20mph Speed Limits

[Buddfox]

Reduce insurance premia

 

[dawesome]

Reduce insurance premia

That looks like it's been badly translated and:

One of the important new safety devices is ESC, which is recommended by the Department for Transport. The new safety device will lower the number of accident that is why it will be made compulsory next year by the Department for Transport.


Is that true?

 

[Buddfox]

Who knows, I just googled it to see if I could find anything helpful. MacB mentioned that something like this was already in place and it rang a bell, so I linked the first thing I found!

 

[dawesome]

I have heard some insurance companies allow a discount for tracking devices that monitor speed and time of use (between midnight and 3am the risk for young drivers is SEVENTEEN times higher than for average drivers. Apparently the biggest single killer of teenage girls in this country is their boyfriend's driving).

 

[jds_1981]

I have heard some insurance companies allow a discount for tracking devices that monitor speed and time of use (between midnight and 3am the risk for young drivers is SEVENTEEN times higher than for average drivers. Apparently the biggest single killer of teenage girls in this country is their boyfriend's driving).

On first point I recently saw a story which suggested that places where they were stopped from driving at a young age generally just pushed the accidents back to a later age (suggesting it came down to experience.)

Second point is absolutely wrong. You're paraphrasing a senior police official who actually said something along the lines of "I've been told that the biggest kill of". We then did research into it on another forum and showed the likelihood of this 'fact' being true to be negligible..

 

[Mad at urage]

As a driver of 20-odd years and someone who took and passed the IAM course, I think my driving isn't too bad. Five seconds was, of course, an exaggeration, but I do not believe that rigid enforcement of speed limits is beneficial to road safety.

BTW, I break the speed limit all the time - pretty much every day. Sometimes I drive massively under the speed limit. I use my observation to judge what is a safe speed, not a number on a stick. Clean licence too, and always has been.

As a driver of (counts on fingers due to boxing-related injury ...) some 30 years and a full member of IAM (meaning I've passed their test) who has periodically taken tests with other advanced driving institutions (entirely voluntarily), I would like to distance myself a Very Long Way from the bolded sentence.

Unfortunately since IAM is primarily a driving club rather than the road safety organisation* which it attempts to project an image of, there are many IAM members who share this view !

The italicised text is of course true, as is this:

... speed limit signs as a guide to what is generally considered to be a maximum safe speed, but nothing more. ...
There are many, many aspects to safe driving, and speed is one of the least significant.

Speed limits are indeed "a guide to what is generally considered to be a maximum safe speed" yes... maximum, as in not to be exceeded. A safe driver judges the correct speed for the conditions up to and not exceeding that maximum.
Attitude to other road users is a further aspect of safety, and attitude to the limits that society has set on our permitted speed is another. Having the attitude "I know better than those setting the limits" is in itself a dangerous way to drive.

Really, so what's the speed limit here:

http://maps.google.c...,281.58,,0,6.44

If that's the place I'm thinking of (no change of speed limit from 40mph road), invalid use of what looks like 30mph repeater sized sign, then it's 40mph: However given the obvious intention for a 30mph limit, the expectations of the other users of that road and the obstacles to clear vision, I'd keep well below 30 there, nearer 20 passing the kerbless shelter and blind entrance on the right and slowing as I approached the parked cars.

When I took my driving test Mikey, I exceeded the speed limit. It was expected of you. Driving at 28mph in a clear, wide, 30 zone would be more likely to achieve a fail as you would be deemed to be holding up the flow of traffic.

You might not believe me but that's how I was taught, that's how I took my test, and that's one of the reasons why I passed without comment.

So what's the speed limit on the road I posted? If you don't know, you shouldn't be on the road.

You claim to have driven for 20 years, if the above is correct then pass standards certainly fell in the ten years between me taking my test and you doing taking yours. Exceeding the speed limit would certainly have been a fail for me.

...
This is a common argument among the pro-speeding lobby, and as I said it completely ignores the fact that THERE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE AN ACCIDENT FOR SPEEDING TO BE ANTI-SOCIAL.
...

Absobloodylutely!

Thankyou for bringing some sanity to this discussion. I completely agree with most of the points you've made, which is why you'll find me crawling along at 10mph through residential streets filled with parked cars, and why you'll find a queue of angry motorists behind me as I wait patiently behind the cyclist pootling along between pinch points, or why I'll be the one doing 30mph along a foggy motorway. Observation and anticipation are key elements of safe driving. Speed is another, but I believe that years of educating people at the school of "obey the speed limit = safe" isn't constructive. People have become hung up on speed, I believe at the cost of concentration and anticipation.


Of course unexpected things happen, part of driving safely is to anticipate those things. A ball popping out from behind a car may mean a child will follow shortly. A dark country lane at night may be a route used by deer or sheep. Some people here don't seem to understand that someone who exceeds the speed limit cannot factor these possibilities into his driving. Maybe that belies their driving experience, I don't know.

As far as collective responsibility goes, I don't believe I'm responsible for the behaviour of other road users. If I encounter an obstruction around which the cars in front of me are driving, thereby blocking my view of oncoming traffic, or a hazardous junction, I will wait until I know it's clear to proceed. It isn't right to blame others for your own mistakes. Going down that line leads to people blocking overtakes by accelerating to close the gap, an insanely dangerous manoeuvre.

Excellent, great, fantastic but it still does not justify the daily breaking the speed limit.

