote:

a busy A-road with a speed limit of 60 mph (These are the most dangerous roads in terms of the number of fatal accidents).

I'm not wishing to be contradictory, but is this the case? I genuinely don't know, but I bet Paul knows.

This is an interesting point.

I was talking to someone last week and the topic of road safety happened to come up. I mentioned that speeding in itself wasn't dangerous, and their reply was: "I disagree, a few weeks ago I saw someone run a red light and almost knock over a mother and child who were crossing the road".

It's like somehow subconciously a lot of people just connect "speeding" with "dangerous driving"; they can't see the difference in merely exceeding a speed limit but driving safely.

Agreed - my wife witnessed an accident in which the vehicle two cars in front, knocked down a child on a crossing. She estimated the speed as 40 mph. When I asked if the car was pulling away from hers and the vehicle in front, she said NO! She then estimated their speeds as 25 - 30 mph - despite the fact both would have been executing a right turn about 3 yards beyond the turning.

Most people who think breaking a law is wrong, interpret Safespeed as being Safe to speed, and think it is about being allowed to break the limit.

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

Agreed that this is what some probably assume. I think the name of the site is rather unfortunate to be honest.

Speed is the only measurable aspect of driving. And for the last few years the media has being telling us (speed = dangerous driving)

Dangerous driving is alot more to do with the judgment of the passager and that of the driver. How do you measure hazard perseption(The DVLA has tried,using a computer based test-all you have to is click a mouse button), and concentration.

It is hard to convince someone that a person who drives within the speed limit is a dangours dirver.
It is also equally hard to conivce people that they can drive safely with out a speedo.
It is even harder to convince someone that person how breaks the limit is a safe driver.

When the first steam trains where made people where scared that the air would be sucked out of their lungs at 20mph!

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Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

Actually the name of the site and the campaign is perfect. It's all about the importance of drivers selecting a SAFE and appropiate SPEED for the circumstances.

It doesn't matter to our purpose if people make false assumptions, indeed sometimes the false assumption will bring them along looking for information.

It is also an intelligent counter to the mindless 'speed kills' claims.

And it aligns us immediately with SAFEty - which is vital.

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

Clearly we can apply the 'reductio ad absurdam' safety argument here and take things to their logical conclusion according to the original post.. If a ruthlessly applied limit of 10 mph was enforced nationwide, the consequences of accidents would indeed be small or insignificant.

BUT IS THIS WHAT THE PEOPLE OF GREAT BRITAIN WANT - A NATIONAL SPEED LIMIT OF 10 MPH ? I THINK NOT !!

The ability to travel fast in this, the 21st century, has advantages for everybody, driving economic advancement forward. That is why we have jet airliners at 450 knots, instead of piston-engined ones at 250, high speed catamaran ferries at 40 knots, instead of ships at 20, and high-speed trains at 180 mph instead of 70. If they were all forced to travel at a speed such that ANY accident was of no consequence, (i.e. much, much slower), all these forms of transport would be completely uneconomic. Speed therefore has advantages as well as risks. This is why the railways replaced the canals, and in the main, airliners have replaced long distance trains, at least in the USA. The resources needed to operate the service are much less the faster they go.

Previous posts have pointed out that exceeding the speed limits was not the root cause of the accidents, it was wanton, almost criminal recklessness that was the cause. Until we move to attacking this key cause of accidents they will continue to occur, even at 10 mph. There were serious and fatal accidents in the horse-drawn era too.

Until enforcement concentrates on the 'nutters', the stupid, and the ignorant, (the three combined is particularly lethal !!), we will get nowhere. As a previous post has stated, and all experienced drivers know, it is completely possible to driver safely without a speedometer. The speed of the vehicle must at all times allow a driver to stop clear of any obstruction that may present itself to him at any time. during his journey.

I rest my case

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Good manners maketh a good motorist

Absolutely not.

Some really horrible crashes involving pedestrians happen at those sorts of speeds. One report (that I have been unable to verify) claimed that 25% of child pedestrian KSI took place in reverse gear. Mothers reversing over their own children, that sort of thing. <shudder>

And then many pedestrian deaths are actually caused by the head hitting the road or a curbstone after a slight impact.

And crushings between a vehicle and a wall, or two vehicles. <ouch>

Even those in cars are far from immune to the effects of a 10mph impact. Imagine those crashes where a farm implement on the rear of a tractor enters the car through the windscreen...

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

I've seen that stat too. In fact I know someone who did that to his own child and was permanently traumatised by it.

A ruthlessly enforced speed limit of 10 mph might well cut overall casualties. But I strongly suspect it wouldn't cut casualties per passenger-mile.

In general, nobody, whether driver or passenger, would look where they were going.

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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