Speeding offence

kwmlondon

AdrianC wrote: »

Thank you for that fine demonstration of conflation of "Speed in excess of the limit" with "Inappropriate speed for the conditions".

Well, okay, to be fair to me I'm talking about London. The speed limit is mostly 30mph, lots of it 20mph and it's really not like you get that many chances to tank it.

However, I do get annoyed by people doing 40mph in a 30 zone in built up areas - it's very hard to keep track of heavy, flowing traffic with lots of lane-changing, cyclists, motorbikes etc. and when one vehicle is going much faster than the others it can be very dangerous. I mean, I do keep an eye out for people doing this, but it adds an extra dimension of risk to the road that is so pointless - it just means someone gets to the next set of lights a couple of seconds earlier.

That's just my experience and my opinion.

AdrianC

kwmlondon wrote: »

Well, okay, to be fair to me I'm talking about London.

No, the conflation applies everywhere. The problem you describe is a much more serious one than merely exceeding the speed limit. The problem is that their speed is excessive for the conditions, rather than for the limit. The limit's irrelevant in that situation. A FAR more suitable offence for them to be charged with would be careless driving or even dangerous. Both FAR more serious than exceeding the speed limit.

For "exceeding the speed limit" to be the most serious offence somebody's committing, their driving really should be utterly safe and appropriate in ALL ways except the simple comparison of two numbers. If it isn't, then their speed relative to the limit MIGHT be a symptom of their bad driving, or it might not be. They might even still be within the limit. Trouble is, that's all REALLY difficult to enforce with a camera that's only capable of comparing two numbers. It requires a nice (but expensive) man in dayglo and a stripy volvo to do properly. But, because they sold this myth that comparing numbers is important (read: cheap and easy), they managed to use it as an excuse to get rid of the nice men in dayglo.

kwmlondon

AdrianC wrote: »

No, the conflation applies everywhere. The problem you describe is a much more serious one than merely exceeding the speed limit. The problem is that their speed is excessive for the conditions, rather than for the limit. The limit's irrelevant in that situation. A FAR more suitable offence for them to be charged with would be careless driving or even dangerous. Both FAR more serious than exceeding the speed limit.

For "exceeding the speed limit" to be the most serious offence somebody's committing, their driving really should be utterly safe and appropriate in ALL ways except the simple comparison of two numbers. If it isn't, then their speed relative to the limit MIGHT be a symptom of their bad driving, or it might not be. They might even still be within the limit. Trouble is, that's all REALLY difficult to enforce with a camera that's only capable of comparing two numbers. It requires a nice (but expensive) man in dayglo and a stripy volvo to do properly. But, because they sold this myth that comparing numbers is important (read: cheap and easy), they managed to use it as an excuse to get rid of the nice men in dayglo.

I can't disagree with you, but with so many complex factors at play in accidents speed is the easiest one to focus on.

I guess where we might agree is that to make the roads safer again will require more monitoring of people's actual driving, not just speed.

I don't believe MORE speed cameras will make the roads safer, but nor do I think that taking them away will make the roads safer, if anything they are more likely to result in more accidents. That's what I think.

I think that the way forward in terms of making the roads safer is to bring in individual tracking devices that monitor your driving. Pay per mile charging for the roads. I could live with that, although I expect many people would find it impossible to agree.

brat

AdrianC wrote: »

No, the conflation applies everywhere. The problem you describe is a much more serious one than merely exceeding the speed limit. The problem is that their speed is excessive for the conditions, rather than for the limit. The limit's irrelevant in that situation. A FAR more suitable offence for them to be charged with would be careless driving or even dangerous. Both FAR more serious than exceeding the speed limit.

Very true. The difference between inappropriate speed and exceeding the speed limit can often be vast. The speed limit is merely a proxy for an appropriate speed, which drivers need to be (and generally are) reasonably capable of assessing.
What concerns me is that too much emphasis on speed limits and too much marginal enforcement of them changes drivers attitudes. We have more 50 and 40mph limits being introduced on NSL roads, more 20mph speed limits in town, more 40mph entry limit zones, etc. The effect of this is for motorists to start to believe that this is the correct speed for the road, rather than the legal maximum speed. Another thread running on this board displays that attitude quite well, and it is a worry.

A good late friend of mine described the changing attitude to draconian speed enforcement and the associated road safety messages as 'waking the sleeping tiger'. He's right. This country has led the world in road safety and driver attitudes to road safety. Historically we have maintained a good level of compliance and courtesy on the road, certainly in comparison to many other countries. Since 1950 we have reduced fatalities from 110 per billion vehicle miles to about 5.2 in 2013, that's a 95% reduction.
This achievement has much to do with maintaining a compliant, onside nation of drivers who understand the purpose of the rules, and the need for them. Their attitude to driving has best been supported by intelligent refereeing, allowing motorists to take their driving responsibilities personally and seriously. If we remove the sense that drivers are using personal responsibility by nannying them through marginal limit enforcement, and a failure to address the real threats on the road, we are in danger of allowing drivers to lose their sense of personal responsibility and compliance. They therefore either drive as automatons to the regulations, or they may simply lose interest in the attributes of safe driving.

