aracer, yes I have but I’ve also seen the text quoted in isolation and have been told exactly “my” interpretation when I’ve challenged drivers on it

(and of course, that is “at least a foot”)

Though you’re going to struggle to come up with an example of a minor misjudgement which can’t be shot down in the same way – there was some other deliberate fault with the driving which didn’t leave sufficient room for error. Because a minor misjudgement shouldn’t have fatal consequences (we’re back to my HSE inspector here).

I wonder how an HSE inspector would take such an observation following a fatality in the workplace.

Probably depends on the circumstances, but, despite it seeming – as you say – wrong that a momentary bad decision can get you killed, that is sometimes all it is.

argumentative get! 😉 You see my point tho. Judge on actions gives rise to this sort of situation ie what appears to be a tiny penalty for a major injury. Judge on outcomes there is plenty of scope for it to be the other way ie huge penalty for a very minor transgression.

What, me?

I do agree with your general point – though think that maybe the penalty should be proportional to the worst possible outcome, so rather than somebody causing life changing injuries getting off lightly, somebody doing the same thing but being lucky to avoid injuring anybody should get the book thrown at them.

Additional causing death offences have been added to the statute books (worth reading IMHO), should serious/life-changing injury be added too (or sentencing guidelines amended to reflect such outcomes)

She needs to take Tescos to the cleaners, hopefully she’s gets a huge payout as compensation.

I want to know why trucks can now do 50mph on single carriageways .

Statistically it is safer. As I understand it, there was research to show that when trucks traveled at 40, cars following behind were likely to get impatient and try to pass, whereas at 50 they were happy to tuck in and follow. Less dodgy overtaking resulted in fewer accidents and fewer deaths.

If that really is the reason then that’s poo, another example of not actually addressing the issue.

If people were driving dangerously trying to overtake when inappropriate etc. then that should be dealt with, a good old dose of calm-the-f-down would maintain the original safety level for drivers and improve it for other road users, and at what cost? A few seconds on a journey, well big deal…

Edit

cars following behind were likely to get impatient

Please don’t fall into that trap, cars don’t get impatient, people driving them do.

If that really is the reason then that’s poo, another example of not actually addressing the issue.

If people were driving dangerously trying to overtake when inappropriate etc. then that should be dealt with, a good old dose of calm-the-f-down would maintain the original safety level for drivers and improve it for other road users, and at what cost? A few seconds on a journey, well big deal…

I think the bigger problem is having one catch-all limit for a very varied range of roads and infrastructure. Increasing the speed of trucks addresses one problem – dangerous overtaking – but creates other ones. An A road like the A9 is a fairly newly build road – pretty straight, long gentle curves, side road have a slip road on and off, its backed up by a parallel bike /pedestrian path and so on. The A76 near me is the same class of road but its narrow, has no space for pedestrian other than on the carriageway, it has crossroads in dips between blind summits, theres no run on/off slip roads so vehicles need to all but stop to join and leave and so on.

I think we need a two tier national speed limit (for cars as well) – one for roads of a given standard in terms of the safety of junction design, room for other road users and so on and another for roads that don’t meet that standard to give more protection to non motorised traffic sharing that space.

You have seen the picture?

Ummm, if you tried passing a car like that, you’d hit the side of the car…

and what about riding primary?highway code is ambiguous in this case.

fourbanger – Member

You have seen the picture?

Ummm, if you tried passing a car like that, you’d hit the side of the car… [/quote]And if that was the amount of room you had to leave when passing another car then you’d need much wider roads. In short, the picture is pish.