UK road deaths reach record low

[very-near]

I think on the road in question the best thing motorcyclists could do would be to stick to the speed limits and not race each other... improvements such as moving posts deal with the consequences of their actions in many occasions on that road.

I came off on the entry to a roundabout on diesel a few years ago on my m/cycle.

Once the bike had gone from under me, it and I could have skidded into or under anything coming the other way.

Ensuring that there is nothing on the outside edge of corners to hit is a fairly common sense move and could make the difference between a trip to the mortuary or just getting up with dented pride, a few bruises and a bit of road rash on the bike.

 

[summerdays]

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just stating that in the case of the particular road shown this morning the number of motorcycle accidents would be reduced if they kept to the speed limit and didn't race each other on a public road in the first place.

 

[very-near]

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just stating that in the case of the particular road shown this morning the number of motorcycle accidents would be reduced if they kept to the speed limit and didn't race each other on a public road in the first place.

Which road is it ?

 

[summerdays]

Cat and Fiddle one I think

 

[very-near]

Cat and Fiddle one I think

I thought you were referring to the Chepstow to Monmouth road.

Any road with a bit of a twist will attract bikers (and car drivers)

I rode the cat and fiddle a few years ago. I wasn't that impressed TBH, and it is very heavily policed now.

I thought that Snake pass was a much nicer road.

 

[Davidc]

Getting deaths down to just over 2 1/2 thousand is good news, and I'll have to change the number I use down from 3000 when whingeing about it.

2 1/2 thousand people killed on Britains roads in one year is still dreadful news.

It doesn't make any difference what those people were driving or riding or if they were walking. They're all just as dead.

The number of seriously injured is appalling.

10 or so deaths and possibly up to 100 serious injuries is probably unavoidable. Any more is a scandal. As someone else has pointed out if it was all coach crashes there'd be an outcry. If it was all in train crashes we'd close down the railways.

Why do we put up with this?

 

[jimboalee]

They almost got it correct.

The volume of traffic fell by 1% due to the price of gasoline, but drivers also reduced their speeds to be more efficient with that expensive petrol.

 

[Davidc]

""
Shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers welcomed the figures.
However, she said government plans to reduce speed limits from 30mph to 20mph in urban areas with high accident rates, and from 60mph to 50mph on problem rural roads, were not the way forward.
"The government must be careful not to turn back this progress with one-size-fits-all measures that hit all motorists indiscriminately, like a blanket reduction of the speed limit," she said. ""

She's not doing or saying anything to try to win my vote then!

 

[Origamist]

""
Shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers welcomed the figures.
However, she said government plans to reduce speed limits from 30mph to 20mph in urban areas with high accident rates, and from 60mph to 50mph on problem rural roads, were not the way forward.
"The government must be careful not to turn back this progress with one-size-fits-all measures that hit all motorists indiscriminately, like a blanket reduction of the speed limit," she said. ""

She's not doing or saying anything to try to win my vote then!

But with that kind of empty rhetoric, she will keep the "persecuted motorist" on side with an election looming...

 

[skwerl]

2538 people killed in 1 year on a tiny island like Britain, that is shocking.

That's like having 42 coach crashes where all of the passengers were killed. If it happened like that somebody would take notice and do something.

It would be intersting to see how many of those were attributed to excessive speed.

The size of the country has nothing do do with it. It's proportion of population that counts (ie 2538/~60mm). Canada is 47 million times bigger than the UK but has roughly half our population.

And your coach analogy doesn't work. You may well say, "it's ike having a Twin Towers disaster every year - someone's bound to react to that!"

People die in all sorts of ways every day. I'd like the road deaths to be lower, of course but it has to viewed with perspective

 

[Davidc]

But with that kind of empty rhetoric, she will keep the "persecuted motorist" on side with an election looming...

You are, of course, right. Unfortunately.

 

[jimboalee]

""
Shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers welcomed the figures.
However, she said government plans to reduce speed limits from 30mph to 20mph in urban areas with high accident rates, and from 60mph to 50mph on problem rural roads, were not the way forward.
"The government must be careful not to turn back this progress with one-size-fits-all measures that hit all motorists indiscriminately, like a blanket reduction of the speed limit," she said. ""

She's not doing or saying anything to try to win my vote then!

It hasn't made a jot of difference to me now Worcestershire and Warwickshire have reduced 60 to 50.
I tell a lie. My Ford Focus has gone from 57 mpg to 59 mpg.

 

[Arch]

People die in all sorts of ways every day. I'd like the road deaths to be lower, of course but it has to viewed with perspective

My perspective is, a lot of people could do with driving a lot better... 'Perspective' isn't much consolation when you or someone you love has been killed by someone else's lack of attention, or risk taking.

The piece on Breakfast this morning kept on saying the roads weren't safe. No, the roads are perfectly safe. It's the people using them who are dangerous. The report I saw, there was heavy mist at a bend in the road, and although all the cars coming towards the camera (out of the fog) had lights on, the ones going the other way didn't. And yet it was quite obvious that there was fog ahead, but none of them seemed to have thought to put their lights on in anticipation.

 

[byegad]

Risk compensation, where a road user feels safer so goes faster is a fact of life. I'm afraid the only way to really make big a difference is to lay automatic blame on drivers who kill.

If I hit someone with a piece of steel weighing 2lbs (aka a hammer) because I'm swinging it around near pedestrians and they die I expect to see the inside of a cort and then jail.
If I kill someone with 1.20tonnes of metal because I'm driving too fast I'd be unlucky to be jailed.

This is wrong!

 

[Arch]

I was thinking the other day, a good way to improve road safety (apart from the big metal spike in the centre of the steering wheel) would be to have seatbelts compulsory for passengers, but forbidden for drivers....