The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

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ajuk
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The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by ajuk »

I have more times than I care to remember debated with people about speed limits and how they're set, they always seem to come to an impasse when no matter what example I can give of ridiculous levels of non-compliance, average speeds over the limit arbitrary boundary locations and non-uniformity I can give etc matters.

Everything I bring up can be dismissed and shouted down with cries of it's the law and the law is he law, which seems to be a combination of circular reasoning, appeal to the law and maybe some Bulverism.
What I need to present is a physical force making people speed or any argument I make can be dismissed.
Going 20mph isn't difficult so I can be dismissed. Yes, well going under 5mph to park isn't in a literal sense difficult, walking sideways like a crab isn't difficult, that doesn't mean it would be intuitive and natural to sustain over a long period of time.

This guy from a road safety organisation gives what I think is the best explanation I've seen as to what really goes on when there is high non-compliance with the speed limit, and why it's true that if there's too much non-compliance with the speed limit either the limit is wrong or the design of the road is.

You've got to take on board real world human behaviour.
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by Bryn666 »

Congratulations, you've made the argument for engineering roads to make people drive slower.

Strong Towns actually argues against reliance on the 85%ile instead preferring to make roads and streets conform with the Dutch sustainable safety approach. Every road has a design category and a design speed, there's no room for an 85%ile in this system.

If you're going to set speed limits based on the fact 15% of drivers ignore them, you are going to end up overdesigning the road and therefore actually designing to a 15%ile speed. This is why we have 30 mph roads in DMRB with 7% superelevation and 90m minimum curve radii, to design for law breaking, not safety.

Maybe you should move away from 1966 when we had 8,000 deaths a year and move towards sustainable safety instead. Then you may find your arguments are taken seriously by engineering professionals.
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by fras »

Bryn666 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 00:26 Congratulations, you've made the argument for engineering roads to make people drive slower.

Strong Towns actually argues against reliance on the 85%ile instead preferring to make roads and streets conform with the Dutch sustainable safety approach. Every road has a design category and a design speed, there's no room for an 85%ile in this system.

If you're going to set speed limits based on the fact 15% of drivers ignore them, you are going to end up overdesigning the road and therefore actually designing to a 15%ile speed. This is why we have 30 mph roads in DMRB with 7% superelevation and 90m minimum curve radii, to design for law breaking, not safety.

Maybe you should move away from 1966 when we had 8,000 deaths a year and move towards sustainable safety instead. Then you may find your arguments are taken seriously by engineering professionals.
From Wikipedia
"The highest number of deaths in any one year was 9,169 people in 1941 during World War II. The highest figure during peacetime was 7,985 in 1966."
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by the cheesecake man »

fras wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 13:18 From Wikipedia
"The highest number of deaths in any one year was 9,169 people in 1941 during World War II.
Due to lack of lights of course.
The highest figure during peacetime was 7,985 in 1966."
How much of the reduction since then was caused by:
  • road improvements
  • car design (including seat belts, air bags, ABS, stronger bodies...)
  • medical advances
  • replacing fair effective law enforcement with speed cameras
  • changes in education and attitude (on drunk driving in particular)
  • well-targeted and effective reductions in speed (through lower limits, traffic calming etc)
  • arbitrary politically-motivated speed limits that are almost universally ignored and other vindictive anti-car measures
etc?
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by trickstat »

the cheesecake man wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 13:31
  • car design (including seat belts, air bags, ABS, stronger bodies...)
That's passive safety - there's also active safety (better brakes, tyres, lights, demisting...)
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by DB617 »

Bryn666 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 00:26 If you're going to set speed limits based on the fact 15% of drivers ignore them, you are going to end up overdesigning the road and therefore actually designing to a 15%ile speed. This is why we have 30 mph roads in DMRB with 7% superelevation and 90m minimum curve radii, to design for law breaking, not safety.

