gonefishin – Member

What exactly do you call someone who kills another person like the story GrahamS has linked to?

Rude words.
What is the point of having rules in place if we allow people to get away with breaking them?
He should have been banned from driving a long time ago.

Re speed limits the drivers skill in controlling a vehicle at various speeds and reaction times are small part of picture…..you also have to consider the reaction times and decision making of the other people in that environment. At 20mph everyone has more time to see and properly assess what’s going on…not just the driver. Plenty out there about younger people in particular unable to assess oncoming things at speed….slower speeds give them more chance to assess what’s going on…and they might not have drivers awesome skills.

The trouble with the “speed kills” propaganda is that unless cars do not comply with the basic laws of physics this statement is totally untrue. Speed never has and never can kill, no single person has ever died from going too fast.

In order for there to be an accident there have to be 2 objects wanting to occupy the same space at exactly the same time. Speed is completely irrelevant and not a factor in this scenario. Indeed it is just as probable that the accident wouldnt have occurred at all if one of the objects was travelling faster or slower.

Even rospa have had to concede that inappropriate speed is responsible for less than 10% of accidents and speeding is an undefined subset of that. It also states that 2/3rds of all fatal crashes occur in areas with a 30mph speed limit. Citation

The caveat to that of course is that whilst absolute speed may not cause accidents in and of itself, it can have a very great impact on the severity of a collision should one occur.

Speed never has and never can kill, no single person has ever died from going too fast.

An utterly useless post. EVERYONE understands the difference between 80mph on a clear road and 80mph into a tree.

Speed is a multiplier for accidents. It makes them harder to avoid, and worse when they do happen. A collision at 30mph might be survivable, 100mph might not. So speed really does kill *in an accident*.

Much better training and much harder testing will weed out the shit drivers.

It won’t do anything for the drivers good enough to drive for the test, but then willing to flout the rules afterwards. Most people knowingly flout rules now tbh.

In order for there to be an accident there have to be 2 objects wanting to occupy the same space at exactly the same time. Speed is completely irrelevant and not a factor in this scenario.

Of course it’s a factor! If those two objects were doing 5mph before tried to “occupy the same space” then it won’t be much of a bump. If they were doing 100mph each and hit head on then it’ll make a right old mess.

Even rospa have had to concede that inappropriate speed is responsible for less than 10% of accidents and speeding is an undefined subset of that.

I’m guessing you missed the RRCGB figures posted earlier?

RAS50001 shows “Exceeding speed limit” as a contributory factor in 16% of fatal accidents and “Travelling too fast for conditions” is a factor in 11% of fatal accidents.

It also states that 2/3rds of all fatal crashes occur in areas with a 30mph speed limit.

That’s not what it says. It says “killed OR INJURED” – i.e. that includes all recorded accidents including minor shunts.

The fatality figures are much clearer:

Total fatalities on all roads: 1658
Total fatalities on roads with a 20 or 30 limit: 617 (about 37.2%)

Source: RAS40003, Reported accidents and casualties by severity, road type and speed limit, RRCGB 2014

Turns out that Speed Kills. Who knew?

It won’t do anything for the drivers good enough to drive for the test, but then willing to flout the rules afterwards. Most people knowingly flout rules now tbh.

That’s why we need to do much more in educating driver’s attitudes before they are let out on the roads.
The current system does not do this, and is too easy to pass.
My examiner was very *slack.
Fortunately my instructor wasn’t.
I’ve always described driving as a constant series of actions to prevent one’s self from crashing. It needs to be taken seriously.

*Instructed me to break the speed limit and marked me down for hesitation because I was reacting to potential hazards that he hadn’t seen.
If I was to go back in time and take my test again but without the examiner, the only things I’d do differently is drive a little slower at certain points and be a little more considerate to other drivers.

Oh, and reverse around a corner a little more confidently, I was proper shite!

And what does ‘contributing to an accident’ actually mean? A factor in the accident happening?

Speed is a factor in the consequences of 100% of accidents.

That’s why we need to do much more in educating driver’s attitudes before they are let out on the roads.

