I was on mountain roads where I witnessed multiple overtakes which would have been prosecuted in the UK as dangerous driving if they were spotted by a police. I didn’t pass any cyclists at all on the road - presumably too cold, and even pedestrians were very rare.I’m just back from the south of France and I’m not going to take lectures on road safety from anyone there - the standard of driving was atrocious!
You were in a car rather than on foot or on a bike then.
I don’t think it does - and there’s plenty of stupid driving in the UK. I’m not convinced that the top speed of the vehicles is the key issue though. Which your own post seems to support:?I don't think anywhere has the monopoly on bad driving.
whilst far from universal across the UK, that’s kind of my point - we should focus on fixing the issues not the “something must be done” stuff. I’m also a realist - so not only is the UK not going to be the only place in the world to require speedlimiters to be retrofitted we also aren’t going to have any resource to enforce it!One of the the features I noted in the UK was that I was usually several mph below the limit or stationary in a continuous stream of traffic - great for road safety!
I have, not for a while though. Actually I remember Malvern being worse than Brum - which I attributed to lots of old people in Zombie mode!It's surprising how much driving standards vary even between towns a few km apart down here. Pau is courteous, Tarbes is more aggressive and Bordeaux is properly **** you! It's no doubt similar in the UK. Have you driven in Birmingham? 😉
see you’ve already highlighted one of the issues with putting absolute speed limiters in! Not everyone’s vehicles agree so you still end up with overtakes.Were you at 50mph speedo or GPS, Tpbiker? In these parts people are often at the limit plus what the government allows you over -1 gps. In an 80kmh limit that means you'll often have 87/88kmh on the speedo as people are doing 84/85 gps. When I trundle along in the truck lane I've often got 96kmh on the speedo and if I dropped to 90kmh speedo I'd expect justified irritation from the truck drivers.
they might be safest per mile but the economic impact of collisions on motorways must be huge. I’ve had journeys extended by hours a few times this year after motorway crashes.
Do you conifer the economic impact caused by delays to be more important than the higher rate of deaths and injuries on rural and urban roads? I'm aware that how cost/benefit analysis works but I think there is an alternative moral argument.
not at all - I just think we should enforce limits everywhere. Motorways are by far the easiest to do as you could start with average cameras between junctions and densify it from there.
Rural roads need much lower limits - I’ve written this before, but anything that’s not a motorway should be 20mph if it doesn’t have pavements for a start. That would lead to a lot of calls for pavements, which could predominantly be made wide shared use for people to cycle on too. That would go both for Singletrack country lanes and rural a roads . (How you enforce rural limits other than black boxes is another matter).
im not sure if you’ve never left the Home Counties or live in a hypothetical bubble where people might build pavements along hundred of miles of rural roads that nobody will ever walk along? Some rural road limits are ridiculous for the circumstances but even if you dropped the limit to 20 - virtually nobody would walk or cycle then as either they would still be dodgy, or they are too far from civilisation to be useful.
I am not necessarily disputing your point, but the analysis of road closure v death is more complex than the simple algebra would suggest. A closed road might stop a patient with a cardiac problem getting to hospital on time. Displaced congestion may make it more likely that a pedestrian or cyclist is harmed on the now busier routes. Economic impact may mean the country can’t afford health, justice or education which lead to long term benefits. KPIs like deaths per mile or £ per hour closed are inevitably too simplistic. But I’m sceptical that actively limiting cars to 70 would have an ecconomic benefit through reduced motorway closures - e-bikes have their pedal assist capped and we all know how effectively that is policed.they might be safest per mile but the economic impact of collisions on motorways must be huge. I’ve had journeys extended by hours a few times this year after motorway crashes.
Do you conifer the economic impact caused by delays to be more important than the higher rate of deaths and injuries on rural and urban roads? I'm aware that how cost/benefit analysis works but I think there is an alternative moral argument.
see you’ve already highlighted one of the issues with putting absolute speed limiters in! Not everyone’s vehicles agree so you still end up with overtakes.
But I’m sceptical that actively limiting cars to 70 would have an ecconomic benefit through reduced motorway closures - e-bikes have their pedal assist capped and we all know how effectively that is policed.
The police on the billiard table flat N10 have no trouble pulling over the trucks coming up from the south with their limiters "trafiqués". They fly drones and any truck overtaking the flow of trucks gets pulled. All the truck limiters that haven't been tampered with agree well enough, I think we have the technology to get cars limited to the same speed. There will be so few going faster policing will be a piece of cake.
As for the pedal assist on bikes there have been threads on here about the police pulling bikes that have had their limiters cancelled. It seems to be policed as well or better than speeding in 20mph and 30mph limits. Very few fast e-bikes on the road but driving with the limiter on the car at 32mph in Brum I was clearly the exception.
