Re: Another level crossing crash in Scotland

rail wrote:

In message <3fcgwt6jcc6a.1gi4k0s5mzz5i$.dlg@xxxxxxxxxx>
Chris Tolley <cj.tolley@xxxxxxxxxxx (ukonline really)> wrote:

rail wrote:

In message <xjbyluabh42e.6k79psa7nlhs$.dlg@xxxxxxxxxx>
Chris Tolley <cj.tolley@xxxxxxxxxxx (ukonline really)> wrote:

rail wrote:

[snip]

Part of the problem here appears to be that people are not taking
the trouble to verify that the crossing is clear.

No the problem is people ignoring the warning signs despite knowing
perfectly well what they are indicating.

Some of them are. I suspect there are some who just get so used to
driving over it and never being hindered by a train that perhaps they
mentally blank it out. The warning lights may similarly be blanked out
on the basis that some traffic lights still change even when there is
no traffic around.

And the difference between that and ignoring them is?

I understand "ignore" to mean "recognise and choose to disregard". What I
have been describing is failing to recognise them.

Which is ignoring them for whatever reason.

I don't know how one ignores something one does not realise is there.
You do, apparently, so, having noted that whilst I can distinguish
between "ignoring" and "overlooking", you can't, presumably we've
covered this ground sufficiently now.

They may indeed resent the "stupidly" low limit. Indeed, partly I'm
hoping they will, since it might encourage those who are impatient
(especially if they are using this unclassified route as a rat run
to avoid the nearby A9) to go by a slightly different route.

Also, as any car driver should be able to tell you, most car speedos
don't start to register accurately until at least 10mph.

That's an interesting piece of misdirection.

Not at all, try making a 10mph limit stand up in court.

Not my job, sir.

Never is somehow. You suggest something totally imparcatical and expect
someone else to make it work.

I don't believe it's impractical. I find it very hard to believe that
the technology to catch motorists doing, say, 12mph in a 10mph zone does
not exist. You seem to believe that courts would not be able to
prosecute such a case. I don't know why you think that should be so, and
to date your only proof is by assertion.

Very difficult to prosecute someone for not doing a speed he can't accurately
measure. Or are you going to make GPS compulsory for anyone using the
crossing?

I was so dubious about your claim that 10mph limits are impractical that
I googled it and found scores of examples of them, all over the country.
I have also found examples of police using radar technology to dissuade
cyclists from exceeding that same 10mph. So the problems you regard as
insurmountable have presumably already been solved by TPTB. Moreover,
reading up about the accuracy that the law requires from car
speedometers is informative: I am now sufficiently confident that an
indicated 10mph should mean a motorist does not exceed an actual 10mph.
That seems to be all your objections answered.

Most *capable, experienced* motorists should also be able to tell
you that they don't require speedos to tell them how fast they are
going.

Then, mostly, they are talking bollocks as any police officer will
tell you.

F'rinstance, my idea of 10mph in megastore car parks turns out to
be about 7mph according to the GPS, and my idea of 30mph turns out
by the same measure to be about 28mph. YMPHMV.

It will vary a lot depending on the experience of the driver, his
familiarity with the vehicle he's driving, the lighting conditions
(speed appears greater at night) and so on.

Quite. I thought I'd save time by not writing that, since I thought
"*capable, experienced*" needed no further unpacking.

I don't care how capable or experienced the driver is, in a strange
vehicle or on a strange road or in unusual weather conditions his
estimate of the speed is going to be even less trustworthy than usual.

Also not everybody uses GPS to navigate round car parks. In fact if
you are driving round a superstore car park the last thing you should
be doing is looking at the GPS.

The GPS sits in front of me, whether I am using it to navigate (which
is very rare, in fact) or whether I am merely using it to log my
journeys. Actually, it only displays the speed when I am not in
navigating mode.


Mine displays the speed all the time, and beeps at me if I'm exceding the
limit, but only on motorways.

The point was that in a supermarket car park there are all sorts of
hazards you should be concentrating on rather than your in-car gadgets.

And sometimes there aren't, especially when one is moving at such low
speeds.

You mean there are times when there is no chance of people reversing without
warning, children dashing across in front of you, some idiot driving round
staring at his GPS rather than watching the road?

I did mean that, because there are.

Your repeated references to focusing on the GPS to the exclusion of
other things are puzzling. Maybe you have a dud, or just aren't familiar
with it. IME it takes a third of a second or so to take in the required
information from the display of my GPS. At the kind of speeds I'm
talking about, a car would travel a metre or so.

--
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p9683677.html
(50105 (Class 116) at Kings Norton, 12 Apr 1980)
.

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