Lol. Good luck with that, seriously.

Turns out that Speed Kills. Who knew?

We knew that years ago, when the “two thirds lie” was trotted out and it transpired that speeding was the primary cause in approx 4% of accidents.

it transpired that speeding was the primary cause in approx 4% of accidents.

Even so, it still kills.

molgrips – Member

Lol. Good luck with that, seriously.

I’ve convinced a few people to hone their skills over the years, normally after pointing out glaringly obvious hazards my passengers have missed after asking me why I was slowing down.

Every little helps.

And what does ‘contributing to an accident’ actually mean? A factor in the accident happening?

Yeah, on the STATS19 form (pdf) the investigating police office can record a up to six contributory factors (from a list of 77) that they decide are relevant to the accident.

There is a good background article about it here if you are interested (pdf).

EVERYONE understands the difference between 80mph on a clear road and 80mph into a tree.

Thought for a moment there you’d considered 80mph on a clear road to be safe 😉

Speed is a multiplier for accidents. It makes them harder to avoid

Try telling that to my ex GF. In the time I went out with her she’d had 5-6 car park accidents at no more than 5mph, yet no accidents out on the open road at higher speed!

Most people knowingly flout rules now tbh.

And yet casualty numbers seem to be reducing year on year?

it transpired that speeding was the primary cause in approx 4% of accidents.

Yes of ALL accidents – because ALL accidents includes lots of pretty low speed shunts and minor injuries. (See agent007’s ex-girlfriend for example).

If you look at FATAL accidents, i.e. the ones that kill, then speeding is a contributory factor in 16% of them.

The top six contributing factors that are recorded in fatal accidents are:

Loss of control (32%)
Driver/Rider failed to look properly (25%)
Driver/Rider careless, reckless or in a hurry (18%)
Exceeding speed limit (16%)
Poor turn or manoeuvre (14%)
Driver/Rider failed to judge other person’s path or speed (14%)

The same argument could be made for driving too slowly. Remember seeing a video of a car side swiped on a dual carriageway by a truck pulling out suddenly into the outside lane to avoid another car that must have been traveling at approx 40mph in the inside lane. The truck driver obviously didn’t expect the car to be traveling so slowly but would be considered at fault for the accident by not being observant enough. Perhaps a minimum speed limit should also be set on some roads during good, dry conditions?

I don’t want to trivialise the importance of speed, but that still makes 84% of fatal accidents where speeding wasn’t considered a factor at all. If everybody stopped speeding right now there would still be carnage on the roads.

It seems there are other factors there which might merit a higher priority rather than just focusing on speed because it’s easy to measure.

And yet casualty numbers seem to be reducing year on year?

Most likely more to do with cars being safer.

What’s your reasoning?

Try telling that to my ex GF

That’s very small number of total incidents/accidents & hardly representative.

It seems there are other factors there which might merit a higher priority rather than just focusing on speed because it’s easy to measure.

Agree 100%, yet all people seem to be obsessed about (including most on here) is speed, speed, speed! Such a shame that this very vocal, yet narrow minded focus on speed is distracting people’s attention from where the main improvements in driving safety can be found, probably costing 100’s of lives in the process.

The truck driver obviously didn’t expect the car to be traveling so slowly but would be considered at fault for the accident by not being observant enough.

Sounds like that we be recorded as “Driver/Rider failed to look properly” and “Driver/Rider failed to judge other person’s path or speed”.

If the car was doing 40mph then the truck (assuming an HGV) should only have had a 10mph closing speed, or maybe 20mph (if it happened in England or Wales after April last year).

The driver should have had plenty of time to see the slower car.

Perhaps a minimum speed limit should also be set on some roads during good, dry conditions?

Effectively banning groups of road users including cyclists, horses, mopeds, tractors, etc?

I don’t want to trivialise the importance of speed, but that still makes 84% of fatal accidents where speeding wasn’t considered a factor at all.

Well I’d note that some of the other top factors would have speed-related components too, even if speeding wasn’t cited as a factor (and it may have been – the factors are not exclusive).