Maybe you should move away from 1966 when we had 8,000 deaths a year and move towards sustainable safety instead. Then you may find your arguments are taken seriously by engineering professionals.
I'm starting Transport Engineering Design this year and am not at all looking forward to using DMRB thanks to you wise people at SABRE! I shall feed back how they're teaching it 'these days'...
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by fras »

According to my book, The Manchester Tramways (ISBN 086317 173 7), there were 31 fatal and 1168 non-fatal accidents in Manchester in 1911, and 44/1298 in 1913 with mechanically propelled vehicles responsible for 66.3% of fatal and 74.7% of non-fatal. Of the big list of contributors to fewer accidents, I think all have contributed, but I don't think speed limits have made all that much difference, to be honest. Others will differ, but you've only got to look at the fatalities per capita for every European country to see that national characteristics must have some influence. Anybody that has driven in Italy will know what I mean !
Anyway, that's just my opinion, but I did see, a few years ago, a graph showing road accidents which was a slow decline over the decades since WW2. On this graph was marked all the various "events" that restricted motoring. Yet there is no sudden reduction at any point, just a slow steady decline to t he present day. Where this graph can be found I can't remember, it was probably 10 years ago.
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by ajuk »

fras wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 18:03 According to my book, The Manchester Tramways (ISBN 086317 173 7), there were 31 fatal and 1168 non-fatal accidents in Manchester in 1911, and 44/1298 in 1913 with mechanically propelled vehicles responsible for 66.3% of fatal and 74.7% of non-fatal. Of the big list of contributors to fewer accidents, I think all have contributed, but I don't think speed limits have made all that much difference, to be honest. Others will differ, but you've only got to look at the fatalities per capita for every European country to see that national characteristics must have some influence. Anybody that has driven in Italy will know what I mean !
Anyway, that's just my opinion, but I did see, a few years ago, a graph showing road accidents which was a slow decline over the decades since WW2. On this graph was marked all the various "events" that restricted motoring. Yet there is no sudden reduction at any point, just a slow steady decline to t he present day. Where this graph can be found I can't remember, it was probably 10 years ago.
I think QI made the claim that the introduction of cars reduced road deaths by about 83%, many more deaths were caused by horses bolting or from diseases spread by the amount of poo the left.
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by RichardA35 »

ajuk wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 18:14
fras wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 18:03 According to my book, The Manchester Tramways (ISBN 086317 173 7), there were 31 fatal and 1168 non-fatal accidents in Manchester in 1911, and 44/1298 in 1913 with mechanically propelled vehicles responsible for 66.3% of fatal and 74.7% of non-fatal. Of the big list of contributors to fewer accidents, I think all have contributed, but I don't think speed limits have made all that much difference, to be honest. Others will differ, but you've only got to look at the fatalities per capita for every European country to see that national characteristics must have some influence. Anybody that has driven in Italy will know what I mean !
Anyway, that's just my opinion, but I did see, a few years ago, a graph showing road accidents which was a slow decline over the decades since WW2. On this graph was marked all the various "events" that restricted motoring. Yet there is no sudden reduction at any point, just a slow steady decline to t he present day. Where this graph can be found I can't remember, it was probably 10 years ago.
I think QI made the claim that the introduction of cars reduced road deaths by about 83%, many more deaths were caused by horses bolting or from diseases spread by the amount of poo the left.
If the argument is widened in this way, then effects of lead in petrol and other air quality issues also need to be evaluated.
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by ajuk »

Bryn666 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 00:26 Congratulations, you've made the argument for engineering roads to make people drive slower.

Strong Towns actually argues against reliance on the 85%ile instead preferring to make roads and streets conform with the Dutch sustainable safety approach. Every road has a design category and a design speed, there's no room for an 85%ile in this system.

If you're going to set speed limits based on the fact 15% of drivers ignore them, you are going to end up overdesigning the road and therefore actually designing to a 15%ile speed. This is why we have 30 mph roads in DMRB with 7% superelevation and 90m minimum curve radii, to design for law breaking, not safety.

