OT: Speeding yobs!

[StealthUK]

Speeding yobs around here include: Mums on the school run; sales reps; delivery drivers; royal mail vans; builders vans....in fact... pretty much everyone.

[Mary Fisher]

We're not all yobs.

[Jerry.]

And that is the bloody point, literally, people do slip from those standards and when that happens at high speed the effect are likely to be devastating - throwing a legal book, how ever heavy, won't bring the innocent dead back.

The only people objecting appear to be you and a few

Because, it seem, you want to bring German madness to the British road system for no other purpose than personal greed - the only reason you have put forward for allowing higher speeds has be to allow reps and their companies to earn more.

Another reason for getting out of the EU, don't tell the UKIP !....

[G&M]

Autobahn deaths are very low. But I totally agree with you that current UK driving standards are poor, hence my earlier suggestion that we need a far harder and more regular driving test.

And how else precisely do we stop the UK sinking even further into third world poverty.

Oh gawd, he's one of those as well.

[Dave Liquorice]

Journey time is not relevant.

You said in Message-ID:

"A friend in Frankfurt regularly drives into work at 220 kph, in fact if he doesn't reach this speed he's in a foul mood all day."

Which indicates a rather odd mind set if such a petty thing as not getting to 220kph spoils his day and the day of every one else unfortunate enough to meet him.

[Macie]

Yes, lovely and all, except that my response was about whether I would accept my child getting killed by a speeding motorist, which is obviously a personal opinion which does not necessarily exclude prejudice, nor include all the legalities - I'm sure the fact that a driver was doing 28 in a 30 limit when he/she knocked down a child would be of little comfort to the parents.

[Tony Hogarty]

Who's we?

[Mary Fisher]

You snipped 'everyone'

Mary

[usenet]

... but whatever speed you decide is the legal limit it will be 'safer' to go slower still. If the limit is, for example, 30mph everywhere then 'high speed' would be, say, 40mph.

*Obviously* if a universal 5mph speed limit was enforced then road casualties would be reduced but it's not a practical solution. Some level of risk *is* acceptable, the problem is to work out what that level is. Then you need to try and come up with a driver training, speed control, whatever, system to try and get the whole driving population to at least strive to attain about the same level of skill (and hence risk).

[Huge]

Which bit of "safely ignore" was it you failed to understand?

[Huge]

"Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)" writes: ^

Woss that "8" doing there, then?

[me_y65f4sfg]

killing yr kf ?!

[Pete C]

Might be if the child was alive instead of dead, albeit with serious injuries.

cheers, Pete.

[Jerry.]

True, that is why there is a balance between speed and safety when deciding speed limits.

Which is what we have, but some people will always think that they are better drivers than they really are or that they never make a mistake.

[Pete C]

Sorry, the whole paragraph didn't make a lot of sense to me to be honest.

I was hoping for an answer to my question though:

cheers, Pete.

[Huge]

*plonk*

[usenet]

I think very few people believe "that they never make a mistake", the issue is more that people (all of us) misjudge things sometimes. We

*all* make mistakes sometimes.

My personal experience is that nearly every accident I have had has been due to lack of concentration rather than anything else. This view is borne out by a police driver training acronym - drive like a COP - Concentration, Observation, Planning. (By the way this doesn't mean I have lots of accidents, very few actually and only one involving any injury and that was fairly minor - in more than 40 years of driving various vehicles)

[Bob]

All the figures seem to agree that few accidents are caused by speeding. However, the consequences of an accident caused by someone's lack of concentration are likely to be more serious when a vehicle is travelling at high speed.

To say that "Speed Kills" is perfectly valid, even if it isn't the initial cause of most accidents, since it is a major factor in determining the seriousness of any injuries.

Bob

[usenet]

However one learns that it's a good idea to concentrate harder as one drives faster. most people 'risk compensate' and (if they do it right, which they quite likely don't I admit) then the tendency will be to keep the risk at about the same level whatever speed one drives at.

Thus speed is also a major factor in how hard one concentrates when driving so "Speed Kills" isn't really valid as one (hopefully) is much less likely to have an accident when driving fast.

Again anecdotally, my experience is that I have had a small number of very low speed accidents, one or two 'moderate speed' ones and no high speed ones. I don't think I spend more time driving in car parks than on the motorway.

[Bob]

Just because you might be concentrating doesn't mean anyone else is - they could cause that accident by _their_ inattention, and your high speed would make the result more likely to cause serious injury or death.

The safest speed for drivers is probably to "just go with the flow" - even if that is above the limit. It's the differentials in speed that cause problems - ie people pulling out without looking etc. I'll add that keeping a sensible distance helps too - I've seen too many pile-ups on the A14 recently!

Bob