Re: Victory for green lanes

The message <68qd41F2u7v6sU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
from Peter Clinch <p.j.clinch@xxxxxxxxxxxx> contains these words:

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?

When there is next to no visibility what use would a 70 mph limit have
been? IIRC the carnage was caused in the main by heavy goods vehicles
which wouldn't have been doing 70 in any event.

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?

When I drove down town last week for my weekly shopping I saw 2 cyclists
(or possibly the same one twice). That's 2 (or possibly one) more than I
usually see. If I drive a few hundred miles on a day out I might not see
a single cyclist. Out of sight can all too easily become out of mind at
that sort of density but you would need to go back to the days of the
Red Flag Act before cars were that scarce.

Walking home from infants school on my own my mother used to insist that
I waited on the far side of the road so she could see me safely across
what was only a relatively minor through road with a 30 limit. Now would
she have done that had there only been one or 2 cars a day along the
road?

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).

OK you to on believing it is more cars on the road that is the only
factor in the long term decline in road casualties and I will go on
believing you are totally wrong.

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.

Indeed it is but but much of it is on Motorways and Dual Carriageways
which were in very short supply when I learnt to drive. I can't remember
a single piece of Dual Carriageway within 25 miles of my home at that
time. Looking at the earliest AA book I still have (1964/65) I can see
only 3 stretches of DC within a 25 mile radius of Dovercourt. About 4
miles of the A12 SW from Marks Tey (part of a longer stretch), 1.5 miles
SW from Copdock, also on the A12 and 1.5 miles between Colchester and
Elmstead Market on what was probably the A133.

Major trunk roads were frequently single carriageways and busy enough to
make overtaking at least as difficult as it is on todays SC A roads.
Even the A1 (The Great North Road as it used to be called) was 50% or
more SC.

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.

Having national limits means that for the carefully legal driver the one
thing he or she can't do for most of their driving experience is judge
how fast is safe in normal weather conditions.

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?

They are passed their sell-by date. Their faculties have long since
deteriorated to such an extent that their judgement is effected. If they
can't see properly and their reaction times are measured in seconds
rather than tenths they may well get by if they are lucky but they are
really a disaster waiting for the next emergency to happen.

Perhaps people aren'tr as good at exercising judgement and
responsibility as you'd have us think?

But they are slow drivers and have been assured for at least the last 40
years that slow drivers are safe drivers. :-)

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.

May be different in Scotland. Traffic densities are generally lower.

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.

Cost of petrol? I haven't been on a motorway since the last price hike
but in free flowing traffic as late as this spring I have estimated that
at least half the cars have been exceeding the 70 limit and that in
traffic far too dense to drive on cruise control. I use cruise control
to slow myself down when traffic is light but I don't htink it makes me
aa safer driver, rather the reverse in fact.

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.

I don't see many drivers doing much more than an estimated 90 but there
are (or were some) and a few motorbikes as well.

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?

But you are supposing that all those bunches of flowers (is the death
rate in Scotland really that high) flow from accidents involving
speeding. Speeding is a minority factor within the excessive speed
factor which is a minority factor overall.

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.

Drivers need to drive at a speed that engages their full attention.
Speed limits by and large encourage drivers to concentrate on something
else, even just their speedometer.

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".

So you think you are just as alert as you would have been had you been
matching the speed of your car to the road conditions. I don't think you
can be so I suggest we just agree to differ.

--
Roger Chapman
Nearest Marilyn still to be visited - Great Orme.
89 miles as the crow flies,
considerably more as the walker drives.
.

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