Police Speed Guns

Joe_Horner

Ergates wrote: »

Obviously, not being hit by a car at all is less serious than actually being hit by a car. What's your point?

I think Adrian's point is the very valid one that concentrating on encouraging drivers not to hit pedestrians (or anything else come to that) should receive at least as much attention as focusing on a single element (speed) which, if the drivers are good enough at not hitting things, becomes a non-issue.

That, incidentally, is not saying that "good drivers" should speed through built up areas at 100mph. because good drives wouldn't be doing that anyway.

They'd be using their judgement to drive appropriately for the conditions. Sometimes that might be considerably less than the currently posted limits, at other times it might be considerably more. If only good (as opposed to barely adequate) drivers were allowed to drive then most speed limits would be redundant.

It would probably take at least 50% of the cars off the road as well, which would be environmentally nice.

Ergates

Joe_Horner wrote: »

I think Adrian's point is the very valid one that concentrating on encouraging drivers not to hit pedestrians (or anything else come to that) should receive at least as much attention as focusing on a single element (speed) which, if the drivers are good enough at not hitting things, becomes a non-issue.

That, incidentally, is not saying that "good drivers" should speed through built up areas at 100mph. because good drives wouldn't be doing that anyway.

They'd be using their judgement to drive appropriately for the conditions. Sometimes that might be considerably less than the currently posted limits, at other times it might be considerably more. If only good (as opposed to barely adequate) drivers were allowed to drive then most speed limits would be redundant.

It would probably take at least 50% of the cars off the road as well, which would be environmentally nice.

The problem with that argument is that it's based on the assumption that drivers (good drivers) are in possession of perfect information and are always in control. Accidents involving pedestrians and often the fault of the pedestrian - especially children. However we, as a society, don't generally hold with the idea that people who make mistakes deserve to die because of them. Again, especially children.

Obviously drivers should concentrate on driving well in all regards, but they should also make sure to keep their speed down in urban areas because even if they do everything right and make no mistakes, some dumb kid could still run out in front of them from behind a bus.

And when it comes to knocking over idiot children, 30mph is the magic number. At that speed or below, the they'll probably live to tell the tale. Above 30, their chances of survival start to drop very sharply.

Joe_Horner

Ergates wrote: »

The problem with that argument is that it's based on the assumption that drivers (good drivers) are in possession of perfect information and are always in control. Accidents involving pedestrians and often the fault of the pedestrian - especially children. However we, as a society, don't generally hold with the idea that people who make mistakes deserve to die because of them. Again, especially children.

The problem with that argument is that it assumes that a good driver can't anticipate and avoid the stupidity of others. Which is setting the standard for "good" way too low and much closer to the dire standards that are out there at the moment.

A very simple start to that anticipating is to notice that there are pedestrians / children / baskets of kittens about, or things blocking visibility of where they might be (parked cars, corners and so on), to recognise that they might do something stupid, and to slow down (quite possibly to well below an arbitrary 30!) - and / or give extra space in case.

But, once you're past that hazard, you don't need to stay at that speed if there isn't another hazard ahead.

Like I say: good drivers, not just barely adequate ones.

Ergates

Joe_Horner wrote: »

The problem with that argument is that it assumes that a good driver can't anticipate and avoid the stupidity of others.

Because that is a valid and sound assumption. You *can't* always anticipate everything. You *won't* always notice the hazard. You *can't* always be totally focused. Believing you can and will is hubris.

Also as previously discussed, 30 isn't arbitrary.

Joe_Horner

Ergates wrote: »

Because that is a valid and sound assumption. You *can't* always anticipate everything. You *won't* always notice the hazard. You *can't* always be totally focused. Believing you can and will is hubris.

It may be hubris but it's hubris backed up with 35 years of successfully anticipating or avoiding every bloody stupid thing I've seen from pedestrians, loose pets, farm animals, and other road users.

I did hit a rabbit once but it came out of the hedge on a straight clear NSL, I braked and it passed safely in front of.me, then stopped and hopped back under my rear wheel.