People in the mountains often know their roads quite well. There are about three places to safely overtake up my local hill and the fact they are safe might not be apparent to someone unfamiliar with the lines of sight. The local drivers of slow vehicles also know them so let people past or pull into a chaining area, did you make it easy for people to overtake you or pull over in an chaining area to let those familiar with the road past? Driving cautiously and slowly on an unknown mountain road is sensible and so is letting those familiar with the road pass easily. Could it be that your driving on the mountain road had the same effect on the locals as driving with the limiter at 32mph in Brum with the difference that the limit on the mountain road was higher than your speed? 😉
I’ve written this before, but anything that’s not a motorway should be 20mph if it doesn’t have pavements for a start. That would lead to a lot of calls for pavements, which could predominantly be made wide shared use for people to cycle on too.
That's a wonderful idea, but where are all these pavements going to go... Or are you suggesting that the hedges are all pulled up to make room for the pavements no-one is going to use?
I’ve written this before, but anything that’s not a motorway should be 20mph if it doesn’t have pavements for a start. That would lead to a lot of calls for pavements, which could predominantly be made wide shared use for people to cycle on too.
Before you write it again maybe think about it for two minutes.
Were you at 50mph speedo or GPS, Tpbiker? In these parts people are often at the limit plus what the government allows you over -1 gps. In an 80kmh limit that means you'll often have 87/88kmh on the speedo as people are doing 84/85 gps. When I trundle along in the truck lane I've often got 96kmh on the speedo and if I dropped to 90kmh speedo I'd expect justified irritation from the truck drivers.
I was going by my speedo. But not sure how that justifys his actions. Even if I was 5mph under the limit, it's perfectly safe and legal to drive at that speed. The limit is the max, not the exact speed you must drive at!
we are talking about UK road safety proposals - there are barely any road policing officers never mind drone equipped ones! If you think truck limiters agree well enough - you should go for a drive up the M6/M74 where they all play leapfrog very slowly creeping past each other to gain 0.5 mph. That’s proof that the tech isn’t as good as you think and humans aren’t smart enough to just accept being in a queue.see you’ve already highlighted one of the issues with putting absolute speed limiters in! Not everyone’s vehicles agree so you still end up with overtakes.
But I’m sceptical that actively limiting cars to 70 would have an ecconomic benefit through reduced motorway closures - e-bikes have their pedal assist capped and we all know how effectively that is policed.
The police on the billiard table flat N10 have no trouble pulling over the trucks coming up from the south with their limiters "trafiqués". They fly drones and any truck overtaking the flow of trucks gets pulled. All the truck limiters that haven't been tampered with agree well enough, I think we have the technology to get cars limited to the same speed. There will be so few going faster policing will be a piece of cake.
some get pulled but it’s really by exception or after an incident, go to the right part of town (in nice weather) and you’ll find bikes making remarkable progress without turning the peddles at all. Ordinary beat cops will turn a blind eye.As for the pedal assist on bikes there have been threads on here about the police pulling bikes that have had their limiters cancelled. It seems to be policed as well or better than speeding in 20mph and 30mph limits. Very few fast e-bikes on the road
things must have improved! Last time I was in brum - getting to 32mph in most places would have been an aspiration!but driving with the limiter on the car at 32mph in Brum I was clearly the exception.
I did use a chaining lay-by to let a small queue pass on the only occasion that multiple cars were behind me for any length of time. I am perfectly familiar with courtesy when driving rural roads and that when driving an unfamiliar car on the “wrong” side of unfamiliar roads i am more cautious than a local.People in the mountains often know their roads quite well. There are about three places to safely overtake up my local hill and the fact they are safe might not be apparent to someone unfamiliar with the lines of sight. The local drivers of slow vehicles also know them so let people past or pull into a chaining area, did you make it easy for people to overtake you or pull over in an chaining area to let those familiar with the road past? Driving cautiously and slowly on an unknown mountain road is sensible and so is letting those familiar with the road pass easily. Could it be that your driving on the mountain road had the same effect on the locals as driving with the limiter at 32mph in Brum with the difference that the limit on the mountain road was higher than your speed? 😉
however we are straying even further off topic of the UK’s proposed changes to improve road safety.
I’ve written this before, but anything that’s not a motorway should be 20mph if it doesn’t have pavements for a start. That would lead to a lot of calls for pavements, which could predominantly be made wide shared use for people to cycle on too.
Before you write it again maybe think about it for two minutes.
I'm half way serious. Having road where there is no alternative for pedestrians but to walk in the carriageway as anything other than 20mph is clearly not safe and means walking (and cycling) are just not an option in many places. Perhaps we could start with anywhere there are houses.
We did a country walk a little while back where a footpath ended at a A road. The nearest footpath to continue on was about 100m up the road. I've done walks in the Cotswolds and South Downs where a footpath crosses a dual carriageway A road and the only protection you've got from vehicles that might be travelling at 80mph+ is a "warning peds crossing" sign. That might have been Ok 50 years ago when traffic volumes were much lower and cars were generally slower but isn't now.
I am a bit late to the thread but if we go back to the re-test for a moment. I think we can agree that people don't drive on the test the same way they do in normal driving conditions. I'm not sure that there's that much benefit in getting driving test instructors for tests while they're driving for the majority of retest scenarios.
