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

shaun_from_Africa

Jonathan_Kelvin wrote: »

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.

It is if the driver is inexperienced, has poor eyesight or poor situational awareness or has the reaction time of a sloth then doing 180mph may well be far more dangerous than doing 60 or 70mph.

A well maintained car can still suffer from mechanical problems or suffer from circumstances outside of the control of the driver or car (such as a bird flying into the windscreen).

Arklight

The thing with driving is, you're meant to stay on one side of the road and be able to stop safely if you encounter something in your way. If you can't do that if you're going fast then don't go fast. If you can't reliably do that at all, then don't drive.

Scrapit

Guesses wrote: »

The article says the biker would have been killed if it wasn't for him having a wearable airbag.

So you are saying speed does and didn't kill? Odd.

Ergates

photome wrote: »

Speed on its own doesn’t kill

And it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end. Technically true, but largely meaningless.

Scrapit

Ergates wrote: »

And it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end. Technically true, but largely meaningless.

Absolutely wrong.
A fall will always kill. Speed more than certainly doesnt. It's a simple fact.

Jonathan_Kelvin

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

It is if the driver is inexperienced, has poor eyesight or poor situational awareness or has the reaction time of a sloth then doing 180mph may well be far more dangerous than doing 60 or 70mph.

A well maintained car can still suffer from mechanical problems or suffer from circumstances outside of the control of the driver or car (such as a bird flying into the windscreen).

For god’s sake.

Yes, it’s also a problem if the driver is five years old, or hammered on tequila, or if he’s on space saver tyres. There are many ways you can amend the example I gave (which had none of those idiotic conditions in) to say that it would become dangerous, but, to re-state it carefully, there is nothing inherently dangerous about doing such a speed.

BananaRepublic

I don’t like the speed kills slogan. It serves no purpose. It is wrong because you can do 500 mph on a Boeing 767 and live. Dangerous drivers will use that argument to discount it. Going too fast for the conditions can kill. Unfortunately there are many nut jobs who see themselves as expert drivers but drive too fast for their abilities.

And these arguments tend to go on forever. Same old same old.

Bonniepurple

BananaRepublic wrote: »

I don’t like the speed kills slogan. It serves no purpose. It is wrong because you can do 500 mph on a Boeing 767 and live. Dangerous drivers will use that argument to discount it. Going too fast for the conditions can kill. Unfortunately there are many nut jobs who see themselves as expert drivers but drive too fast for their abilities.

And these arguments tend to go on forever. Same old same old.

I would like it rephrased to 'stupidity kills'. Inappropriate speed kills. Driving on the wrong side of the road can kill regardless of what the speedo says. Driving at 40mph in thick fog can kill. Walking out in front of a car travelling at 30mph can kill. I have driven at 90 mph on a free flowing motorway in good conditions and driven the same stretch of road at 20mph in poor conditions.

Joe_Horner

Speed (even inappropriate speed) doesn't kill, changing speed kills. Especially when done too quickly by, for example, hitting a wall or a tree at inappropriate speed.

ElefantEd

AdrianC wrote: »

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.

I don't think I've ever met anyone who thought that simply exceeding the speed limit kills you. Has anyone on this forum used the phrase in this binary fashion?


So no, I don't think it is being used in this way. Granted, some people (not necessarily here) use the non-literal meaning to say that they are OK to exceed the speed limit because (....reasons, like I've got better brakes, faster reactions etc etc).