Maybe you should move away from 1966 when we had 8,000 deaths a year and move towards sustainable safety instead. Then you may find your arguments are taken seriously by engineering professionals.
According to the Study The Effects of Raising and Lowering Speed Limits the compliance on roads where the 85th percentile speed was closer to 90%. One 40 limit road near me the compliance was measured at 97%. Most of the urban 40 limit roads in South Gloucestershire have very high compliance and often significantly lower average speeds than many roads in the county that already have 30 limits, that doesn't stop the council going around dropping these limits to 30 with 0 changes to the roads' designs. A 40 limit road in Stratford was lowered to a 30 and the average speed and the 85th percentile speed increased. 🤦‍♂️

I know I'm saying speed limits don't do the job of determining speed, what does seem to be demonstrable, is for what little difference they do make they're most effective when the match the road they're on.
People are far more likely to rigidly obey rules they perceive as reasonable, this is called the Pygmalion effect. Councils seems to get into a negative feedback loop with motorist then it's a zero sum game.


I've long argued for road design that naturally brings speeds down and creates uncertainty, I've shared videos by Martin Cassini in the past and even Mark McArthur-Christie has agreed with this approach.
As to you last comment seems to be a straw-man and an appeal to motive, I've always stressed that I think road safety can be negatively effected by a speed limit set too low or to high, it's not a competition so see how low you can set them, often giving 0 appreciation to DfT guidelines or the road's design.

Edit, I just realised Martin Cassini commented on the blog post.
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by fras »

RichardA35 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 18:21
ajuk wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 18:14
fras wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 18:03 According to my book, The Manchester Tramways (ISBN 086317 173 7), there were 31 fatal and 1168 non-fatal accidents in Manchester in 1911, and 44/1298 in 1913 with mechanically propelled vehicles responsible for 66.3% of fatal and 74.7% of non-fatal. Of the big list of contributors to fewer accidents, I think all have contributed, but I don't think speed limits have made all that much difference, to be honest. Others will differ, but you've only got to look at the fatalities per capita for every European country to see that national characteristics must have some influence. Anybody that has driven in Italy will know what I mean !
Anyway, that's just my opinion, but I did see, a few years ago, a graph showing road accidents which was a slow decline over the decades since WW2. On this graph was marked all the various "events" that restricted motoring. Yet there is no sudden reduction at any point, just a slow steady decline to t he present day. Where this graph can be found I can't remember, it was probably 10 years ago.
I think QI made the claim that the introduction of cars reduced road deaths by about 83%, many more deaths were caused by horses bolting or from diseases spread by the amount of poo the left.
If the argument is widened in this way, then effects of lead in petrol and other air quality issues also need to be evaluated.
A read a few years ago when speed limits were under discussion that one of the biggest causes of accidental deaths before the motor car was invented was drowning !
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by Bryn666 »

ajuk wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 18:25
Bryn666 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 00:26 Congratulations, you've made the argument for engineering roads to make people drive slower.

Strong Towns actually argues against reliance on the 85%ile instead preferring to make roads and streets conform with the Dutch sustainable safety approach. Every road has a design category and a design speed, there's no room for an 85%ile in this system.

If you're going to set speed limits based on the fact 15% of drivers ignore them, you are going to end up overdesigning the road and therefore actually designing to a 15%ile speed. This is why we have 30 mph roads in DMRB with 7% superelevation and 90m minimum curve radii, to design for law breaking, not safety.

Maybe you should move away from 1966 when we had 8,000 deaths a year and move towards sustainable safety instead. Then you may find your arguments are taken seriously by engineering professionals.
According to the Study The Effects of Raising and Lowering Speed Limits the compliance on roads where the 85th percentile speed was closer to 90%, one road near me the compliance was measured at 97%, people are far more likely to rigidly obey rules they perceive as reasonable this is called the Pygmalion effect. Councils seems to get into a negative feedback loop with motorist then it's a zero sum game.
I've long argued for road design that naturally brings speeds down and creates uncertainty, I've shared videos by Martin Cassini in the past and even Mark McArthur-Christie has agreed with this approach.
The numbers of deaths and injuries on the roads worldwide suggests drivers are a poor indicator of deciding what is reasonable. The USA, often citied as a haven of 85%ile speed limit setting, has a per billion km death rate of 7.3, compared to our 3.4.

The go to answer for armchair road safety commentators are the three Es, only they don't want education (too patronising), they don't want enforcement (too draconian), and they don't want engineering (too expensive).