Given that it's only a very small percentage of road users (probably much less than 5%) whose attitude seriously adds risk on the road, we'd do well to keep the other +95% mostly onside.

Joe_Horner

kwmlondon wrote: »

I can't disagree with you, but with so many complex factors at play in accidents speed is the easiest one to focus on.

I guess where we might agree is that to make the roads safer again will require more monitoring of people's actual driving, not just speed.

Very much this! Unfortunately, while being the easiest factor to focus on, it's also one of the least relevant. No doubt someone will counter that with the statistics quoted earlier, but there's a fundamental problem with the statistics for that argument: if speeding is identified following an accident then it's virtually automatically included as "a factor" (if not the main factor) for the statistics.

Say I'm happliy driving along at 100 leptons, passing an HGV, in light traffic on a straight motorway when he decides to pull out to pass the lorry ahead.

My speed will be given as "a factor" despite the fact that (a) he should have seen me long before I caughht up and checked he was clear before pulling out, and (b) I should have observed that he was catching the one ahead, anticipated his overtake, and been ready to move (or even already moved in anticipation) into the next lane over.

But that's a failure of obs / anticipation rather than a matter of my speed - if I don't take account of such things at 100 there's no valid reason to assume I would at 70!

custardy

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Very much this! Unfortunately, while being the easiest factor to focus on, it's also one of the least relevant. No doubt someone will counter that with the statistics quoted earlier, but there's a fundamental problem with the statistics for that argument: if speeding is identified following an accident then it's virtually automatically included as "a factor" (if not the main factor) for the statistics.

Say I'm happliy driving along at 100 leptons, passing an HGV, in light traffic on a straight motorway when he decides to pull out to pass the lorry ahead.

My speed will be given as "a factor" despite the fact that (a) he should have seen me long before I caughht up and checked he was clear before pulling out, and (b) I should have observed that he was catching the one ahead, anticipated his overtake, and been ready to move (or even already moved in anticipation) into the next lane over.

But that's a failure of obs / anticipation rather than a matter of my speed - if I don't take account of such things at 100 there's no valid reason to assume I would at 70!

or they saw you, but didnt realise you were going x leptons over the legal lepton limit.

Joe_Horner

custardy wrote: »

or they saw you, but didnt realise you were going x leptons over the legal lepton limit.

Agreed, but that's an observation error by them.

Doesn't everyone, when they're planning a changing lanes, check to see who's there and, if there is anyone, pause to see how fast they're closing on you?

I know I do, and sometimes I even abort the lane change because I think "bloody hell, he's coming up fast!" My desire to overtake is always considerably less than my desire to stay alive and not to kill anyone else, but perhaps that's just me :A

I also identified "my" real fault in the scenario, which wasn't the speed itself but the failure to observe and anticipate effectively. For a scary proportion of drivers that failure is present regardless of the speed they're doing!

Richard53

I often wonder what would happen if we experimentally removed or blanked off every vehicle's speedometer.


Nothing else changes, apart from the absence of a number on a dial. Traffic chaos, murder and mayhem; no change; or a better environment where people were forced to drive to the conditions they find rather than what they have been told is acceptable?


I'm genuinely curious as to how this might work out.

Iceweasel

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Doesn't everyone, when they're planning a changing lanes, check to see who's there and, if there is anyone, pause to see how fast they're closing on you?

I know I do, and sometimes I even abort the lane change because I think "bloody hell, he's coming up fast!" My desire to overtake is always considerably less than my desire to stay alive and not to kill anyone else, but perhaps that's just me :A

No not everyone checks their mirrors, Joe - or perhaps they do and think that if they are doing 70mph then anyone catching them up is driving at an illegal speed so they just pull out anyway.

I dread to think how long some of our 'lane changers' would survive
on German Autobahns with no upper limit on many/most of them.

Even at double the UK limit you need to check your mirrors for those who travel at speeds in excess of 200mph.

Joe_Horner

Richard53 wrote: »

I often wonder what would happen if we experimentally removed or blanked off every vehicle's speedometer.

Interesting idea. I suspect the immediate reaction would be a fairly drastic drop in congestion as people decided they simply couldn't drive like that.

Presumably certain posters on here would be amongst the first to leave their keys at home because it's not humanly possible to drive safely without one - after all, if you don't have a speedo you can never be sure you're under the magic number!