To all those on this forum that says speed doesn't kill

mollycat

AdrianC wrote: »

Yes, most people would be dead if not for the whole "not being dead" thing.

You're wasted on here :rotfl:

Just wish I hadn't been trying to swallow a mouthful of tea at the exact moment I read this!

AdrianC

mollycat wrote: »

Just wish I hadn't been trying to swallow a mouthful of tea at the exact moment I read this!

My pleasure...

Jonathan_Kelvin

Guesses wrote: »

https://news.sky.com/story/dashcam-footage-captures-motorcyclist-catapulted-through-air-after-horror-collision-11905785

According to the report, this guy only survived because he was wearing a suit with airbags.

The dashcam reads 66mph as he enters the bend (so his speedo probably read around 70mph) and it's due to the speed that he veers onto the other side of the road as he takes the bend.

Everyone should slow down (except the millions of drivers that pootle along at 40mph who should, for the love of god, speed up).

This who say that speed doesn’t kill (me included) tend to say that inappropriate speed can and does kill.

Too fast to stop in the distance that you can see to be clear is dangerous, and too fast for the circumstances is also dangerous.

Doing 180mph on a straight and empty piece of motorway in a car that is designed to do it, and is well maintained, is no danger at all.

molerat

Driving like a !!!! seems to be the problem here, not speed. Interestingly no mention of the speed the bike was doing, looks like he was going at a fair lick too.

knightstyle

I remember some time ago statistics that went something like this:
If a child runs out into the road and is hit by a car--
doing 20 or less the child will probably walk away.
doing 30 the child may have injuries but will probably survive
doing 40 the child may survive but will probably have life threatening injuries.

AdrianC

knightstyle wrote: »

I remember some time ago statistics that went something like this:
If a child runs out into the road and is hit by a car--
doing 20 or less the child will probably walk away.
doing 30 the child may have injuries but will probably survive
doing 40 the child may survive but will probably have life threatening injuries.

Perhaps if people didn't let their children run out into the road...?

DoaM

molerat wrote: »

Interestingly no mention of the speed the bike was doing, looks like he was going at a fair lick too.

Couldn't have been going THAT quick ... his mates behind were going the same speed and managed to stop safely after the first biker was taken out.

ElefantEd

For the hard of thinking, "Speed kills" isn't meant to be taken literally - after all we're all travelling around the centre of the galaxy at 500,000mph and it hasn't killed anyone yet. It is meant to be a convenient short-hand way of saying that, all other circumstances being equal, a higher speed increases the probability of an accident, and also increases the typical damage arising from any accident that occurs.


"Speed kills" trips of the tongue and is easy to remember; the full blown version, rather less so.


The same concept applies to many other admonitions and warnings. Best to understand them in the spirit in which they are meant rather than treating them as literal statements.

born_again

It's the stopping that kills you......

AdrianC

ElefantEd wrote: »

For the hard of thinking, "Speed kills" isn't meant to be taken literally - after all we're all travelling around the centre of the galaxy at 500,000mph and it hasn't killed anyone yet. It is meant to be a convenient short-hand way of saying that, all other circumstances being equal, a higher speed increases the probability of an accident, and also increases the typical damage arising from any accident that occurs.

Except that's not the way it's being used, is it?

It's being used in a far more binary way, to refer simplistically and solely to the consequences of exceeding the speed limit.

Today, I drive down a stretch of road at 50mph. Nobody dies.
Tomorrow, I drive down the exact same stretch of road at 50mph. Nobody dies.
The speed limit changed overnight from NSL to 40mph. Has the risk changed?