The general trend in speed limit setting across the planet is downwards as wider factors beyond drivers crying victimisation come into play - air quality, particulate spread, fuel consumption, and reducing social exclusion caused by fast moving traffic. None of these are addressed by bleating about Pygmalion.
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by ajuk »

Bryn666 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 00:26 The numbers of deaths and injuries on the roads worldwide suggests drivers are a poor indicator of deciding what is reasonable.
It should be, most people are reasonable and have an aversion to crashing or running people over, they don't turn into monsters as soon as they get behind the wheel, otherwise don't give them the licence...
You're once agian resorting to alluding to the behaviour of the worse drivers on the road as a rational for prohibiting the behaviour of the more sensible ones.
I've been parked up in Stockwood in Bristol and seen quite a few people drive past me at rediculous speeds, that road quite genuinly has a problem with boys racers down there. Rather than actually doing something about them it's easier for the council to dump a 20 limit on it to make people who don't know any better think they've done something about when people pootling along at under 25mph were never the issue at all.

One problem to me is councils and concilours lack skin in the game, so their decision could never come back at them legally if it goes wrong.


OK, you don't trust most drivers to drive sensibly, let's say I accept that to be the true. Setting an very low speed limits to try and deal with that still doesn't make sence, it's the fastest 1-5% of drivers who are some of the least likely to slow down, the most likely to do harm and the ones properly set speed limits are more effieicnt at targeting.
Often I will see people essentially arguing that they need their own normal driving behaviour prohibited, hence why I ask the question Could you drive safe if your speedo broke?.
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by Bryn666 »

ajuk wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 20:02
Bryn666 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 00:26 The numbers of deaths and injuries on the roads worldwide suggests drivers are a poor indicator of deciding what is reasonable.
It should be, most people are reasonable and have an aversion to crashing or running people over, they don't turn into monsters as soon as they get behind the wheel, otherwise don't give them the licence...
You're once agian resorting to alluding to the behaviour of the worse drivers on the road as a rational for prohibiting the behaviour of the more sensible ones.
I've been parked up in Stockwood in Bristol and seen quite a few people drive past me at rediculous speeds, that road quite genuinly has a problem with boys racers down there. Rather than actually doing something about them it's easier for the council to dump a 20 limit on it to make people who don't know any better think they've done something about when people pootling along at under 25mph were never the issue at all.

One problem to me is councils and concilours lack skin in the game, so their decision could never come back at them legally if it goes wrong.


OK, you don't trust most drivers to drive sensibly, let's say I accept that to be the true. Setting an very low speed limits to try and deal with that still doesn't make sence, it's the fastest 1-5% of drivers who are some of the least likely to slow down, the most likely to do harm and the ones properly set speed limits are more effieicnt at targeting.
Often I will see people essentially arguing that they need their own normal driving behaviour prohibited, hence why I ask the question Could you drive safe if your speedo broke?.
The fact you still think speed is the only factor that determines what is safe shows there is no point continuing this same tedious discussion you have done to death on the SABRE facebook page where you were told the exact same thing.

No one intends to crash their car, but humans are prone to errors of judgement that have catastrophic consequences - misjudge the speed of an approaching vehicle turning right - bang, that's someone with a life changing injury. No one intended it to happen but it did happen. Looking in the rear view mirror for an extended period to tell your two children to stop squabbling, missing the child running out into the road for a football - bang, another life changing injury. Fiddling around with the Sat Nav because there's traffic ahead - bang, into the back of a queue.

All these simple errors of judgement, and thousands more, happen every day. Most days there are no consequences, but the days there are someone is dead or disabled for life. Speed limits are part of a wider methodology to mitigate the consequences of mistakes. I would rather we had mandatory retesting of drivers every time a photocard licence was up for renewal, along with intelligent speed detection so that vehicles either prevent speeding or tell you when you are doing so.

You are still determining road safety based on the behaviour of a minority - "15% of drivers will always speed so we should do away with speed limits" is a nonsense argument. A driver with a broken speedometer is in an unroadworthy vehicle full stop, so you are automatically unsafe - how do you calculate your braking distances with no indication of how fast you are going? Instinct? Well we're back to "humans make mistakes" - you'll be in the back of the queue rather than stopped before it before long.