This could be done with an automated kiosk or something like that, a simple questionnaire to check their knowledge, and then some hazard awareness, press the button when you see the motorbike or whatever, to test their hazard awareness. While this wouldn't test their eyesight, it would test their computational capabilities, so probably more useful than pure eyesight alone. There would also be the benefit of making people actually keep up to date with the new traffic laws.
These test kiosks could be as cheap as a screen, or you can just download them onto your phone to do it. Therefore, we can make them as regular or as often as possible, and there will be very little extra cost. Just mild inconvenience to the users. To reduce inconvenience, you must take this retest on the 5th year of your life, so 20, 25, 30, 35 etc. and within that year, so you've got 365 days to do it. Once it's done, tick, you're done. If you fail three times in a row, you've actually got to take a test with an instructor, something along those lines.
I'm half way serious.
Great, glad you are fully committed to it.
I see we agree on more than first appeared apparent, Poly.
you should go for a drive up the M6/M74 where they all play leapfrog very slowly creeping past each other to gain 0.5 mph.
I did drive on the M6 and most of the truck overtaking seemed load/gradient related. On a three lane motorway I didn't see it as a problem. A .5mph speed differential between limited vehicles just isn't a problem in terms of safety. It's big differentials that cause issues as the extreme German example shows. Try overtaking a truck on the unlimited sections in Germany where the speed differential between the truck you want to over take and the distant dot in the mirror is often 150kmh and sometimes 200kmh. Their accident stats for the unlimited sections are a clear indicator that big speed differentials are deadly. The death rate per km driven on unlimited autobahns is 75% higher than on limited ones. The cost of pandering to the German auto lobby.
Britain has remarkably safe roads for car drivers, I think it's still worth considereing other countries as examples both good and bad of how things could be improved. Some examples I like:
Fines related to income.
Taking both licence and car off the driver at the scene if a certain amount over the limit. Now walk or call a taxi. Do it twice and the car is sold by the state if the judge so decides.
German and Dutch bike lanes which have priority and reduce the turning accidents that cost so many cyclists their lives in the UK.
The concept of the weakest road user always having priority unless they deliberatly provoke an accident. For example: as a pedestrian you can get fined for crossing on the red man but you still have priority so if a driver runs into you they are responsible. It means drivers take more care around cyclists and pedestrians.
MOT testing centers not also being repair garages.
Being serious about drug driving, the Germans are.
I'm half way serious. Having road where there is no alternative for pedestrians but to walk in the carriageway as anything other than 20mph is clearly not safe and means walking (and cycling) are just not an option in many places. Perhaps we could start with anywhere there are houses.
If "no one should go to a football match and not come home" then the same should apply to 'walking to the shops or school'. Why do we seemingly have an acceptable level of death and serious injury on our roads? Currently its about 80 people a day killed or seriously (potentially life changing injuries)
If you're putting safety first and aiming for vision zero then the default speed limit on ALL roads should be 20mph. Then you'd establish where it was safe for it to be higher than that working up to 60 based on where anyone might want to walk or cycle and whether there were pavements, crossings, safe space for cycling, houses etc....
At the moment we've a ridiculous national speed limit and we require someone to die before we properly evaluate a road/junction/speed limit and do something about it.
You can sort of do that now with the online theory test.
The government are very scared of car owner backlash hence they haven’t tackled speeding, dangerous driving, light jumping etc.
Instead I get to have an extra pointless eye test because they say so.
i have my eyes tested every two years and ask the optician if my corrected vision is ok for driving.
if it wasn’t I would stop.
I don’t actually drive much as we have good public transport links and walking and cycling make more sense than sitting in a car.
The government also need to get vehicles off pavements, verges and green spaces and reclaim the streets from cars.
I don’t think the amount of car use for short journeys helps with the general health of the population.
grrrr sorry rant over.
If I was to be re-tested I'd want it to be at the same standard I had to achieve back in 1985! 😜
Anyway, getting back to the minor changes in the new Road Safety Strategy theres a bit more than is in the headlines. I think theres a commitment to 'further study on cognitive testing'*, not wearing a seat belt is now points as well as a fine. But it's not exactly revolutionary.
* As someone's already said, if periodic retests had no effect we'd not do any CPD for airline pilots, train drivers etc etc. but the main safety issue with most drivers is either wilfully ignoring the rules or not being distracted by other things (whether it's their phone or something they've got to do at work later). I remember years ago driving on "autopilot" and finding I'd driven to the wrong place.
But frequent cognitive tests for seniors could be done on a simulator. It doesn't necessarily need them to sit in a physical car and drive with an instructor. That would potentially make it a lot cheaper and easier to implement. I've now seen it with both of my own parents and now with my in laws - most people continue to drive long after they should be and they are a danger to others. I think their 'danger per mile' drops significantly, but most peoples distance milage is on 'safe' motorways. So while the elderly do few miles, they tend to do them around other people in higher risk environments.