And the thing is, it's not just me. There are 10s, if not 100s, of thousands of motorists out there who have successfully avoided every idiotic action by others. Because that should be your absolute, no exceptions, and consciously remembered primary aim every single time you take the wheel - to NOT HIT ANYTHING on this trip, no matter what because GENUINELY unavoidable collisions are so incredibly rare that they're not worth considering.

Taking to the road with any other attitude is nothing but preparing to excuse your mistakes before they happen, and that's bad driving.

Hermione_Granger

Joe_Horner wrote: »

It may be hubris but it's hubris backed up with 35 years of successfully anticipating or avoiding every bloody stupid thing I've seen from pedestrians, loose pets, farm animals, and other road users.

So are you seriously saying that in 35 years of driving, every possibility of your being involved in an accident was avoided because of your driving skill and anticipation even when you first started to drive and that none of it was done to sheer luck?

Joe_Horner

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

So are you seriously saying that in 35 years of driving, every possibility of your being involved in an accident was avoided because of your driving skill and anticipation even when you first started to drive and that none of it was done to sheer luck?

No, I'm saying that every time there was a near miss the first thing I did was think about how I could have seen it coming rather than how it would have been "unavoidable" if it had happened.

And you know what? There has ALWAYS been "something I could have done better" and I learned from that so that next time it wasn't a near miss. Very soon I found I was being caught unaware a LOT less often while those around me were having their "unavoidable" bumps or (since we were young) written off first - and second, and third - cars.

Hermione_Granger

Joe_Horner wrote: »

No, I'm saying that every time there was a near miss the first thing I did was think about how I could have seen it coming rather than how it would have been "unavoidable" if it had happened.

I'm not disagreeing with saying that people should learn from near misses, but my comment was in reference to this:

Joe_Horner wrote: »

It may be hubris but it's hubris backed up with 35 years of successfully anticipating or avoiding every bloody stupid thing I've seen from pedestrians, loose pets, farm animals, and other road users.

You say that you've had 35 years accident free driving (apart from the rabbit) but what you didn't say was how may accidents you have avoided because of luck or because of the actions of other drivers.
Avoiding accidents because of anticipation is fine but no driver can ever be 100% perfect all of the time or be guaranteed to spot 100% of potential hazards, something that was mentioned here:

Ergates wrote: »

Because that is a valid and sound assumption. You *can't* always anticipate everything. You *won't* always notice the hazard. You *can't* always be totally focused. Believing you can and will is hubris.

And it was your response to this post is what I was commenting on.

Joe_Horner

No, you can never make anything 100% risk free. As long as there are cars, someone will sometimes be injured or killed by them. The same applies to cans of hairspray and toilet plungers.

But i would say that, yes, even from the start (because this attitude was drummed into me so hard by those who taught me, who also had many decades of accident free motoring behind them and who also taught my sisters, who now have the same) my anticipation and ability to avoid other people's idiocy has run considerably higher than the national average.

And I'm far from alone in that, so it's not plain hubris. If 100s of thousands of drivers CAN manage it, despite the idiots around them, then so could the others if they weren't forever either not thinking about it or actually planning their excuses to fail from the start.

How long do you think an airline pilot who went about his business with the attitude "I may not nail the next landing, but it'll be unavoidable if I don't" would stay in his job?

Hermione_Granger

Joe_Horner wrote: »

But i would say that, yes, even from the start (because this attitude was drummed into me so hard by those who taught me, who also had many decades of accident free motoring behind them and who also taught my sisters, who now have the same) my anticipation and ability to avoid other people's idiocy has run considerably higher than the national average.

In a post on a different thread, you stated that:

In 35 years or so I've had maybe half a dozen really close shaves caused directly by me, a lot more fairly near misses, and been involved in countless others where someone else did something really silly that I didn't anticipate well.

And personally, I would say that "6 really close shaves" , "a lot more near misses" and "been involved in countless others where someone else did something really silly that I didn't anticipate well" doesn't match up with your claim of being better at avoiding incidents than many other drivers doesn't hold up to scrutiny and seems to be down to luck and the skill of other drivers more than anything else.

I have been driving for close to 40 years and have only ever had a couple of very close shaves and certainly haven't come close to experiencing "countless others"