Govt announce increased speed limits.

deanos

i see loads of frustrated drivers on the a17 every morning and doing stupid overtaking to get past the lorries doing 40mph nearly hitting oncoming cars , good idea upping the limit to 50mph, most lorries travel at 50 anyway

DKLS

SailorSam wrote: »

But i still believe speed kills

Oddly I did 182mph last sunday and am very much still alive so that proves that speed does not kill.

Bollotom

Someone is in for a payday! All that signage and publications to redo. You can bet the backs of your butt that there will be links to 'Croneyism' somewhere. :cool:

no_summer_here

DKLS wrote: »

Oddly I did 182mph last sunday and am very much still alive so that proves that speed does not kill.

Oh yes it does, check your windscreen or helmet visor for the evidence.......dead fly carnage.

societys_child

marlot wrote: »

According to a Department for Transport study, Contributory Factors to Road Accidents, 2005, the main causes of accidents are as follows:

• Failure to look properly – 18%
• Failure to judge another person's path/speed – 10%
• Being careless, reckless or in a hurry – 9%
• Poor turning/manoeuvring – 8%
• Loss of control – 8%
• Going too fast for conditions – 7%
• Slippery road – 6%
• Following too close – 4%
• Sudden braking – 4%

I thought a large percentage of accidents were caused by the failure of the nut holding the wheel? . . .

arcon5

Horseunderwater wrote: »

They do that because their tacho's are checked by tesco's & if over, will lose their job. Besides which it is the current speed limit on all single carriageways for them.
What used to annoy me as a PCV driver is that I would be behind one or more with cars in front but also behind lorry, when a numpty speed freaking car driver would try & over take me not realising it was not me holding them up at all & I would need to brake so they could get in. Always on the A11 last non dualled you'lbit.

Then your driving too close to the vehicle in front.

if you know your gonna be unable to overtake then leave a large enough gap for smaller vehicles to pass you and the lorry in two goes.

I expect somebody driving a pcv to drive to others ability - clearly your not if you have to take evasive action.

marlot

In my experience, the worst drivers I see (using mobiles, driving too close, not looking properly) are the people most vocal about wanting the speed limits reduced.

I even had a member of staff declare that a particular accident could not be her fault "because she was driving within the speed limit"!

Instead, I'd propose that everyone has top-up driving training (not necessarily a test) every 2-3 years.

marlot

societys_child wrote: »

I thought a large percentage of accidents were caused by the failure of the nut holding the wheel? . . .

That would be the ones in bold then ...

• Failure to look properly – 18%
• Failure to judge another person's path/speed – 10%
• Being careless, reckless or in a hurry – 9%
• Poor turning/manoeuvring – 8%
• Loss of control – 8%
• Going too fast for conditions – 7%
• Slippery road – 6%
• Following too close – 4%
• Sudden braking – 4%

And arguably the slippery road too!

marlot

Joe_Horner wrote: »

If you hit me at 30mph I have a 20% chance of living
If you hit me at 20mph I have an 80% chance of liviing
Please just stop trying to hit me!

On that basis, if we reduce everyone's speed to 5mph we should be fine.

Instead, we could have a major campaign to upgrade people's driving skills. It is mad that I can pass a driving test at 17, and never have to take any further training ever.

As an accountant and an engineer, I can be fined or struck off by my professional institutions if I fail to do annual training. But my driving is more likely to kill.

We all see people who have drifted into dangerously bad habits - and who only stop when they tragically cause a serious accident. If we really wanted to reduce death on the road, we would be playing around with just speed limits - we'd be bringing in a scheme of additional training.

Instead, we raise the penalties for killing others if we're at fault, but we don't systematically reduce the faults of all poor drivers.

I passed a motorbike test in my 30s. Going back and doing the training made a big difference to my day-to-day car driving, and I subsequently did some voluntary additional training in my car too.

I do admit to making swift progress on the road, but I am very careful to drive to the conditions, and make sure that I reduce distractions to a minimum (phones etc). It seems to be paying off, and it is now over a million miles since my last accident (I drive 500-1000 miles each week). A large part of that is defensive driving, so there were plenty of accidents that I could have been involved in, and which wouldn't have been my 'fault', but I was able to stay out of their way!

AdrianC

Bollotom wrote: »

Someone is in for a payday! All that signage and publications to redo.

Apart from a few stickers on the back of trucks (placed entirely voluntarily by the hauliers), there is no signage to redo. And the HC gets republished regularly anyway.

I couldn't agree more about retraining, but I'd include mandatory retests.

Retest 1yr after passing your test, then after another 2yrs (3yr from pass), then another 5 (8 since pass). Then every 10yrs until age 70, 75, 80, every 2yrs to 90, then every year. Fail a retest, and you get one resit within a month or two before your licence is revoked and you're back to L-plates. It'd be self-funding, too, from test fees - and that's ignoring the economic benefits of reduced collisions and traffic chaos due to bad driving.