Driving Standards

[Winot]

Generally speaking, it's not the cars that cause the accidents it's the idiots behind the wheel.

This is the NRA’s line on guns.

 

[platinumsage]

My point is about the direct impact speeding has on others, and the inability of people speeding to make accurate assessments of what is safe - or any assessment at all in the case of the bloke sentenced this week.

I don’t think a piss in a doorway has ever proved fatal for whoever the doorway belongs to, and your other examples ignore the fact that the impact of speeding is on other people, not the individual.

My point is that your reasons for people speeding are all wrong. Most speeders aren't happy to kill some kids to arrive three minutes earlier, they just don't see that as an outcome of their actions.

 

[hash tag]

My point is that your reasons for people speeding are all wrong. Most speeders aren't happy to kill some kids to arrive three minutes earlier, they just don't see that as an outcome of their actions.

Perhaps a need for more education on the driving lessons/test.
As I've said before, perhaps young people should have a Restricted licence which prohibits them from driving more powerful cars until they have been driving for a few years or reach a certain age. Similar to motorbikes.

 

[chandlerp]

This is the NRA’s line on guns.

Guns are designed to be weapons, cars are not.

 

[existentialist]

What’s the justification for driving more than the speed limit though? That’s the thing I struggle with. I have thought of a few reasons

“Because I want to”
“Because my time is more important than other peoples safety”
“Ego, my car defines me”

Is there any other defence?

Loads but they're not really defences. For example, I've exceeded the speed limit to smartly overtake a car that was, eg, bumbling along at 65 in the middle lane and driving in a way caused me to feel I didn't particularly want to occupy the same bit of road as. But it's a choice I take, knowing that if during that 10 seconds of 78mph, I get clocked, it's on me.

I did a speed awareness course a long while back where there was a chap who worked for a utility company who was clocked on his way to a job where a live cable was trailing across the road. You'd struggle to think of a more pressing legit reason to break the speed limit (and it can't have been by much, or he wouldn't have been on an SA course), but them's the breaks.

I know a paramedic who says that if they get photographed by a speed camera, it's still recorded and there is a process of justification that has to take place - was the speed excessive in the circumstances? I'm pretty sure it's the same for the fire service, so it's only the police who appear to be able to speed with impunity

 

[existentialist]

By 50mph?

Also, 'this problem is everywhere' does not mean, 'this is not a problem' it means the exact opposite of that.

The thing about machines, Frank, is that you never want to be running them flat out. There's a sweet spot - it's usually somewhere around 70% of capacity - where things like to work best. So, without putting some kind of limiter on (which I am sure you would approve of!), if you build a car that will happily cruise at 70mph, it's quite likely only cruising happily because it's doing about 2/3 of what it could do.

I don't think we need to blame the machinery all the time there is a person in control of it who should be able to make appropriate decisions.

 

[existentialist]

Perhaps a need for more education on the driving lessons/test.
As I've said before, perhaps young people should have a Restricted licence which prohibits them from driving more powerful cars until they have been driving for a few years or reach a certain age. Similar to motorbikes.

I've long thought this would be a good idea. Perhaps even the need to take a further test to drive, I dunno, professionally, larger/faster vehicles, etc.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The thing about machines, Frank, is that you never want to be running them flat out. There's a sweet spot - it's usually somewhere around 70% of capacity - where things like to work best. So, without putting some kind of limiter on (which I am sure you would approve of!), if you build a car that will happily cruise at 70mph, it's quite likely only cruising happily because it's doing about 2/3 of what it could do.

I don't think we need to blame the machinery all the time there is a person in control of it who should be able to make appropriate decisions.

So limiters could easily be added to cars, which makes the rest of your post irrelevant.

 

[hash tag]

I've long thought this would be a good idea. Perhaps even the need to take a further test to drive, I dunno, professionally, larger/faster vehicles, etc.

In part because of the advancement in car tech and also in part it's been a year or two since I took my test I went and did an IAM course, which was interesting, thought provoking and useful. I sure it would help every newish driver if they had to do this after about 2 years before progressing to more powerful cars.

 

[InArduisFouette]

This is the NRA’s line on guns.

the fundamental difference being a gun is designed for the sole purpose of killing or maiming

 

[InArduisFouette]

<snip>

I know a paramedic who says that if they get photographed by a speed camera, it's still recorded and there is a process of justification that has to take place - was the speed excessive in the circumstances? I'm pretty sure it's the same for the fire service, so it's only the police who appear to be able to speed with impunity

applies across all the services , the differnece is the police have less scrutiny ...

Ambulance and FRS the scrutiny comes from those organisations, not from Plod.

