Why (car) accidents happen....?

[stowie]

technology, in car speed limiters would do it, with your maximum speed increasing and decreasing as you pass through designated zones. Receiver/black box in each car and transmitters on every road that enters, or leaves, a given speed area. Reinforce transmission via satnav technology...it all exists already, would be a relatively cheap and effective solution. Change car speedos to reflect your speed as a %age of the limit you are within. In the case of an accident the black box data is available for investigative purposes. Roadside black box data checks, or even automated downloads, retraining for those found to be spending too much time at 100% and too much time on the brakes.

Once you've done that then you can start tackling driving standards within the speed limits.

Do-able certainly, but not easy. The system is effectively governing the car, and I imagine that this would make it liable for expensive safety testing. Imagine that the gps gets it wrong and imposes a 30mph limit on a car on a motorway because it thinks that the car is on an adjacent road. My GPS does this from time to time, and the whole system would need validating. Putting in transceivers on the roads would be ££, but could end up being installed anyway if we every get to universal road pricing.

Easier to have a system which give visual or audible cues when it thinks the driver is speeding. Maybe a pinging alarm like the seatbelt one would simply annoy some motorists into dropping their speed.

Or, as has been mentioned, insurance might become so expensive that it will be the drivers themselves deciding on black boxes to monitor their driving as a way of reducing premiums. Black boxes are certainly a way to go, and would make people think twice if their actions were being recorded.

 

[Mad at urage]

Although speed may be easy to detect, I suspect it is hard to determine if a car was travelling under the limit before an accident. Even so, the figures for when speeding was a known factor are worrying - remove this illegal activity and less people die. The figures, far from indicating speeding isn't an issue, indicates to me that many motorists are woefully poor at judging appropriate speed.

The problems with speed don't just manifest themselves in fatal statistics though. Speeding makes roads unpleasant for pedestrians and cyclists, it makes the simply task of crossing a road much more difficult - to the point that some urban multilane roads divide whole communities.

I would fix average speed cams on any multilane urban road - if one has to have them (and that is somewhat more than doubtful) then at least restrict their negative impact on the local environment as much as possible. Cutting down speed to the posted 30mph from 40mph or above has an extra-ordinary impact on the accessibility of roads. Not only that but less serious accidents decrease as the all road-users have more time to react. I happened to have the dubious pleasure of cycling around Monument way in Tottenham tonight, and, on a 30mph road, I am not lying when I say some cars must have been doing more than 50mph. Why do we accept this?

This (which also neatly illustrates why separating the different aspects of 'speeding' is useful) is very true. Another improvement would be to rely less on the road network for goods distribution and mass transport: That would remove the perceived need to have high speed roads between many destinations (and therefore through lots of places). Again, not a cheap or easy solution though!

[QUOTE 1519864"]
A black box with a GPS in would be an idea. Police can stop you and download the info. Though administering the scheme and keeping the boxes certified would be a nightmare. And then there's the issue about the police being able to track your movements. Mind you, I don't think most drivers realise how much ANPR is already passively watching us.
[/quote]
Available data is not necessarily the same thing as usable data of course. Black boxes downloaded by Police would be an effective way of getting more people hating the police though! Insurance companies (as has been mentioned) are already getting into this area and have potential to be widely effective and have the benefit of the box being seen as "voluntary" (doesn't stop the rich star speeding syndrome of course).

 

[HLaB]

Trials of ISA (Intelligent Speed Adaptation) have been undertaken all around the world, including in England which used the Haptic throttle and also adaptive breaking and a few other places have actual schemes in implementation. If anybody is interested attached is a little review I done for my MSc course last year.