Then 100% of all drivers drive too fast all the time.
Since the visibility distance of e.g. a motorway with a hedge down one side out from which many things could pop, is probably around 15mph.
Likewise anyone driving past a line of parked cars, between which many things cold lurk waiting to spring out on unsuspecting motorists, should probably do less than 5mph.
But even that is no *guarantee* of anything.
One of the definitions of a blind spot is that you don't know its there and can't see it.
Depends..on many things.
I've come upon a rover in a ditch that lost it at 125mph (police estimate, with which I agree..I got up to 110mph myself to check that bend, and it was fully takable at that) and the front seat passengers crawled out..the rear seat passengers who were not wearing seat belts, were pretty badly knocked about..broken bones and multiple lacerations. They all lived tho..
So accident severity is something that is only vaguely correlated to speed..one person I knew years ago, found himself faced with a head on collision with a wall on a motorbike,.. He decided to go out in a blaze of glory and opened it up wide..in fact he flew over the top of the wall, knocked himself out and broke an arm and a collar bone. At less speed he would have been dead.
To an extent, high speed accidents are seldom one thump. They are rolling tumbling events which bleed speed off progressively.
Its probably better to smash through a brick wall at 100mph, than come to a dead stop doing 40mph, but it depends on so many factors.
The old experiment of pushing a candle into a piece of wood comes to mind. It crumples. Fired from a gun, the candle goes right through the board undamaged..
I am not advocating unlimited speed, just that fixed speed limits are a poor way of achieving road safety. Driver experience and education is the only solution. The downside of speed limits is they make people who keep to them excessively smug and self righteous, and never likely to question their own behaviour..as can be seen in many posts here.
Indeed. Driving too slow also causes accidents.
Definitley.
As I said earlier, horse drawn transport shows that to be the case.
Most accidents I see happen at that sort of speed.
Even in that case its caused by someone hiting the ground too fast.
Where are the figures?
Now you are talking about why they were going too fast.
No but its a common reason why they are going too fast when they have an accident.
You are learning. Now come up with some sensible answers and you will be a better driver.
No a blind spot is where you can't see something else its not an object. You know a blind spot is there because you can't see other things.
I know of an accident where a group drove into a bridge support at 90. It killed everyone in the van. Some people are lucky most aren't.
Have you or he done the tests to prove that assumption? If not then itis just cr@p being used to justify speed.
Do you want a bet?
Fixed maximum speed limits don't detract from safety provided drivers obey them. If you can't obey a simple law then what hope have you got? What other road laws do you suggest we ignore? Red lights, level crossing barriers, pedestrian crossings, driving with lights on all of which fit into the you could do this safely some of the time.
No driving too slow doesn't. Other drivers wanting to drive too fast who get irate and do stupid things cause the accidents.
But they don't make the news because there is very little damage or injury.
Most of them are from somebody driving into someone else because they are going too fast for their mental state.
The ones in the highway code also seem to assume that you are driving a Moris 1100 with crossply tyres and non servo assisted drum brakes. (which since the published numbers have not changed since that may have been the case is perhaps not surprising)
I was working on one project which involved the occasional trials session over at the TRL research labs site. Some of the guys took the opportunity to play with some of the measurement gear on their own cars. They found that even the most mundane modern family cars could stop in less than half the distance presented by the highway code.
A friend of mine crashed into a horse in just those circumstances. He had just fitted new piston rings to his bike and was pottering along a country road at 20mph to run them in a bit. A horse jumped out of a field and landed directly in front of him. The bike carried on between its legs (acquiring some horse hair in the brake callipers), and my mate came to an abrupt halt as he broadsided the horse. I don't know which of them was the most surprised!
Not horses but
"The number of people dying on UK roads fell to 3,221 last year [2004] - the lowest since records began in 1926."
If you stand by almost any road you won't have to wait long to see someone driving in a manner that would deserve a friendly warning (or more) from a traffic cop. But those drivers now go largely unchecked, whilst the non speed camera detector owners get pulled for what is very often a technical breach only, causing no risk to anyone. (statistically the maximum safe speed on any road is on average probably 5 mph higher than the speed limit)
Exactly. Same here, and I live quite close to TRL.
The message from judith contains these words:
Don't be silly. Speeding is shorthand for a specific statutory offence. "traveling too fast for the prevailing conditions" is excessive speed and would be prosecuted as careless or dangerous driving depending on circumstances. My remark that you truncated is repeated below.
"You are confusing speeding with excessive speed. Speeding is exceeding the speed limit. Excessive speed is driving too fast for the conditions and your examples have absolutely nothing to do with speeding."
The message from Andy Hall contains these words:
If speeding per se was really dangerous then the police wouldn't be allowed to indulge.
The message from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:
Blame the politicians, not the bureaucrats in this case. The rot set in in 1965 when an antediluvian socialist without so much as a learners driving licence was appointed Minister of Transport and decreed that the toffs in their fast cars would henceforth not be allowed to go any faster than the peasants in their Volkswagens. VW Beetles were widely advised at one time of being capable of being driven flat out all day. I suppose we should be thankful that the bloody Beetle had a top speed as high as 70 mph.
And yet the land of the free has draconian speed limits
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