As a wider rant here, posters on SABRE who constantly whine about speed limits and brag that they've never had an accident and aren't all the road safety engineers idiots are very unlikely to be safe due to their own arrogance and I'd never for a minute accept a lift off any driver who talks like this. They will come a cropper one day because of this, but I'm sure hiding behind wonk theory about Pygmolian behaviour and theoretical percentiles will impress both a judge and bereaved family as well as soothe a conscience after causing a death on the roads. It's about time people on this forum grew up.
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by M19 »

The A43 Moulton Bypass was designed with a 40mph speed limit as the expectation was that this stretch of new dual carriageway would have development frontage with tree planted verges to create a boulevard. Hence the character of the route would make 40mph self enforcing.

The engineers however have ruined the design. There are no verges. Housing areas are fenced off, the central median is tarmac and there are no verges. The heightened degree of segregation between development and the road that you would normally expect for faster dual carriageways makes the 40mph limit feel like a joke and most i.e. a good 90% will drive it at 50mph, if not faster. This is what happens when engineers dismiss place making efforts and stick rigidly to DMRB in a context where Manual for Streets ought to be applied.
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by Bryn666 »

M19 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 22:26 The A43 Moulton Bypass was designed with a 40mph speed limit as the expectation was that this stretch of new dual carriageway would have development frontage with tree planted verges to create a boulevard. Hence the character of the route would make 40mph self enforcing.

The engineers however have ruined the design. There are no verges. Housing areas are fenced off, the central median is tarmac and there are no verges. The heightened degree of segregation between development and the road that you would normally expect for faster dual carriageways makes the 40mph limit feel like a joke and most i.e. a good 90% will drive it at 50mph, if not faster. This is what happens when engineers dismiss place making efforts and stick rigidly to DMRB in a context where Manual for Streets ought to be applied.
Looking at GSV that has all the hallmarks of 1990s mentality - development not managed properly by the council planning team defaulting to DB32 cul-de-sacs facing away from the boulevard, and also... were they building an urban boulevard or a bypass? It's got no motive, it's just bland crap planning that serves nobody.
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by fras »

Bryn666 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 21:59
ajuk wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 20:02
Bryn666 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 00:26 The numbers of deaths and injuries on the roads worldwide suggests drivers are a poor indicator of deciding what is reasonable.
It should be, most people are reasonable and have an aversion to crashing or running people over, they don't turn into monsters as soon as they get behind the wheel, otherwise don't give them the licence...
You're once agian resorting to alluding to the behaviour of the worse drivers on the road as a rational for prohibiting the behaviour of the more sensible ones.
I've been parked up in Stockwood in Bristol and seen quite a few people drive past me at rediculous speeds, that road quite genuinly has a problem with boys racers down there. Rather than actually doing something about them it's easier for the council to dump a 20 limit on it to make people who don't know any better think they've done something about when people pootling along at under 25mph were never the issue at all.

One problem to me is councils and concilours lack skin in the game, so their decision could never come back at them legally if it goes wrong.


OK, you don't trust most drivers to drive sensibly, let's say I accept that to be the true. Setting an very low speed limits to try and deal with that still doesn't make sence, it's the fastest 1-5% of drivers who are some of the least likely to slow down, the most likely to do harm and the ones properly set speed limits are more effieicnt at targeting.
Often I will see people essentially arguing that they need their own normal driving behaviour prohibited, hence why I ask the question Could you drive safe if your speedo broke?.
The fact you still think speed is the only factor that determines what is safe shows there is no point continuing this same tedious discussion you have done to death on the SABRE facebook page where you were told the exact same thing.

No one intends to crash their car, but humans are prone to errors of judgement that have catastrophic consequences - misjudge the speed of an approaching vehicle turning right - bang, that's someone with a life changing injury. No one intended it to happen but it did happen. Looking in the rear view mirror for an extended period to tell your two children to stop squabbling, missing the child running out into the road for a football - bang, another life changing injury. Fiddling around with the Sat Nav because there's traffic ahead - bang, into the back of a queue.

