Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
Options
Cyclist Safety
The materials in this website are in no way intended to replace the professional medical care, advice, diagnosis or treatment of a doctor, qualified personal trainer, therapist, dietitian or nutritionist Runners's World, Part of the Hearst UK well-being network © Copyright 2017
Comments
Maybe I wasn't that clear on my point.
Yes, at 3am in the suburbs traffic will be lighter and children won't be running into the road. There will be, however, a whole host of other hazards.
Speeding where inappropriate is a silly thing, doing 80 on a 3 lane moterway at 4 am in the morning where you haven't passed a car in 10 miles I don't think is.
Would the speed camera pick you up, yes. should you be done for it, yes, is it as dangerous as passing your local primary school at 8:45 at 50 mph, no.
We have variable speed limits for congested roads why not take that a step further and have increases when the roads are emtpy?
Nope - if you think you are capable of driving in excess of the speed limit and do not present any increased danger to anyone becuase you are a better driver than Crash Hamster then I think you sir are wrong.
You are quick to pass judgment on others but still seem to think your speeding is OK.
Things are not black and white, the law has to be written in a way to make them black and white and covers the shades of grey.
Would you get done doing 80mph on a motorway? Unlikely, it's pretty close to the +10% mph.
Would you get done doing 34mph outside a school? Again it's unlikely.
If you were what would the penalty be? 3pts and an ??80-??100 fine or offered a speed awareness course.
What if you were doing 90 or 40 in those respective situations. You would definitely get points and a fine.
What about 60 and 100? Then you're looking at a ban.
Society and hence the laws deems certain actions worse than others.
Driving whilst using a communications device borders between the second and third situations above.
So have we all driven at 34mph in a 30mph limit? Possibly in the past but not anymore for me. I've had two no fault accidents at 20mph where people nearly died. Do we drive at 40mph? Generally no but you'll see people doing it while on the phone, they're generally a list cause though... Bang them up.
Trouble is that the buying of a sticker generally can't be done without proving MoT and insurance, unless you are issued a petrol buying card once those things are proven?
I'm thinking if they put it all on the petrol there would be riot and no-one would vote for whoever did it?
Didn't the tax office float a idea a couple of years back about putting a gps thing in every car and metering up how much you drive and changing your tax that way? Can't remember all the details but if I remember righty it wasn't popular because that way they could see who was speeding too?
there was that idea Cake - basically you pay to drive per mile which in some ways is a good idea as it might help people to use their cars less, but I think in the end it got dropped as it was going to be too expensive to set up and in many ways unworkable (reliant on external technology whereas a straight fuel/road/VED/etc tax isn't)
1. Yes.
2. I'm sure you are
3. Yes.
I may be the world's worst driver, but I'm a good enough observer to be able to copy someone's name without initially misspelling it.
Here endeth the mildly amused sarcasm.
Most road deaths are caused by people not paying attention; about 300 a year are in accidents where inappropriate use of speed is cited as a cause. More people per year die in stair-related accidents. (go google it yourselves, I'm busy!) The recent spate of London cyclist deaths don't seem to be speed-related, but down to one road user or another not paying attention, for whatever reason.
The big problem of the current over-emphasis on speed, with the consequent erroneous belief that 29.9mph in a 30 zone is in some way safe. All movement is dangerous to some extent. I'd still far rather have someone pass me at 35mph while paying attention than at 29.9mph while watching nowt but their speedo.
This is going round in circles now, so I'm done.
It worries me that people are only looking in the road for potential hazards and see that as still being safe.
There isn't a magic option of either looking at the road all the time or looking at your speedo all the time. Part of being a careful driver is being aware of all hazards and of your own speed and position. It's a pretty basic requirement for passing the test!
So it doing a 3 point turn but since I've passed the test I've found that a dab of acceleration followed by use of the handbrake and you're round in less than 2
Part of it is identifying hazards. If you ignored the kids playing on the pavement or people trying to cross the road - I don't think you'd pass and they'd not let you drive.
Yes and I thought that was crackpot idea when the cost/mile thing could be done with higher fuel duty not a massively complex GPS and IT system doomed for failure. Although the GPS thing allowed varied cost thoughout the day. That way they could charge people going to work more.
The buying of road tax without MOT/Insurance is largely overtaken by technology. (plus you could cancel the insurance next day). They now have databases that track MOTs, Road Tax and Insurance. Road Tax just allows it to be spotted on the road although they now check the database to see if you have ordered one. Plus most is done from the registration read automatically at the side of the road. Easy to replicate the Window Display with a section of the MOT being tear off.
Also they claim VED is done on emissions but it isn't - it is done on what the emmissions are on a car of that type when new. Poorly maintain it and get poor economy and more emissions - easily covered by fuel duty but not VED.
