[Merged] - The Road Traffic Act (inc Speeding)

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by Nikko

You may as well state if the other party was not there then the accident would not have occurred, regardless of blame or degree of injury.

If the pedestrian is running into the road at 10 mph and collides with a vehicle head on at 28mph, then they stand a far greater risk of being terminally injured, as opposed to just jumping into the path of the car. If they had stayed at home the problem would not have arisen.

Passing the blame doesn't solve anything.

The simple fact is that the driver can control his speed and the lower it is the less chance of an accident or if there is one, the less severe the injuries may be.

Originally Posted by me283

Actually it's a good way to exemplify the point I'm making. You seem to be suggesting that speeding causes death, and anything over the speed limit is speeding, so presumably 31mph is danger. But it's not. Driving at ANY speed does not kill anyone. Having an accident at NEARLY any speed COULD cause death.

So, at what point does your logic start to become reasonable?

It is quite obviously not a good way of exemplifying the point you are trying to make. This really isn't hard to grapple with. If you are travelling at greater speed you have less time to respond and will cause greater damage if you collide with something or some one. That is undeniably logical. Your argument that you can kill anyone at nearly any speed is frankly stupid. Presumably you also think water is a dangerous toxin because if you drink enough of it, it will kill you.

To address the response time/collision impact scenarios highway planners devise maximum limits at which you may legally travel, based on the local conditions. This is a logical response. Speed limits cannot be arbitrary or they will not be enforceable in law so they are set at, 30, 40, 50 etc according to the risk. Break those limits and you will be prosecuted and, unless the evidence is deficient, you can have nothing to complain about.

Originally Posted by ian@huth

That is one of the most stupid arguments I have heard

I'd just like to second that.

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by ian@huth

The car driver may not be at fault but the speed that he is driving at is a contributing factor to the severity of injury caused. Does it really matter who is to blame. If the car driver was going slower there may not have even been an accident.

I was just making the point that speed or the driver of the car are not always at fault, even if a car is speeding the speed alone does not injure or kill a pedestrian but the speed is always the blame, in fact the driver always seems to be blamed. We always get the government statistics stating how many pedestrians are seriously killed or injured each year, but as I said they do not tell the true story. ie: How many of these serious injuries or deaths were caused by drivers running people over whilst they were walking on the pavement, not that many of them I guess.

I have no argument with the facts about faster speeds killing more people, but surely that argument misses the root cause of the problem. ie: the pedestrian walking out in front of the vehicle to start with!

I would hate to be the cause of running someone over and killing them, I never drink and drive and have never had a speeding ticket in my 22 years driving. If however someone walked out in front of my car and got killed, it would not only be my own guilt/feelings that perhaps if I'd stayed at home etc it wouldn't of happened, but you also have to consider that as a driver you are the target to blame by Joe public should such a disaster happen. Summing it up, I think it's hard enough to live with that, without automatically getting the blame from Joe public.

Apart from drink driving and joy riders it's very rare to hear of people being mowed down whilst walking on the pavement.

Originally Posted by ian@huth

The simple fact is that the driver can control his speed and the lower it is the less chance of an accident or if there is one, the less severe the injuries may be.

and the simple fact is also that a pedestrian can control if they put themselves in front of a moving car.

[Paul K]

Originally Posted by Paul M

and the simple fact is also that a pedestrian can control if they put themselves in front of a moving car.

Sorry but I disagree with this, not all pedestrian related accidents are down to pedestrian walking in front of cars. It often involves red lights being run, overtaking on blind corners, cars running pelican/ zebra crossings when the pedestrian has right of way. Of course there are also cases where Jo Public decides to ignore common sense and walks into traffic but it's not always within the pedestrians control whether they are in front of a moving car.
I'm not even going to try and count the number of times I've gone to cross a road at the appropiate place with the green man lit and the red light against traffic only to have to jump back on the pavement when someone decides that 100 yards just isn't enough distance to react in

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by Paul M

and the simple fact is also that a pedestrian can control if they put themselves in front of a moving car.

Which doesn't alter the undisputable figures of the number of people killed and seriously injured in road traffic accidents. Some are pedestrians others are vehicle occupants.

I cannot see how anyone can justify breaking the law particularly when any accident, for whatever reason, that involves that driver speeding can have more serious consequences than if he was driving within the law. Can anyone give a valid reason why they should be breaking the speed limit?

[Hom3r]

Thers a couple of points I'ld like to make.

1) The Speedometer in any car is mass produced and not accurate (i.e. it could say your are going 30mph, but in fact could be +/- 5 mph), if its + 5mph you could get a speeding ticket, bit unfair.

2) on the subject of speed cameras, a work college of mine was sent a speeding ticket. Now he ask to see all infomation an the cameras calibrations dates, and that of the equipment used to calibrate it, it was out of date and the case thrown out of court, had he not bothered he would have been fined. (by the way his car could go the speed they claimed its a heap. )

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by andyl

It is quite obviously not a good way of exemplifying the point you are trying to make. This really isn't hard to grapple with. If you are travelling at greater speed you have less time to respond and will cause greater damage if you collide with something or some one. That is undeniably logical. Your argument that you can kill anyone at nearly any speed is frankly stupid. Presumably you also think water is a dangerous toxin because if you drink enough of it, it will kill you.