Testing does little to promote safety. All young drivers are supposed to pass a test but often have accidents partly due to inexperience.
The young driver thing is more a case of "here's something fast and fun and off you go now you've got that silly test behind you". Watch 18-year-olds on skis, a skate board, a snowboard, a jetski, a climbing wall or even an MTB.
One thing young drivers can teach us is that the "spy in the cab" really works. My soon to be ex-brother-in-law put an insurance company supplied tracker in his car and his kids drove like angels, trouble was he borrowed their car one day and forgot it was there. 🙂
Instead I get to have an extra pointless eye test because they say so.
i have my eyes tested every two years and ask the optician if my corrected vision is ok for driving.
Anyone over 60 is entitled to a free eye test every two years. I would hazard a guess that those eye tests would be considered proof enough without an additional driving specific one every three years. The only people impacted would be over 70s who don't currently have eye tests and that's easily fixed at no cost to them.
I wouldn’t bet on it my bet is it will be an extra test which will need paying for 🙁
But frequent cognitive tests for seniors could be done on a simulator. It doesn't necessarily need them to sit in a physical car and drive with an instructor. That would potentially make it a lot cheaper and easier to implement.
I could imagine some very simple tests - like reaction time, and simple memory and stuff could easily be assessed by opticians at the same time as the eye test. It needn’t require particularly fancy equipment.
the government position is there is no cost involved as eye tests are already free for the affected age groups.I wouldn’t bet on it my bet is it will be an extra test which will need paying for 🙁
* As someone's already said, if periodic retests had no effect we'd not do any CPD for airline pilots, train drivers etc etc.
is there any evidence that pilots and train drivers WOULD be more dangerous if they didn’t? I don’t think private pilots retest they just have to log hours?
one issue that I’ve not heard good answers to is how you actually stop someone - it’s all very well revoking their license but if they don’t understand you or believe you are wrong or can’t remember what they were told you are relying on some other person intervening to sell the car etc.I've now seen it with both of my own parents and now with my in laws - most people continue to drive long after they should be and they are a danger to others.
Instead I get to have an extra pointless eye test because they say so.
It’s not intended to be an extra test. Do you think there are no drivers who will fail an eye test (or at least need new glasses to puSs it) which this will find? The six dead people last year where eyesight was attributed as a causative factor might disagree.
did I miss the bit where the gov were planning to remove speed limits?I see we agree on more than first appeared apparent, Poly.
you should go for a drive up the M6/M74 where they all play leapfrog very slowly creeping past each other to gain 0.5 mph.
I did drive on the M6 and most of the truck overtaking seemed load/gradient related. On a three lane motorway I didn't see it as a problem. A .5mph speed differential between limited vehicles just isn't a problem in terms of safety. It's big differentials that cause issues as the extreme German example shows. Try overtaking a truck on the unlimited sections in Germany where the speed differential between the truck you want to over take and the distant dot in the mirror is often 150kmh and sometimes 200kmh. Their accident stats for the unlimited sections are a clear indicator that big speed differentials are deadly. The death rate per km driven on unlimited autobahns is 75% higher than on limited ones. The cost of pandering to the German auto lobby.
it does - we should still be aiming for better thoughBritain has remarkably safe roads for car drivers,
I don’t disagree - but just because you like them doesn’t necessarily mean they will actually reduce casualties in the UK.I think it's still worth considereing other countries as examples both good and bad of how things could be improved. Some examples I like:
court fines in E&W already are. In Scotland linked to means. It’s points not fines most people actually care about though!Fines related to income.
we do confiscate cars for driving license, antisocial behaviour and no insurance offences, but we generally believe in innocent until proven guilty and in particular women’s confidence in the police is at an all time low - giving cops the ability to force vulnerable people to walk home probably isn’t great. In Scotland though really high speeding is prosecuted as Dangerous Driving - an imprisonable offence…Taking both licence and car off the driver at the scene if a certain amount over the limit. Now walk or call a taxi.
so do British ones (since last major HW code overhaul) but educating and enforcing that is a slow process. We’ve also started to see infrastructure for crossing dedicated cycleways giving priority to the cyclist too - but I don’t think that’s been articulated well to drivers.German and Dutch bike lanes which have priority and reduce the turning accidents that cost so many cyclists their lives in the UK.
this is the hierarchy in the latest HWC.The concept of the weakest road user always having priority unless they deliberatly provoke an accident
no such offence in the UK.For example: as a pedestrian you can get fined for crossing on the red man
often claimed but I don’t know any driver who would elect to have an accident and damage their car by taking liberties with uninsured other road users. It’s a logic which doesn’t stack up - there is a cultural problem but I don’t think “liability” solves it.It means drivers take more care around cyclists and pedestrians.
there are independent test centres available all across the country (I think every local authority has one). NI only had independent test centres - their accident stats are poorer than ours. Is there evidence that unroadworthy vehicles which have fairly recently passed an MoT are a signicant factor in accidents?MOT testing centers not also being repair garages.
im not sure what the Germans are doing - the UK (or at least some E&W forces) are actually fairly proactive - but a test costs £8, whereas a breathalyser tube is pennies. But if you’ve followed my repeated point in this (and many other) threads it’s all pointless unless we have police officers to enforce the rules. At some point most of us have been careless in a car, most of us got away with it because no cop was around (or interested) and so our brain got told it was actually Ok and we will do it again. I don’t believe any country doing better than us on stats has fewer road police.Being serious about drug driving, the Germans are.
