The Great Speed Awareness Course Scam

Richard53

Deastons wrote: »

You can't be serious.

I am, in a way.


The point is that speed, in and of itself, is not dangerous. It is the mis-match of speed to conditions which creates danger. The example of Concorde is just to point out that a vehicle can travel routinely at 1300 mph without incident*. 'Speed kills' is therefore a gross oversimplification of the issue.


'Failure to match speed to road conditions, traffic density, weather, driver ability, vehicle design and condition, clear lines of sight and proximity of hazards kills' is more accurate, but perhaps a little unwieldy.


For context, I am in favour of speed limits, but perhaps with a bit more intelligence than the way they are enacted these days.


*Until the Air France crash in 2000, Concorde had been regarded as one of the safest planes ever built, and the accident had nothing to do with its speed.

TooManyPoints

Focussing on speed limits and speeding drivers is akin to dropping everyone's power supply to 12 volts.

Good grief, it gets worse! I promise I won't look in again :-)

fred990

A brief look at any 'supercar fail' compilation on youtube might give an idea of the 'safe speeders' world if they had their way? Despite their skills/observation/judgement it makes for entertaining viewing.
Hands up anyone on this forum who would like to be anywhere near these clowns other than when in an armoured personnel carrier?

reeac

Knapper wrote: »

If it helps to use other examples then consider the situation with domestic electricity.


Our UK electric power is 240 volts. If you inadvertently touch a live wire, you will receive a huge shock which is potentially fatal.


What then should be the response to that "problem"?


Should we lower the voltage of every UK household to say 12 volts so that no-one can ever die from an electric shock?


No of course not, that would be ludicrous.


What we do is educate people, so that they are aware of electricity and how it works. We train people to be electricians and get qualifications. We also legislate what "ordinary" people can and can not do with electrics in their own home.


Focussing on speed limits and speeding drivers is akin to dropping everyone's power supply to 12 volts. It basically misses the point and solves nothing because people are not being educated and made better drivers.

And I assume that those "better drivers" would then understand about speedometers, laws and penalties and take the easy way out by sticking to speed limits. Unfortunately humans aren't always so logical.

Mercdriver

Speed in of itself doesn't kill. But when coupled with an incident (I don't say accident as very few incidents indeed are freak or random) then the consequences of that accident are more serious, in line with higher speed being a major factor.

What Knapper seems to be forgetting is that speed limits are not set with individual people in mind. That would be chaos. Rules in society are generally made to take into account the weakest link in the chain. Some people can drive at speed with great ability. Some people merely think they can. The gap between ability and the ability someone thinks they have can be quite wide. Not only that, complacency and arrogance can creep in. That is before you bring in any other contributing factor like alcohol, mood and fatigue.

You also have to take in consideration the other users on the road. They are entitled to be there just as you are - yes and I do mean cyclists and pedestrians on roads they are permitted to use. You might be a fully trained police standard driver like my brother is. Even with those skills and talent, you cannot account for the ones on the road with no skill or talent who don't look around them, and make errors in judgement.

With increased speed there is increased risk of others making a misjudgement.

So you could argue (I wouldn't) "Who cares? They made an error, it's their fault!". Physics makes no moral judgement whatsoever, and it could be the innocent party that gets killed, and yes, the speed at which they were driving might have been legal.

In deregulated sections on German Autobahn do you think it is only the person that pull out in front of a car legally doing 170kph in an Audi A6 that is killed on impact? Less of the German Autobahn (no 's' in plural n German) is deregulated than you might think - majority of it is regulated to 120/130kph, and there is strict camera enforcement of distance between vehicles.

While "speed kills" is an oversimplification to advertise the risk of excessive speed to the masses, it is a major contribution to deaths on the road. And where it is a major contribution the extent of damage, injury and death is more prevalent.

To end the diatribe, rules are made to take into account the least able, or to take errors into consideration. Sometimes the idiot is someone else, sometimes it is you. Accept that and you will grow as a person, accept it not, and you will learn nothing.

Cornucopia

In the big binary world of the internet, I suppose it's inevitable that the discussion (or people's perception of it) becomes polarised into "all speeding, all the time" vs. "red flag attendant preceding every vehicle".

My position (and I'm imagine most posters') is neither of those two extremes. I'm not in favour of the way speeding is now endemic on our roads, nor with the shortcomings of enforcement and road safety policy that have led to that situation.

What I see is widespread disdain for elements of official policy because they are poorly thought through, badly targeted and often have to go "too far the other way" because of the 10-20% of unruly drivers who will not otherwise comply.

Herzlos

I can't believe anyone would try and argue that if something went wrong, speed makes it worse.


Kids runs out on the road and you're doing 30, you're more likely to stop in time or at least do less damage than at 40. You didn't kill them because you were speeding, you killed them because it took you longer to react and stop than you had available.



Thus speed limits on residential roads are 30 (or 20). The further away you are from risk, the higher the speed limit becomes.



Taking it down to a man walking with flags just makes cars impractical, so a tradeoff is required which is biased for the worst available. Sure, you might be able to stop on time in a supercar at well over 30 mph, but would you be able to do the same in an Austin Princess?

Jackmydad

Herzlos wrote: »

I can't believe anyone would try and argue that if something went wrong, speed makes it worse.

Kids runs out on the road and you're doing 30, you're more likely to stop in time or at least do less damage than at 40. You didn't kill them because you were speeding, you killed them because it took you longer to react and stop than you had available.

Thus speed limits on residential roads are 30 (or 20). The further away you are from risk, the higher the speed limit becomes.

Taking it down to a man walking with flags just makes cars impractical, so a tradeoff is required which is biased for the worst available. Sure, you might be able to stop on time in a supercar at well over 30 mph, but would you be able to do the same in an Austin Princess?

And of course whatever the vehicle the big unknown is the loose nut holding on the steering wheel.
Too many people think they are "good drivers" while having the reflexes of a geriatric slug, and the awareness of a house brick.
So slowing them down is the only way of keeping other people safe.

Cornucopia

Jackmydad wrote: »

So slowing them down is the only way of keeping other people safe.

Except that isn't working. The enforcement is not there, and speeding is endemic.

The only consolation is that even with such endemic speeding, the historic trend in casualties is downwards.

Robisere

Mercdriver wrote: »

Less of the German Autobahn (no 's' in plural n German) is deregulated than you might think - .

Not true. I speak fluent deutsche and the plural of autobahn, is autobahnen.