Re: Victory for green lanes

Roger wrote:

Maybe, maybe not, but with someone in charge who could drive we might
have ending up with a system in which motorists were allowed to prove
they could drive responsibly if given the chance.

So the multiple fatalities in major pile-ups in fog on the unrestricted
new motorway network weren't such an opportunity thrown away?

You are taking a theory that may have some relevance to cyclists who
tend to be on the receiving end of
a RTA even when they are not to blame but arguing that car drivers are
in the same situation is nonsensical even if you ignore the vast
improvements in vehicle safety and road engineering.

The cyclists have no control over the situation, yet it is the case that
the more of them there are, the safer they appear to be. It is nothing
they actively do besides existing in greater numbers. Why would that
obviously not apply to cars?
As for the "vast improvements" you cite, there's excellent evidence
they're frittered away in risk homeostasis. Give someone ABS disc
brakes and they leave their braking later and sharper, rather than stop
with a bigger safety margin. Note how pretty much anywhere in the world
the imposition of compulsory driver seatbelts has done practically
nothing to reduce driver casualties, but pedestrian casualties have
risen as drivers are rendered "safer" and drive faster in repsonse, and
so on. (the UK is, AFAIK, the only country that had a decrease in
driver casualties after introducing belts... but the introduction
coincided with a marked step-up in drink-driving campaigns).

I learnt to drive
before the casualty rate peaked and I just don't recognise this strange
world you have invented where cars are so rare that even experienced
drivers don't see one from one day to the next.

Well, I don't recognise that either, because it's a major exaggeration
beyond what I've suggested. Traffic density is now much, much higher
than it was when you learned to drive. Even than when /I/ learned to
drive, and I was a late starter.

Accidents are an unfortunate fact of life but not allowing drivers to
exercise responsibility is not the way to minimise the numbers.

So you assert, with little in the way of evidence except that you say
so, and little evidence to show that having a national limit removes all
possibilities of exercising judgement.

On swallow does not make a summer. The roads are littered with old
fogies who should have given up driving years ago.

But Roger, these are the very people who learned so long ago they were
used to taking responsibility, so how come they're not doing that?
Perhaps people aren'tr as good at exercising judgement and
responsibility as you'd have us think?

There may be a gulf between theory and practice. It is my experience
driving on single carriageways in England and Wales that the average
driver is more concerned with preventing anyone overtaking than they are
about expediting their own progress.

As you've said before, but it doesn't square with my experience.

I think you are growing old before your time Pete. 70 in a modern car is
slow as several Chief Constables have demonstrated over the years. I
intend to give up driving when I find 70 too fast for comfort under any
circumstances.

There's slow according to what the car will do, and slow according to
how happy people are to drive. We have a supermini-estate with a 1.9
TDI (identical to the unit fitted in cars a couple of sizes up) so it
has plenty of poke, yet we were happy to set the cruise control at 60
when running early yesterday, and while there was no shortage of stuff
going faster we did some overtaking too and there wasn't anyone shooting
past at especially high speed (this on the A9 to Stirling, a motorway in
all but name). On the way back we set CC at 70, did a fair bit of
overtaking, again nothing coming past us was going hugely quicker.

I don't drive at 70 because any faster is uncomfortable, I drive at 70
because it's comfortable where I drive at that speed, fast enough to get
me where I'm going in a reasonable time, not too expensive and not
liable for fines. From looking around at folk about me, including those
breaking the limit, that's not too different from a great many other people.

Road engineering can reduce the instances of trees jumping out in front
of drivers. :-)

No shortage of slightly dented immovable objects at road sides. They
tend to be the ones with the bouquets of wilting flowers... But why do
you need to rely on road engineering? Responsible drivers taking their
lives in their own hands won't be having problems with such things,
there shouldn't be molly-coddling by altering the roads for them, should
there?

Would that be why every one has a bunch of flowers commemorating the
demise of some unfortunate road user who was so surprised at finding one
that they could hold a straight course?

There's dead straight and "with straight sections", like the ones
required to overtake on and prevent you being at the whim of the slowest
driver.

If you are driving with due care and attention you shouldn't hit a
roadside object.

yet people do, so it's pretty clear that lots of people don't drive with
due care and attention. Even the ones who don't worry about sticking to
speed limits.

Concentrating on keeping your speed down to an
unrealistic limit is the more dangerous option.

Suggesting it needs extra-special concentration, but it doesn't require
undue amounts if you're used to driving inside limits, and if you are
then magically they cease to be "unrealistic" (there are certainly
exceptions to that, but unposted national limits aren't such
exceptions). How do I know? I made the change, having caught myself
rationalising my speeding behaviour with all sorts of excuses that
didn't really stand up to a good, hard stare. I don't think I pay less
attention than I used to, I do know I've had fewer occasions where I've
got things wrong and thought "idiot, you got lucky there".

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net p.j.clinch@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
.

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