Quote:
Originally Posted by G UK
Lets get one thing straight, the roads are dangerous places made more dangerous by idiots driving outside of one or more of, their skill/their vehicles capabilities/the conditions. On the back of that there are several points:
- Speed is a factor in 100% accidents in that, as has been pointed out, the slower you go the lesser the affects to the point that if nobody was moving there would not have been an accident. This is why any quote of speed is a factor in X% of accidents is a joke and just a fallback of lazy accident investigators/reporters. Excessive speed for the conditions is another matter but is not a fixed value and is very difficult to prove (driver/vehicle/road surface/environment etc) despite being noted down as the easy option in many cases where it was not the root cause.
- If the motorway speed limit was 60 we would be having the exact same argument with the same people about why we shouldn't raise it to 70. Taking the lowest common denominator for the standard of driving as many people state, we should have a maximum speed limit of 30 across the board but this would be seen as silly and going overboard due to the impact on peoples day to day lives and the economy.
- Having a blow out or other failure at 50, 60, 70 or 80+ isn't going to make a whole lot of difference to your average driver in most vehicles on the road today as people don't know what to do in such a situation anyway which will lead to loss of control of the vehicle. On a separated carriageway like a motorway all traffic should be flowing within 30mph or so of each other making any impact significantly less than 80mph into a brick wall. If people don't see a stationary object in front of them then they are either not looking ahead or are driving too quick for the conditions at which we come back to my second point and may as well lower all speed limits to 30 to make sure this worst case is survivable.
- Pedestrians should be a none issue in this discussion as they are banned on motorways and people on the hard shoulder are advised to get back behind the guard rail.
As background I have been in an accident caused by a blowout that nearly took my life (classic car, 70mph dual carriageway, no guard rails & trees) and therefore know the risks, I have been on track and taken my vehicles to their and my limits in various conditions. I know my limits, my vehicles limits, how to handle the car under adverse conditions such as certain failures and when control is not possible & I drive under the speed limit when required by conditions like ice and fog.
Several of you however would still paint me as some form of reckless idiot that wants to kill people because I believe some speed limits like those on the motorway could be safely raised.
Speed limits are a blunt force weapon that loses effectiveness as vehicles become more safe, and at speed where the difference between 70 and 80 is significantly less than that between 30 and 40. In my opinion the real answer for further increasing road safety is through Education. Education in vehicle handling in adverse conditions (learning to recognise where the limits are and what to do when you are past them e.g. Finland), reading the road ahead and general courtesy towards other road users.
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I agree with you completely. And I also agree that it makes sense to raise speed limits to 80mph, but only on motorways with at least 3 lanes, and hard shoulders.
As you said the problem is the speed differential. So there needs to be at least two overtaking lanes to allow for the wider speed range from HGV's doing 60, and cars doing 80.
I have always thought it to be crazy that a dual carriageway A road has the same speed limit as a 3 or 4 lane motorway. Especially when you think that you can have farm traffic crossing the A road, or cyclists, and no hard shoulders in many places.
---------- Post added at 17:51 ---------- Previous post was at 17:50 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre
There you go Tim & Martyn, here's another crazy idiot.....  |
Not at all. He is talking a lot of sense.
---------- Post added at 17:53 ---------- Previous post was at 17:51 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by martyh
As i pointed out above peoples skill set on the roads differs greatly so a compromise is reached between getting from A-B safely and quick enough to make the journey practical .Peoples own assessment of driving conditions cannot be relied on when they are late for work or any other appointment .There are a thousand things that can affect their judgement and lead them to assess the conditions incorrectly that's why we have limits and it is the utmost arrogance on the part of a driver to think he/she knows better and can somehow predict the future
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Absolutely.....and that arrogance leads to over inflated self belief in ones own abilities, as we have seen in this forum.
---------- Post added at 17:55 ---------- Previous post was at 17:53 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre
Brilliant, accurate, definitive, logical.
I certainly can't argue against such reasoned and well thought out point.
Well done!
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Well you have been doing all the way through this thread......unless of course you think you are a superhuman driver, and it doesn't apply to you.