Again we seem to agree on a lot. Not this though.
but just because you like them doesn’t necessarily mean they will actually reduce casualties in the UK.
The highway code is unfortunately often only guidelines so people don't feel the need to take it seriously.
Using the roads as a pedestrian and cyclist in the UK I find a hostilty and willingness to put me in danger that I don't (or very rarely) experience in other countries. In the UK I have to cross a busy road to get to a country park near the South Brum suburbs. There's no pedestrian crossing and a continuous flow of traffic. Even when some kind person stops to let me pass one way the trafic continues in the other lane. I get hooted at, fists wave. I'm considered a jay walker, a nuisance, a lower form of life and **** the highway code it's not even law. Same situation is rare in the places I live in France as there's less trafic so I can just wait till it's safe to cross and not wait all day. I don't have to wait though, the first or second driver that sees I want to cross stops, they know I have priority.
So I really think laws (not just guidelines) to give pedestrians the right to cross anywhere there isn't a pedestrain crossing within 50m would avoid people getting killed crossing the road - they aren't jay walking, they have priority over you the driver. Jay walking as a concept in people's heads needs to cease to exist. Likewise 1.5m for cyclists is only a guideline, it needs to be law (though perhaps at 1m in low speed urban areas) - it would make clear what a close pass is and save cyclists lives.
often claimed but I don’t know any driver who would elect to have an accident and damage their car by taking liberties with uninsured other road users.
Even if you don't know them there are plenty of threads on here to tell you there are too many of them.
But by and large we agree however picky you try to be. 🙂
* As someone's already said, if periodic retests had no effect we'd not do any CPD for airline pilots, train drivers etc etc.is there any evidence that pilots and train drivers WOULD be more dangerous if they didn’t? I don’t think private pilots retest they just have to log hours?
For rail and air travel we have a massively different approach to safety. When people die on road or in air crashes there are proper investigations into what has happened. Procedures change to try to ensure it doesn't happen again. As a result there are on average between 100-300 air travel deaths GLOBALLY each year. The UK rail network frequently has ZERO staff or passenger deaths in a year.
Driver/Pilot training and regulation is part of that.
In reported road collisions in Great Britain in the year ending June 2025 there were an estimated:
1,579 fatalities, a decline of 3% compared to the year ending June 2024
29,896 KSI casualties, little change compared to the year ending June 2024
127,161 casualties of all severities, a decline of 3% compared to the year ending June 2024
*one issue that I’ve not heard good answers to is how you actually stop someone - it’s all very well revoking their license but if they don’t understand you or believe you are wrong or can’t remember what they were told you are relying on some other person intervening to sell the car etc.I've now seen it with both of my own parents and now with my in laws - most people continue to drive long after they should be and they are a danger to others.Absolutely
With my Dad we took away his keys but there was endless shouting about it afterwards. Couldn't get the doctor to tell my mum to stop driving and she carried on until every corner of the car was battered. Mostly car park scrapes but none of those people would have got a note on their car - they'd have just come back and found a scrape down the side. We disabled the car and at that point she'd got bad enough not to be able to get it together to try to get it fixed.
Aunt in law currently someone jumps in every time she wants to go anywhere. The uncle I'm not sure should be driving either.
The ex Marine in Liverpool?
For rail and air travel we have a massively different approach to safety. When people die on road or in air crashes there are proper investigations into what has happened. Procedures change to try to ensure it doesn't happen again. As a result there are on average between 100-300 air travel deaths GLOBALLY each year. The UK rail network frequently has ZERO staff or passenger deaths in a year.
That’s a good point, I would welcome a Road Accident Investigation Branch focussed on finding the causes rather than assigning blame for prosecution of all serious accidents. To a very limited extent Coroners fill that function and no an even lesser extent the FAI in Scotland but only for fatalities and never really digging into the why. At best their recommendations take years to become proposals like the ones that started this thread.
Even if you don't know them there are plenty of threads on here to tell you there are too many of them.
No someone intentionally crashing their car is very much the exception (Bruce has pointed out an example of someone losing their shit and smashing though crowds of people - it was such big headlines because it is not normal behaviour). People take chances and make stupid decisions all the time - I don’t think 99.9% of people are thinking “**** it I’ll just damage my car”. In fact I actually think with UK road culture presumed liability could have precisely the opposite effect: dicks on bikes would become cockier dicks, and dicks in cars would be more convinced that all cyclists are entitled pricks. People who would intentionally crash will be no less likely to do so, people who accidentally crash might be even more likely to try and leave the scene to avoid the consequences.