All these simple errors of judgement, and thousands more, happen every day. Most days there are no consequences, but the days there are someone is dead or disabled for life. Speed limits are part of a wider methodology to mitigate the consequences of mistakes. I would rather we had mandatory retesting of drivers every time a photocard licence was up for renewal, along with intelligent speed detection so that vehicles either prevent speeding or tell you when you are doing so.

You are still determining road safety based on the behaviour of a minority - "15% of drivers will always speed so we should do away with speed limits" is a nonsense argument. A driver with a broken speedometer is in an unroadworthy vehicle full stop, so you are automatically unsafe - how do you calculate your braking distances with no indication of how fast you are going? Instinct? Well we're back to "humans make mistakes" - you'll be in the back of the queue rather than stopped before it before long.

As a wider rant here, posters on SABRE who constantly whine about speed limits and brag that they've never had an accident and aren't all the road safety engineers idiots are very unlikely to be safe due to their own arrogance and I'd never for a minute accept a lift off any driver who talks like this. They will come a cropper one day because of this, but I'm sure hiding behind wonk theory about Pygmolian behaviour and theoretical percentiles will impress both a judge and bereaved family as well as soothe a conscience after causing a death on the roads. It's about time people on this forum grew up.
And about time you learnt to be more courteous on this forum !
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by Bryn666 »

fras wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 22:40
Bryn666 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 21:59
ajuk wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 20:02

It should be, most people are reasonable and have an aversion to crashing or running people over, they don't turn into monsters as soon as they get behind the wheel, otherwise don't give them the licence...
You're once agian resorting to alluding to the behaviour of the worse drivers on the road as a rational for prohibiting the behaviour of the more sensible ones.
I've been parked up in Stockwood in Bristol and seen quite a few people drive past me at rediculous speeds, that road quite genuinly has a problem with boys racers down there. Rather than actually doing something about them it's easier for the council to dump a 20 limit on it to make people who don't know any better think they've done something about when people pootling along at under 25mph were never the issue at all.

One problem to me is councils and concilours lack skin in the game, so their decision could never come back at them legally if it goes wrong.


OK, you don't trust most drivers to drive sensibly, let's say I accept that to be the true. Setting an very low speed limits to try and deal with that still doesn't make sence, it's the fastest 1-5% of drivers who are some of the least likely to slow down, the most likely to do harm and the ones properly set speed limits are more effieicnt at targeting.
Often I will see people essentially arguing that they need their own normal driving behaviour prohibited, hence why I ask the question Could you drive safe if your speedo broke?.
The fact you still think speed is the only factor that determines what is safe shows there is no point continuing this same tedious discussion you have done to death on the SABRE facebook page where you were told the exact same thing.

No one intends to crash their car, but humans are prone to errors of judgement that have catastrophic consequences - misjudge the speed of an approaching vehicle turning right - bang, that's someone with a life changing injury. No one intended it to happen but it did happen. Looking in the rear view mirror for an extended period to tell your two children to stop squabbling, missing the child running out into the road for a football - bang, another life changing injury. Fiddling around with the Sat Nav because there's traffic ahead - bang, into the back of a queue.

All these simple errors of judgement, and thousands more, happen every day. Most days there are no consequences, but the days there are someone is dead or disabled for life. Speed limits are part of a wider methodology to mitigate the consequences of mistakes. I would rather we had mandatory retesting of drivers every time a photocard licence was up for renewal, along with intelligent speed detection so that vehicles either prevent speeding or tell you when you are doing so.

You are still determining road safety based on the behaviour of a minority - "15% of drivers will always speed so we should do away with speed limits" is a nonsense argument. A driver with a broken speedometer is in an unroadworthy vehicle full stop, so you are automatically unsafe - how do you calculate your braking distances with no indication of how fast you are going? Instinct? Well we're back to "humans make mistakes" - you'll be in the back of the queue rather than stopped before it before long.