It seems there are other factors there which might merit a higher priority rather than just focusing on speed because it’s easy to measure.

From those figures there are three factors (out of 77 possible) that are recorded more often than speeding in fatals.

And of those the top two, “Loss of control” and “Driver/Rider failed to look properly” are pretty hard to legislate against.

Perhaps a minimum speed limit should also be set on some roads during good, dry conditions?

IIRC the motorways have a minimum capable speed. I forget the figure, but your vehicle has be capable of a minimum speed to be allowed on the motorway. (It’s something like 30mph or 40mph I think.)

A minimum speed would be difficult to enforce. What if there’s heavy traffic or a jam / accident? There are minimum limits somewhere presumably, the signs are in THC (they’re blue circles). I don’t recall ever seeing one in the flesh though. Anyone else seen one? And we have clearways too of course, but that’s not really the same thing.

I’m pretty sure it’s 40mph on a motorway.

Speeding is tackled precisely as it is easy to judge. In my industry it’s called the quick win. Cost or effort is minimal for maximum return, in this case trying to have 14% less dead people. You don’t think it’s worth the effort?

The more common contributors are clearly judgement based, and as such are harder to control. We could be having tv adverts or some such, cost would be little, effect likely also. Get some celebs on the case and it might work a bit better. Generally though behaviour is slow to change without a penalty to drive it, and those ones are difficult to do that.

yet all people seem to be obsessed about (including most on here) is speed, speed, speed!

NO WE AREN’T! I’ve said over and over again on every thread that good driving is essential. I’ve just said that speed limits are also important.

It’s almost as if you lot deliberately don’t listen so that you’ll have a bogus argument to cling to! FFS!

The reason we keep talking about it is that half of STW think it’s ok to ignore speed limits, and I’m trying to tell you why sticking to them has value. Yet for some stupid reason you think I’m saying it’s the only thing that’s important despite explicitly stating over and over again to the contrary.

There are minimum limits somewhere presumably, the signs are in THC (they’re blue circles). I don’t recall ever seeing one in the flesh though. Anyone else seen one?

Only in tunnels.
e.g. 10mph in the Liverpool tunnel https://goo.gl/maps/rVorwkfcMJR2

Incidentally I had a quick look for legislation on minimum capable speed, but the only thing that I found was the Highways Act (SCHEDULE 4 Classes of Traffic for Purposes of Special Roads) which says a Class I vehicle “in the case of a motor vehicle, that it is so constructed as to be capable of attaining a speed of 25 miles per hour on the level under its own power, when unladen and not drawing a trailer.”

NO WE AREN’T!

Indeed.

Speed and speeding just keeps getting mentioned because:

a) the thread was about speed cameras
b) people keep popping up saying speed doesn’t matter or quoting bogus stats.

Speed matters. Plenty of other factors matter too. I’ve said I’m all for periodic re-tests, better enforcement technology, more traffic police, harsher sentencing and more lifetime bans.

There’s no such thing as a minimum speed limit on the motorway.

NO WE AREN’T! I’ve said over and over again on every thread that good driving is essential. I’ve just said that speed limits are also important.
It’s almost as if you lot deliberately don’t listen so that you’ll have a bogus argument to cling to! FFS!
The reason we keep talking about it is that half of STW think it’s ok to ignore speed limits, and I’m trying to tell you why sticking to them has value. Yet for some stupid reason you think I’m saying it’s the only thing that’s important despite explicitly stating over and over again to the contrary.

+1.

Speed is a relatively easy factor to control hence the emphasis.

Everything else requires more action on the driver I.e. more training = extra expense & time.

Speed just requires you not to press that pedal on the right quite so hard & far.

It’s almost as if you lot deliberately don’t listen so that you’ll have a bogus argument to cling to! FFS!

Irritating, isn’t it.

The reason we keep talking about it is that half of STW think it’s ok to ignore speed limits,

[citation needed] unless STW is two people.

Try telling that to my ex GF. In the time I went out with her she’d had 5-6 car park accidents at no more than 5mph, yet no accidents out on the open road at higher speed!

