Help Needed with speeding discussion!!

Throbbe

I think the advances in vehicles and roads is your best basis for a case. Unfortunately this can be countered with the argument that the drivers are the same (or worse, but lets not get into that!) and the roads are more crowded.

Although speed alone is rarely the cause of an accident, simple physics tells you the faster vehicles travel, the greater chance of injury in any accident. I would also take this as a jumping off point if your discussion includes a review of limits. Why is travelling at 70 an acceptable risk, but not at 75. If safety is the only concern, we should all return to driving at 4mph with a man walking in front with a red flag. At some point, an arbitrary decision has been made on what the 'acceptable risk' is to allow a certain freedom of movement. Increasing motorway limits to 90mph WOULD result in an increase in injury severity (and probably accidents, but less significantly), but it has to be weighed against the benefits to national productivity, among other factors.

Hope that helps, and good luck with it!

NetLarfs

On the day we had to split up into teams of 4 with the odd person out
elected as chairman. i.e. four being pro-speed regulation and the other four of us against it.

We put forward, I thought, quite a good argument, but, at the end of the day we knew we were there to get beaten. All said and done, even the tutor let slip that she was in preference for no or revised (upwards) speed limits.

The bottom line that we all agreed on was in fact mentioned in a couple of posts. It is inapropriate speed rather than speeding that kills or contributes to accidents. It is just terminology: to drive below the speed limit in an inappropriate manner is generally far more dangerous than speeding itself, and can be addressed through the courts as dangerous or reckless driving. Unfortunately, you need the police to witness and maybe video this to get to court and not just a camera at an accident blackspot.

One thing I forgot to mention on purpose, in case it influenced anybodies comments was that we were all trainee driving instructors!!

A big thankyou for those of you contributed.
NetLarfs.

tomstickland

Too late now, but I thought of a good one today.
Travelling along overtaking a bicycle or, say, a van parked on the side of the road, and then a vehicle appears travelling in the other direction. Sometimes by increasing speed slightly you can clear the obstacle before the other vehicle reaches it. I'm not talking about speeding out round an obstacle rather than waiting, but adjusting speeds when the maneovre is already in swing in order to make life easier for something else. Of course, the vehicle coming in the other direciton will ideally slow down as well.