"The UK rail network frequently has ZERO staff or passenger deaths in a year."
Easy to do when you only have a vehicle every 5 minutes and their movements are following a planned timetable while operating on a dedicated track with no cyclists or pedestrians sharing it.
In any case the big picture is that road accidents are only responsible for around 7% of accidental deaths. Of all causes road traffic deaths are the only one that has gone down in the last decade. With among the safest roads in the world we are doing pretty well. There are more deaths from "Accidents from crushing, striking, powered hand tools and machinery" that RTAs.
" Of all causes road traffic deaths are the only one that has gone down in the last decade. With among the safest roads in the world we are doing pretty well.
Motor vehicles have become better at protecting their occupants. It doesn’t look like we’ve made the streets safer for people walking or cycling.
should really adjust for mileage as well - it’s easy to cut ksi by reducing trips on foot or bike and having everyone inside a car but that isn’t really progress.
We could save 1600 RTA deaths per annum just by completely banning motorised vehicles from the roads. But many more people would die because emergency vehicles couldn’t get help to people, food wouldn’t be delivered, powerstations would stop working (no staff, no spare parts) and so people would freeze to death, the economy would be destroyed, the state couldn’t afford healthcare, education, policing etc. The number of cyclist dying might actually probably climb - as everyone switches to bike but no money for road repairs, and dicks in cars become dicks on bikes.
that’s one extreme and the other is we have zero traffic regulations with people dying all over the place on the roads. Government’s job is to try to find the optimal spot in the middle where the fewest possible people in total die and everyone who lives has a reasonable quality of life. Fatalities on our roads are too common but, whilst it’s easy to declare what the solutions are, proving they will have an overall net benefit is much harder. eg, medical for everyone every 10 yrs and over 70s every three years might save say a few dozen lives a year, but without new resource to do them inevitably people with cancer of heart conditions would find it harder to see a Dr and probably more of them die.
Government’s job is to try to find the optimal spot in the middle where the fewest possible people in total die and everyone who lives has a reasonable quality of life. Fatalities on our roads are too common but, whilst it’s easy to declare what the solutions are, proving they will have an overall net benefit is much harder. eg, medical for everyone every 10 yrs and over 70s every three years might save say a few dozen lives a year, but without new resource to do them inevitably people with cancer of heart conditions would find it harder to see a Dr and probably more of them die.
There really is no societal justification for cars that can exceed the speed limit, or for that matter the speed limit on a particular section of road. It's hard to find the justification for allowing people to continue to drive when they've shown repeatedly that they're unable to do so safely/within the law.
There seem a load of things where it's hard to find any real net 'disbenefit' for society but we don't do because they'd be unpopular with people who want to continue to drive badly. Lower speed limits, short term bans/larger fines etc, end exceptional hardship. More automated enforcement - lots of covert cameras moved frequently - no more painting them yellow and telling everyone where they've actually got to obey the law and implying it's fine not to everywhere else. This isn't stuff that's expensive to implement or sucks more resources.
I would welcome a Road Accident Investigation Branch focussed on finding the causes rather than assigning blame for prosecution of all serious accidents. To a very limited extent Coroners fill that function and no an even lesser extent the FAI in Scotland but only for fatalities and never really digging into the why.
This is a constant frustration of mine. The frequency of collisions on the A9 is well documented and there are a couple of local junctions that feature highly. However, there is rarely any (official) feedback available on the root cause. Knowing this would help me negotiate the road in a safer fashion as I might be able to better forsee an incident occurring and thus avoid it.
We could save 1600 RTA deaths per annum just by completely banning motorised vehicles from the roads.
We could, but Oslo achieved Vision Zero in 2023 without banning motorised vehicles.
The number of cyclist dying might actually probably climb - as everyone switches to bike but no money for road repairs, and dicks in cars become dicks on bikes.
You do know that roads are funded from general taxation, not directly from VED/fuel duty? And that in general driving is subsidised because even if driving taxes were ring-fenced, they wouldn’t come near to covering the cost to the taxpayer?
As has been said before, dicks in cars are dangers to everyone, dicks on bikes are largely a danger to themselves.
"You do know that roads are funded from general taxation, not directly from VED/fuel duty? And that in general driving is subsidised because even if driving taxes were ring-fenced, they wouldn’t come near to covering the cost to the taxpayer?"
Actually they would. Road user taxes far outweigh roads expenditure.
Claims that cars are subsidised depend on counting things like congestion as a cost. It is not a cost to the taxpayer. If it was we should balance it against the benefit society gets from increased mobility which I suspect would show a huge net benefit from mobility.
As for driving being subsidised. By who? Around 78% of households have access to a car. The vast majority of taxpayers. Are they subsiding themselves?
As the major external cost is congestion there is at least a soloution. Build more roads. There is ample scope for local bypasses for example which would reduce congestion with no downside. Nairn bypass for example. It is crazy having the main Inverness - Aberdeen road going through a town centre.