As a wider rant here, posters on SABRE who constantly whine about speed limits and brag that they've never had an accident and aren't all the road safety engineers idiots are very unlikely to be safe due to their own arrogance and I'd never for a minute accept a lift off any driver who talks like this. They will come a cropper one day because of this, but I'm sure hiding behind wonk theory about Pygmolian behaviour and theoretical percentiles will impress both a judge and bereaved family as well as soothe a conscience after causing a death on the roads. It's about time people on this forum grew up.
And about time you learnt to be more courteous on this forum !
I give contemptuous opinions the respect they deserve, it's called free speech.
Bryn
Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already.
She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.

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fras
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Posts: 3590
Joined: Tue Apr 10, 2012 18:34

Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by fras »

Bryn666 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 22:42
fras wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 22:40
Bryn666 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 21:59

The fact you still think speed is the only factor that determines what is safe shows there is no point continuing this same tedious discussion you have done to death on the SABRE facebook page where you were told the exact same thing.

No one intends to crash their car, but humans are prone to errors of judgement that have catastrophic consequences - misjudge the speed of an approaching vehicle turning right - bang, that's someone with a life changing injury. No one intended it to happen but it did happen. Looking in the rear view mirror for an extended period to tell your two children to stop squabbling, missing the child running out into the road for a football - bang, another life changing injury. Fiddling around with the Sat Nav because there's traffic ahead - bang, into the back of a queue.

All these simple errors of judgement, and thousands more, happen every day. Most days there are no consequences, but the days there are someone is dead or disabled for life. Speed limits are part of a wider methodology to mitigate the consequences of mistakes. I would rather we had mandatory retesting of drivers every time a photocard licence was up for renewal, along with intelligent speed detection so that vehicles either prevent speeding or tell you when you are doing so.

You are still determining road safety based on the behaviour of a minority - "15% of drivers will always speed so we should do away with speed limits" is a nonsense argument. A driver with a broken speedometer is in an unroadworthy vehicle full stop, so you are automatically unsafe - how do you calculate your braking distances with no indication of how fast you are going? Instinct? Well we're back to "humans make mistakes" - you'll be in the back of the queue rather than stopped before it before long.

As a wider rant here, posters on SABRE who constantly whine about speed limits and brag that they've never had an accident and aren't all the road safety engineers idiots are very unlikely to be safe due to their own arrogance and I'd never for a minute accept a lift off any driver who talks like this. They will come a cropper one day because of this, but I'm sure hiding behind wonk theory about Pygmolian behaviour and theoretical percentiles will impress both a judge and bereaved family as well as soothe a conscience after causing a death on the roads. It's about time people on this forum grew up.
And about time you learnt to be more courteous on this forum !
I give contemptuous opinions the respect they deserve, it's called free speech.
But it seems to me that everybody's opinions apart from your own are contemptuous.
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Bryn666
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Re: The best explination I've seen about speed limits.

Post by Bryn666 »

fras wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 22:46
Bryn666 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 22:42
fras wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 22:40
And about time you learnt to be more courteous on this forum !
I give contemptuous opinions the respect they deserve, it's called free speech.
But it seems to me that everybody's opinions apart from your own are contemptuous.
Quite the opposite, when presented with facts and evidence I will re-evaluate my position. The only people who have an issue are those who hold contemptuous opinions unsupported by valid evidence, and then find themselves called out on it, preferring to cry foul that they are somehow being victimised for posting drivel.

Standards on this forum would be much higher if such nonsense was called out and dealt with. We are supposed to be a society for learning, not tedious axe-grinding by people who should have stayed on places like SafeSpeed and uk.rec.driving.

Need I quote the society mission statement, as it appears a good few people have forgotten it?

We are neither a pro-roads nor an anti-roads site. We have no formal links with motorists' organisations or the road construction industry; neither do we have associations with the environmental lobby or road protestors' groups. Rather, we are interested in the history, geography and structure of the British and Irish road networks. Individual members may of course have views on the politics of the network, and we debate the issues from time to time, but SABRE is not primarily intended as a platform for those with an axe to grind.

These continued, and frankly boring, speed limit threads are nothing but axe grinding and it's always by the same few people. So, no, I won't apologise or be courteous about it.
Bryn
Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already.
She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.

Blog - https://showmeasign.online/
X - https://twitter.com/ShowMeASignBryn
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@BrynBuck
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