 

[hash tag]

An ex paramedic I know says that when on a blue light, they are not allowed to exceed the speed limit by either 10 or 20%...sorry, don't remember which now.
I also know that no one on a blue light is allowed to harass, bully or intimidate you to move out of their way inc. at red traffic lights.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

So limiters could easily be added to cars, which makes the rest of your post irrelevant.

And they, like Net Nannies, can be overridden by children.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Guns are designed to be weapons, cars are not.

The marketing treads a fine line at times though, especially the names

Barbarian, Warrior, Bronco

 

[existentialist]

So limiters could easily be added to cars, which makes the rest of your post irrelevant.

It doesn't make it irrelevant, unless one is coming at from a ludicrously binary perspective. But putting, say, a 70mph limiter on every car would have some...interesting implications for traffic flow.

 

[neonwilderness]

But putting, say, a 70mph limiter on every car would have some...interesting implications for traffic flow.

It also wouldn’t do anything to stop people speeding in lower speed limit areas (where most accidents occur iirc)

 

[hash tag]

It also wouldn’t do anything to stop people speeding in lower speed limit areas (where most accidents occur iirc)

Doing 70 in a 20 limit

 

[neonwilderness]

Doing 70 in a 20 limit

Without a limiter you could go faster and get through the area quicker to minimise any risk

 

[hash tag]

Without a limiter you could go faster and get through the area quicker to minimise any risk

Of course, if you go fast enough, the speed cameras won't get you.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

As someone who likes cars and driving, but also cycles a lot, a bloody good start would be dropping the 'there but the grace of god go I' attitude that the law seems to portray.

Pissed up driver kills a cyclist, 4 years, out in 2. Yeah I get it, many of us have driven having had 'one too many'. And 4 years would mess your life up. 25 years served would utterly ruin it, just like you've done to others by your actions. What they do in the US to DUI killers and other killer motorists might just focus the minds a but more of these dicks and make more people not have any drinks before driving, stick to the speed limits etc. Right now your chances of being done for anything are next to fuck all, even if your behaviour results in the deaths of others the punishment is often not even custodial.

 

[Storm Fox]

On the subject of Limiters. I use mine most of the time. It lets me know I'm not driving over the limit and have more time to look at the road to check my speed.
Even though quite often, if I forget to set the Limiter, I'm doing the correct speed.

 

[Elpenor]

What’s interesting is when there’s a 20 limit in an urban area I abide by it but doing so I find really winds up other drivers.

 

[chandlerp]

Winding up speeders is one of life's little pleasures.

 

[hash tag]

What’s interesting is when there’s a 20 limit in an urban area I abide by it but doing so I find really winds up other drivers.

In my office of about 12 people, at least 3 have gained points recently for being caught going over the recently installed 20 limit.
They are all middle aged and have no interest in cars or driving.

 

[hash tag]

Flying cars?

Car flies through air, directly into child's bedroom in horror crash

Terrifying video shows a speeding car going airborne and crashing into a house outside St. Louis, killing the driver inside. The crash happened Tuesday afternoon and was captured on home security ...

cdn.jwplayer.com

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Literally every car sold can break the national speed limit

And yet nobody asks… why?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Of course, if you go fast enough, the speed cameras won't get you.

Most speed cameras don't work. The gatso types still use film which is expensive, so most local authorities don't bother to keep them running. Even the pretence is gone, with the calibration marks on the road worn away to nothing.

 

[SpookyFrank]

They are all middle aged and have no interest in cars or driving.

Maybe they should develop an interest in reading signs.

 

[platinumsage]

I also know that no one on a blue light is allowed to harass, bully or intimidate you to move out of their way inc. at red traffic lights.

This doesn't apply to the police, who have the power to require you to stop, proceed in, or keep to, a particular line of traffic, which includes going through red lights. Just using their blue lights and sirens wouldn't be sufficent to issue such a command, they'd have to gesticulate and/or shout at you to move.

 

[existentialist]

Most speed cameras don't work. The gatso types still use film which is expensive, so most local authorities don't bother to keep them running. Even the pretence is gone, with the calibration marks on the road worn away to nothing.

I can tell you from experience (mine and others) that the speed camera is alive and well here in Wales.

They tend to focus on mobile units - as you say, most of the fixed installations are now looking a bit derelict - but those are very much active.

I must say that I think that a lot of the time, they're not positioned so much to deal with danger spots as to catch people out, which feels a little unsporting.

OTOH, we have a LOT of roads round here which are unrestricted, but which you'd be mad to go down at 40mph, let alone the full 60. Although that doesn't stop people, and there's a fairly regular roll-call of collisions as a result.