Genuine question. Do you think she would have had fewer crashes or that they would have done less damage if she drove faster in car parks?

Speed is a multiplier for accidents. It makes them harder to avoid, and worse when they do happen. A collision at 30mph might be survivable, 100mph might not. So speed really does kill *in an accident*.

Your missing the whole point. You are talking about the severity of the accident. Im more interested in them not happening at all. In that context speed is irrelevant, the accident will or won’t happen irrespective of the speed.

An utterly useless post. EVERYONE understands the difference between 80mph on a clear road and 80mph into a tree.

Indeed they do. So in 1 scenario nothing happened, in the other there was an accident. The speed was the same in both scenarios so not a facto, the accident was caused by hitting the tree. The speed was irrelevant.

If you want to get hung up about survivability rather than preventing accidents then fine. Survivability is all about managing the transfer of kinetic energy to other forms of energy, its actually all about how you slow down. As its about energy then weight is as important as speed. A 40 tonne lorry doing 30mph has a hell of a lot more kinetic energy to get rid of than at car.

Your missing the whole point. You are talking about the severity of the accident. Im more interested in them not happening at all.

I would say that you are missing the point. Ideally we should not have accidents at all, but some are inevitable. When they do happen, their consequences should be minimised.

I’d rather have twenty minor bumps than one big smash. Survivability is very important indeed!

A 40 tonne lorry doing 30mph has a hell of a lot more kinetic energy to get rid of than at car.

Yep. Maybe they should have some sort of law that limits how fast vehicles can go and make it slower for big heavy ones….

If you want to get hung up about survivability rather than preventing accidents then fine.

GAAAH ARE YOU NOT LISTENING?!!

BOTH
BOTH
BOTH

ARGH!

You are talking about the severity of the accident. Im more interested in them not happening at all. In that context speed is irrelevant, the accident will or won’t happen irrespective of the speed.

No, speed is still highly relevant as it determines pretty basic things like how much time you have to react to a developing hazard and how likely you are to be able to avoid it.

If speed was irrelevant in the contex of accidents happening then someone doing 200mph through a busy residential street would be no more likely to crash than someone doing 20mph. Do you believe that to be true?!?

A 40 tonne lorry doing 30mph has a hell of a lot more kinetic energy to get rid of than at car.

Indeed, but do you know what has even more kinetic energy than that? A 40 tonne lorry doing 60mph!

GrahamS – Member

There are minimum limits somewhere presumably, the signs are in THC (they’re blue circles). I don’t recall ever seeing one in the flesh though. Anyone else seen one?

Only in tunnels.
e.g. 10mph in the Liverpool tunnel https://goo.gl/maps/rVorwkfcMJR2

Graham that’s the Kingsway/New/Wallasey tunnel (opened 1971 by the Queen)
the other is the Queensway/Old/Birkenhead tunnel (opened in 1934 by the King)

Neither is called the Liverpool Tunnel, after over 5000 trips through a combination of both it starts to wear thin 😉
Sorry for being a statto
There used to be a sign saying no headlights in the tunnels but once cars started to have auto headlights they struck that off, you still get flashed if you turn your lights off in the tunnel by other motorists during the night despite the lighting being the same night or day!

Neither is called the Liverpool Tunnel, after over 5000 trips through a combination of both it starts to wear thin
Sorry for being a statto

No worries. I sort of l knew that as the missus grew up on the Wirral and her folks still live there.

Do they? You’re going to have to explain how those factors mean that the driver was speeding and yet the policeman chose not to put that down as a factor (the factors not being exclusive makes it less likely that the driver was speeding despite not being reported as a factor rather than more).

Of course such reasoning is how we got to that discredited 2/3 figure which used to be quoted – I can’t quite remember what factors they had to include to get that, but there were some quite ridiculous ones.

From those figures there are three factors (out of 77 possible) that are recorded more often than speeding in fatals.
And of those the top two, “Loss of control” and “Driver/Rider failed to look properly” are pretty hard to legislate against.