As the major external cost is congestion there is at least a soloution. Build more roads. There is ample scope for local bypasses for example which would reduce congestion with no downside. Nairn bypass for example. It is crazy having the main Inverness - Aberdeen road going through a town centre.
With all due respect, you’re effectively describing induced demand there, which is roundly disproven. More roads never fix congestion for long, because they just encourage more people to drive.
With bypasses, we should be narrowing and restricting through traffic on the old road but in practice this rarely happens.
You say induced demand I say increased mobility. More mobility is good. I remember when Glasgow to Inverness involved driving through every village en route. The new A9 was a vast improvement and increased the quality of life as villages only had local traffic.
There are plenty places where the traffic is going there anyway like through Nairn. Removing it to a bypass is a win.
Making people and goods more mobile increases choices for work, the economy, and leisure. A good thing in book.
"You do know that roads are funded from general taxation, not directly from VED/fuel duty? And that in general driving is subsidised because even if driving taxes were ring-fenced, they wouldn’t come near to covering the cost to the taxpayer?"
Actually they would. Road user taxes far outweigh roads expenditure.
This 2012 study assessed the cost of RTCs. thats nearly £22billion at current prices.
There really is no societal justification for cars that can exceed the speed limit
My boringly normal car (like most people's) is easily capable of exceeding the speed limit. It doesn't.
[quote data-userid="9567" data-postid="13683546"]
We could save 1600 RTA deaths per annum just by completely banning motorised vehicles from the roads.
We could, but Oslo achieved Vision Zero in 2023 without banning motorised vehicles.
https://content.tfl.gov.uk/vision-zero-case-study-oslo.pdf I’m not sure what you think Oslo’s Vision Zero was? It’s certainly not zero road deaths as that link clearly shows - it appears to be zero growth in traffic!
Achieving casualty reduction in cities is likely more achievable than in rural areas: speeds are lower, public transport is a realistic alternative, population densities are high enough to make better infrastructure, emergency response is better when something goes wrong. But vast parts of the UK are not urbanised so let’s not pretend that even if Oslo achieves zero road deaths that the whole of the UK could. When the whole of Norway achieves that I’ll sit up and take notice.
The number of cyclist dying might actually probably climb - as everyone switches to bike but no money for road repairs, and dicks in cars become dicks on bikes.
You do know that roads are funded from general taxation, not directly from VED/fuel duty? And that in general driving is subsidised because even if driving taxes were ring-fenced, they wouldn’t come near to covering the cost to the taxpayer?
im well aware there’s no ring fenced road tax - but with no vehicles the economic damage would be so huge that ALL taxation would be screwed. Before preaching though you might want to check your facts - UK road maintenance budget is around 9-10Bn; VED is about 8Bn - but fuel duty is 24 Bn!
As has been said before, dicks in cars are dangers to everyone, dicks on bikes are largely a danger to themselves.
Not in a world with no cars - they’ll be a risk to other cyclists and pedestrian too. However if we don’t care if people only harm themselves through their driving then the 1600 figure is overstated. I assumed as a society we didn’t really want the consequences for families even if we didn’t care about the drivers.
I’m not sure what you think Oslo’s Vision Zero was? It’s certainly not zero road deaths as that link clearly shows - it appears to be zero growth in traffic!
“In 2023, no one was killed while walking or cycling in a city of 700,000 people.”?
[quote data-userid="115703" data-postid="13683529"]
Government’s job is to try to find the optimal spot in the middle where the fewest possible people in total die and everyone who lives has a reasonable quality of life. Fatalities on our roads are too common but, whilst it’s easy to declare what the solutions are, proving they will have an overall net benefit is much harder. eg, medical for everyone every 10 yrs and over 70s every three years might save say a few dozen lives a year, but without new resource to do them inevitably people with cancer of heart conditions would find it harder to see a Dr and probably more of them die.
There really is no societal justification for cars that can exceed the speed limit, or for that matter the speed limit on a particular section of road. I try my hardest not to speed so I have no qualms about such restrictions - I think the latest tech is a step in the right direction; but those who say we should have this - the technology exists to do this today if you wanted to. Say it cost £1000 would you pay to add that to your vehicle - probably not because we all believe the issue is other drivers.
the only justification in law is that it would cause exceptional hardship. The story is usually that it would cause hardship to people who are entirely faultless. Is it applied consistently across the country - probably not. But can I see that a crofter on Harris who drives to Edinburgh and manages to accumulate two speeding offences on the way their and two more on the way back is probably going to suffer disproportionately from a six month ban than someone from London caught doing something similar. If the crofter is the sole carer for his disabled wife then I think the benefits for society on saying - don’t do it again and don’t come back here with the same excuse if you get caught again probably do stack up.It's hard to find the justification for allowing people to continue to drive when they've shown repeatedly that they're unable to do so safely/within the law.There seem a load of things where it's hard to find any real net 'disbenefit' for society but we don't do because they'd be unpopular with people who want to continue to drive badly.