The argument that you can kill someone at nearly any speed is frankly stupid?
How is that stupid? It's a fact.

Originally Posted by andyl

To address the response time/collision impact scenarios highway planners devise maximum limits at which you may legally travel, based on the local conditions. This is a logical response. Speed limits cannot be arbitrary or they will not be enforceable in law so they are set at, 30, 40, 50 etc according to the risk. Break those limits and you will be prosecuted and, unless the evidence is deficient, you can have nothing to complain about.

Perhaps you should read this which details what should be taken into account when deciding to set speed limits.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/group...ads_505174.pdf

Notice point 9 where it says that the 85th percentile should be taken into account, and that its pointless to set too low a speed limit. (unless of course you want to make money out of a speed camera...)



With regards to pedestrian safety, there does appear to have been a shift of responsibility from the pedestrian to the motorist rather than educating both.
The hedgehog adverts are usually only on in the early hours of the morning (along with the "don't play with matches" ads) when kids aren't likely to be watching TV.

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by ian@huth

That is one of the most stupid arguments I have heard.

The faster that a vehicle is travelling the greater the risk of serious injury or death to a pedestrian hit by that vehicle, an indisputable fact. The same applies to the driver and occupants of motor vehicles involved in collisions, even your car.

A car travelling at 30 mph takes 75 feet to stop in a well maintained car during the day in good weather conditions with the driver concentrating on driving. At 35 mph that distance increases to 96 feet. That means that there is a 21 foot zone where the 35 mph car could hit and kill or injure a pedestrian but the 30 mph car would have stopped before entering.

What would your view of speeding be if you hit and killed a pedestrian in that 21 foot zone?

Would your view change if your child, partner or parent was killed in that zone?

How about if you hit and killed your own child, partner or parent in that zone? Would you put on their gravestone

Here lies the body of my son
He died because I was speeding

At 20mph the stopping distance is 40ft.
That means that there is a 35 foot zone where the 30 mph car could hit and kill or injure a pedestrian but the 20 mph car would have stopped before entering.
What would your view of speeding be if you hit and killed a pedestrian in that 35 foot zone?

Would your view change if your child, partner or parent was killed in that zone?

How about if you hit and killed your own child, partner or parent in that zone? Would you put on their gravestone

Here lies the body of my son
He died but hey, I wasn't speeding so I'm obviously not a bad driver

Speeding does not equal death/injury/accident, bad driving does.

[iadom]

Here is a point to ponder,the Durham county area does not have speed cameras, the Chief Constable is against them. One other little known detail, this same area has the lowest vehicle accident rate per head of population in the country.

Originally Posted by iadom

Here is a point to ponder,the Durham county area does not have speed cameras, the Chief Constable is against them. One other little known detail, this same area has the lowest vehicle accident rate per head of population in the country.

It also doesn't boast much in the way of urban conurbations compared to the rest of the country.

[iadom]

Originally Posted by andyl

It also doesn't boast much in the way of urban conurbations compared to the rest of the country.

That is why I mentioned the percentage rate, there are areas of the country far less built up than Durham, such as Cornwall, Devon, vast areas of North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire etc, etc.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Xaccers

Speeding does not equal death/injury/accident, bad driving does.

No, speeding does not equal death/injury/accident. However, it can mean that injuries (when accidents do occur) are more serious, and possibly life-threatening. It can also increase the impact of minor accidents whatever their cause (e.g. bad driving, or some sort of mechanical failure).

As an example I was nearly hit by a car last week because a car was speeding and overshot a red light by nearly 4 metres (I was crossing a pelican crossing and the green man was showing). I happened to be crossing the road, and the only reason I wasn't hit is I was able to leap onto the island in the middle of the road. Now, you could argue that was bad driving, and you'd be right. However, I heard (and saw) the skid start. I think that had he been obeying the 30 limit on that road, he should have stopped before the lights.


I actually agree, speeding itself is not the problem. It's merely a symptom of bad driving (not that I am saying all people who speed are bad drivers - I have friends who speed whom I consider to be very good drivers), but I think the police are in a no wine situation.

They have to be seen to be doing something, but to have an effect on bad driving, they would need to put far more officers on the road. This would lead to people complaing that the police should be going out to capture murderers and serious criminals, not victimising the motorist. Speeding (and overshooting red lights which is something else some Gatsos monitor) is relatively easy to monitor automatically with little outlay.

But the fact remains that whether or not speeding causes accidents, it can increase the chance of serious injury or death in the event of an accident. After all, you can be the best driver in the world, but if you doing >90 mph on a dual carriageway and some tw*t doing 50 doesn't notice you and enters your lane 40 feet in front of you, you won't have an awful lot of time to react, and assuming you hit him, you will probably cause at least one serious injury.

Originally Posted by iadom

That is why I mentioned the percentage rate, there are areas of the country far less built up than Durham, such as Cornwall, Devon, vast areas of North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire etc, etc.

I understand the point you're making. But Durham et al do not have the concentration of the kind of urban roads upon which most deaths occur that other areas have. The comparison is not like for like even when it's looking at per head of pop.