Plenty which aren’t that hard to enforce (we’re not talking about new legislation, we already have enough of that). 76 of them not speeding, I’m sure if you combined a few of those you could come up with way more than 16% – it doesn’t really matter if some of them aren’t in the top 3, we know that we’ve still got 84% left (even excluding those where there was another factor than speeding, without which the speeding would have been safe – which is the majority of that 16% IMHO).

I think that the excessive emphasis on speed tends to reduce the emphasis on other more important factors (and give the impression to stupid drivers that they’re not that important). It’s certainly not a given that the current policies result in less deaths when even if reducing speeding is 100% effective you only need to reduce other factors by 20% to have just as much benefit.

As discussed in another current thread, sorting out the penal system so that people get properly discouraged from unsafe behaviour could have a significant benefit.

Don’t get the idea I’m pro speeding and that it’s an acceptable thing to do, simply that I don’t believe the focus on improving road safety is necessarily correct.

Do they? You’re going to have to explain how those factors mean that the driver was speeding and yet the policeman chose not to put that down as a factor (the factors not being exclusive makes it less likely that the driver was speeding despite not being reported as a factor rather than more).

Guessing here (aren’t we all?), but in the absence of obvious massive impacts, a copper is likely to have to rely on driver & witness statements for much of this unless they have nice visible and measurable skidmarks on a dry road or something like that.

If I* was responsible for a crash, I’d be much more likely to say “my car just seemed to take on a life of its own” or “it came out of nowhere” / “I just didn’t see it” or “I was blinded by the morning sun” than “**** me, I was really shifting when it pulled out”. That emphasises inattention or loss of control over speeding, though I do think it’s often both that are required (not necessarily from the same driver)

* I’d like to say I wouldn’t do this and that it’s just “them” who would but I suspect pretty much anyone would say this, and probably even genuinely believe it

If speed was irrelevant in the contex of accidents happening then someone doing 200mph through a busy residential street would be no more likely to crash than someone doing 20mph. Do you believe that to be true?!?

Yes I do be used cars obey the laws of physics. A car travelling at 200mph is no more likely to crash than a car at 20mph.Having a crash is not related to speed, it’s all about time and place, not how quickly or slowlyou you arrive at that place at that time.

Er? You might want to explain that one again. Are you talking about probabilities and statistics, and just completely missed the point that at 200mph you can’t stop in the same distance.

Do they? You’re going to have to explain how those factors mean that the driver was speeding and yet the policeman chose not to put that down as a factor

I said “some of the other top factors would have speed-related components”.

I don’t mean they are aliases for speeding, I just mean that speed (legal or illegal) is still a component of some of them.

e.g. The number one contributory factor in fatalities is “Loss of control” (32%). Is it reasonable to assume that a good proportion of the drivers fatally losing control of their car were going fast at the time? Possibly even inappropriately so?

Likewise “Driver/Rider careless, reckless or in a hurry” doesn’t suggest someone going slow.

And “Travelling too fast for conditions” may not be speeding, but it is still recorded as a factor in 11% of fatals.

As an aside from that, I do think that some policemen may be reluctant to put down “Exceeding speed limit” if they don’t have actual evidence of that, but that’s an overall problem with the STATS19 reporting and other factors suffer from that too (Mobile phone use for example) and wasn’t what I was getting at.

Plenty which aren’t that hard to enforce

Have a read of the list, a lot of them are very hard to enforce.

As discussed in another current thread, sorting out the penal system so that people get properly discouraged from unsafe behaviour could have a significant benefit.

I’ve mentioned that on this thread too. I’m not blindly focussed on speed or speeding, it’s just that this is a thread about speed cameras and people are discussing speeding.

We’re talking about fatalaties here, which tend to be investigated very thoroughly. I think they’re likely to have solid information in the vast majority of cases and suggesting that some drivers are speeding but not reported as such in the accident stats is idle speculation with no basis in fact. I very much doubt that much reliance is placed upon the accuracy of drivers’ statements (we’re not talking criminal levels of proof for these reports).