Proving it is a sensible strategy that reduces reliance on major IT systems, reduces red tape for all, is cheap and simple to implement, and is cost neutral to government would make it a likely vote winner. The losers would be high mileage drivers which are possibly corporate but then spread over that many miles the increase in fuel is likely irrelevant.
12,000 miles per annum 40 mpg 300 gallons 1362 litres £1.40 £/litre £1,906.80 per annum £250 VED £2,156.80 New Total £1.58 Cost per litreBut no big £250 bill to pay once a year (or £475 for the bad emitters)
No the law is balck and white. Do over the speed limit and you are breaking the law - it is wrong. Unfortunately proving you are doing it 'byond reasonable doubt' is where the vageries creep in.
Every machine has a tolerance of error - even very accurate ones. The police are unable to prove without reasonable doubt due to these inaccuracies. But you are still driving faster than the law has deemed safe.
You seem to beleive that the law is encouraging you to use this as a grey area where it isn't quite wrong. It is wrong.
Look sorry to hear people nearly died, that may expalin some of your comments. But:
Really - no fault? What freak occurance occurred to make it no-ones fault. Or do you mean not your fault. all accidents have a cause. Did the other party admit that it was entirely their fault. Is there nothing that you could have done either prior to the accident or during that would have resulted in the absence of a collision.
The tree that killed a driver in the recent storm - that was pretty much no fault. The news stated a couple of seconds either way and he would have been fine. They should do the maths, about 1/3 of a second either away at 30mph and he was fine. Probably less as I think I allowed for the whole length of the car.
As you said it is about hazard identification.
Yes I hit a deer some 385,000 miles ago. It came from out of a hedge on a country lane, in the dark. I drive that route often and had never seen a deer on that route before or after despite using it daily for 12-years. So roughly a 1/5,000 occurence rate. The hedges are such that they obscure most of the ground behind them so spotting something approaching is not possible. I did keep the car in my lane and braked to a stop without causing further incidents with trafiic behind or coming towards me. I was unhappy with and for the deer. It was unavoidable other than leaving later/sooner or driving faster/slower.
In those 385,000 miles I have avoided many accidents by identifying issues early and not putting my car in the way. I have also seen numerous incidents where one party will get the blame for casuing it but in my view better driving by both parties would have avoided it all together.
One of my favourite silly comments above - make sure you can stop in the space you can see. Really? Try driving country lanes that are effectively single track, at a bend both apporaching drivers are probably staring at the same space on the tarmac and using it as their braking zone. Oops.
Saw a rear end shunt on the motorway. First car braked, second spotted it late and then slammed on the anchors as an over reaction. Out braked the car behind who ended up in the back. Yes the third car (crappy old peugot) was too close but situation was created by poor driving of the second car (fancy bmw).
Very few incidents have only one vehicle to blame 100% but insurance works on the majority/proveability of blame.
Cougie,
Do the IAM test, you get the same thing but in real life. Plus you get FF being stern and serious in the test. I'm trying to persuade my firm to pay for IAM for our people on the road. It is the single most dangerous thing our business does - other than getting fat using the computer - but that is a very slow effect.
M..eface
It's not the accuracy of the Police radar, that's calibrated regularly. It's the accuracy of your car speedo. That was calibrated at the factory and are allowed to overread up to 10% but never underread. Hence if you are clocked doing 34, your speedo would be reading higher. The debate why this is, is a whole different thread.
What I'm saying is that in the UK justice system we treat some crimes as worse than others. Otherwise you end up with children doing life sentences for stealing sweets. That's the grey.
I'll repeat I don't speed as I've had serious near fatal accidents that were not my fault while driving at less than 20mph. It's just not worth it.
Damn linky thing not working but speed can saves lives, the video proves it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJohbmHKaoA
The correct expression is "make sure you are able to stop in HALF the distance you see to be clear" so avoiding head ons in single track lanes
Has anyone been taking KK's tablets recently?
What you still doing up granddad?
I'd had my afternoon nap Foo!
I wasn't actually referring to you earlier there either! I was starting to get completely turned off by this thread as some of the comments had become 'rabid'! Anyway, here's some insightful research ..
http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/2013/11/26/overtaking-cyclists/
Prince interesting research cheers for the link.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25018543
looks good - but utimately wont help i dont think
Shining your light on the road does two things. It shows your location and your speed. Shining your light in someone's eyes does only one - blinds them.
TimR is spot on, tonight walking up an unlit road, blinded by an oncoming cyclist, I just carried on walking in what I thought was a straight line and hoped that as he could see everything so well illuminated, that he would have to avoid me.