*If the IAM was a safety organisation, its advanced driving courses would concentrate on the conditions that most drivers face and have difficulty with on a daily basis: Crowded urban roads with a busy landscape, many interactions with vulnerable road users, complex junctions ... oh and occasional motorways (which frighten many drivers of my acquaintance). Instead IME the majority of its training and the majority of its online chat, is about how to drive at good speed on the open road. There's nothing in fact wrong (IMO) with the way it trains for this (PoD's "daily" speeding not withstanding), as good forward observation, planning and systematic driving is useful anywhere; but the concentration on open roads shows its 'car club' origins and mind set.

 

[Mad at urage]

On topic, I thoroughly approve of 20mph limits in all residential areas. One problem the UK does have though is that many trunk roads, often still the only through roads between major centres have houses either side. Often (but not always) these are well set back from the carriageway, but to treat all these as 20mph residential areas would be economically disruptive (and therefore unfairly penalise) the people living in the conurbations accessed by these roads. There would therefore need to be some systematic way of delineating true residential areas from major roads which people decide to live beside ('voluntarily' accepting the inconvenience of traffic).

 

[Parrot of Doom]

So you accept that you are not trained or qualified to exceed the speed limit, but do so anyway?

I believe I am more than qualified enough to gauge what speed is or is not safe in any given circumstance. People do it all the time, in whatever fashion they travel. I just don't buy the supposition that exceeding the speed limit is automatically dangerous.

Says you. I think I'd rather trust people actually qualified in road safety and planning to make those decisions, not someone who treats speed limits with contempt.

Do you trust the same people when it comes to planning cycle lanes, or cycling infrastructure? If not, then why? They're "qualified in road safety and planning", are they not?

At last we agree on something - we should be reducing speeds and improving driving standards. In fact the former is part of the latter.

I agree we should improve driving standards. We just differ on how to go about that, that's all. Please stop assuming that I'm some kind of lunatic.

I will. You have excused excess speed, which is dangerous whether you say it is or not.

There's a very big difference between inappropriate speed and excess speed.

 

[Parrot of Doom]

I'm not asking you to agree. I'm telling you not to do it.

Your instructions mean nothing to me. Do you know what the speed limit is on the section of road I linked?

 

[Parrot of Doom]

I wonder how much Parrot of Doom pays for his insurance?

Why?

 

[MacB]

There's a very big difference between inappropriate speed and excess speed.

yep the first isn't necessarily illegal, at least not until after an accident investigation, but the second is always illegal.

I don't give a flying **** how good a driver you think you are or how many different ways you try to justify your actions, you should be off the road.

 

[Parrot of Doom]

If that's the place I'm thinking of (no change of speed limit from 40mph road), invalid use of what looks like 30mph repeater sized sign, then it's 40mph: However given the obvious intention for a 30mph limit, the expectations of the other users of that road and the obstacles to clear vision, I'd keep well below 30 there, nearer 20 passing the kerbless shelter and blind entrance on the right and slowing as I approached the parked cars.

I posted that link because someone stated that any driver who did not know the speed limit for a given section of road was undeserving of his licence. It is a stupid position to take.

Drivers should first and foremost rely on their skills of observation to judge what is a safe speed. They should not refer to the number on a stick and set their speed according to that. How many people do you know who see a NSL sign and immediately speed up? That's the dangerous behaviour here.


People seem to be assuming that I drive at warp speed everywhere I go. It's the same flawed line of thinking that some motorists take when presuming that "all cyclists ignore red lights and don't pay road tax".

Dig just a bit beneath the surface and one finds the same silly stereotypes and prejudices, no matter where one goes.

 

[Parrot of Doom]

yep the first isn't necessarily illegal, at least not until after an accident investigation, but the second is always illegal.

I don't give a flying **** how good a driver you think you are or how many different ways you try to justify your actions, you should be off the road.

You know nothing about me and are in no position to make such judgements. You're obviously prejudiced.

Oh and User I remember you from the old Cycling+ forums. I see you've changed little, and shall therefore be ignoring you here, as I eventually decided to do there.

 

[benb]

I believe I am more than qualified enough to gauge what speed is or is not safe in any given circumstance. People do it all the time, in whatever fashion they travel. I just don't buy the supposition that exceeding the speed limit is automatically dangerous.

Then you're contemptible and arrogant.

I agree we should improve driving standards. We just differ on how to go about that, that's all. Please stop assuming that I'm some kind of lunatic.

I'll stop assuming that when you stop giving that impression.

There's a very big difference between inappropriate speed and excess speed.

You can drive dangerously and still be within the speed limit, I agree. I have never said that driving < speed limit = safe
Going over the speed limit is selfish, antisocial, and almost always dangerous. (I say almost, otherwise you'll come back with some scenario about a deserted motorway - how often does that occur?)

You still haven't adequately responded to my point that increases in speed will always make accidents more likely and more severe.

 

[BentMikey]

It's not a prejudice or stereotype, I just don't want you driving anywhere near me when you think you have better judgement on speed limits than road planners. Speed limits are almost always set too high anyway due to moton pressure, so when you admit you're often speeding you're admitting to bad judgement on your part.

...and let's not get into silly debates on speed limit legal technicalities. The clear intention for the speed limit on that link you posted is obvious. If you don't know what the speed limit is on the road you're on, then your observation is as poor as your judgement.