do short term bans actually disincentivise people? I could easily cope with a 1 month ban probably without even telling anyone except my wife!Lower speed limits, short term bans/larger fines etc, end exceptional hardship.
larger fines or bans would mean more people decide to go to court to fight it. A creaking court system would be overloaded and other offences would get stuck in a backlog.
you see that’s where I think we’ve gone wrong! Cameras only catch speeders and red light jumpers. They ignore the overloaded vehicles, the people using their phone, the unlicensed/uninsured driver in an unregistered vehicle, the dodgy lights or bald tyres which would be found in routine stops and the drink and drug drivers who are mostly caught these days because they were also doing / did something else wrong.More automated enforcement - lots of covert cameras moved frequently
that’s one of those policies which might make sense on the surface, but it there’s one particular stretch of road where speed is a genuine safety issue - is making it high profile not better than hoping drivers just do better from a general fear of being caught?- no more painting them yellow and telling everyone where they've actually got to obey the law and implying it's fine not to everywhere else.
but does it actually reduce deaths? We can all feel frustrated at people still driving with 20 points - but only a small fraction of road deaths are caused by people who would have been banned under a “no excuses” totting up rule. Actually probably more caused by people who are banned or never had a licence in the first place… I’d be really keen to see them enforced off the road.
This isn't stuff that's expensive to implement or sucks more resources.
/quote]
This 2012 study assessed the cost of RTCs. thats nearly £22billion at current prices.
Most of that £22Bn is not costs as in expendidture. It is putting a nominal value on things like distress to relatives of victims. That is not a subsidy to drivers or a cost to the taxpayer. So my point that road taxes far outweighs expenditure still stands. Car drivers are not subsidised.
They could reduce those costs by building more motorways which save lives by removing traffic from others roads wich have higher accident rates.
I’m not sure what you think Oslo’s Vision Zero was? It’s certainly not zero road deaths as that link clearly shows - it appears to be zero growth in traffic!
“In 2023, no one was killed while walking or cycling in a city of 700,000 people.”?
but that doesn’t seem to be what the vision is - it’s a vision for zero traffic growth, not zero pedestrian/cyclist deaths. It appears to be partly coincidental that it was also zero - although if they sustain that there are clearly things to learn how a small city manages it. Even if it was the vision then the 1600 uk road deaths is not the right comparator. Those casualties make less than 1/3rd of the UK total. And really we should focus just on the ones in an affluent urban area because the underlying problems are different.
With bypasses, we should be narrowing and restricting through traffic on the old road but in practice this rarely happens.
It did, sort of, in Chippenham, where a bypass was built around the west side of town, which is the A350, and which is now finally being dualled, while the original road, Hungerdown Lane, is a B-road, the B4528, and certainly carries less traffic, nevertheless it’s still a busy road, because it has 13 urban roads feeding into it along about a mile of road, plus a couple of schools, a pub, a filling station with a small supermarket, and various bus routes use it as well!
The road was narrowed by removing the centre white line and putting a cycle lane along each side, effectively using cyclists as a moving chicane to force cars to slow down - good thinking by the council, except in places the lane as marked is narrower than the bars on my singlespeed, and I’ve actually broken a car door mirror when it stopped suddenly as I was passing it, with my tyres actually rubbing along the kerb, and my hand hit the mirror, because I had nowhere else to go.
Fortunately, my gloves had armoured knuckle protection, so no harm to me, only the door mirror, but the car’s wheels were over the line marking the cycle lane, which varies in width along the road.
Eventually, the council seemed to realise that using cyclists to slow traffic is somewhat irresponsible, so changed the footpath to shared use along most of the road.
The UK rail network frequently has ZERO staff or passenger deaths in a year.
Hardly surprising, really, considering how a railway operates. There are, very occasionally, train crashes through derailments or signalling failures, in which case the casualties can be in significant numbers, plus there are occasional fatalities at unmanned crossings, which has happened a few times here in the West Country, but they’re difficult to pin down to any specific cause - it’s usually possible to hear a train coming, through the rails ‘ringing’, and normally the trains use their horns, but often the casualties are youngsters, which does raise the question, were they wearing headphones or paying too much attention to their phones?
I’ve personally been knocked off my bike by someone staring at their phone, who walked directly in front of me when I rang my bell as I came up behind them!
It’s impossible to legislate for crass stupidity, and as long as pedestrians walk around oblivious to their surroundings, because they’re far too occupied with the latest reels on their media feeds, and they’ve got headphones on, even forcing vehicles to comply with a 20mph limit, stepping out in front of a bus or delivery truck weighing several tonnes will result in severe injuries or fatalities. It can happen even with virtually stationary traffic; when Chippenham high street still carried through traffic, someone stepped out in front of a bus that was just starting to move, completely out of the driver’s view, and got run over - it was other pedestrians who had to flag him down, the driver had no idea the person was there.
The result was a fatality, through no fault of the poor bus driver, who was totally traumatised by the incident.