[BBC News] Fatal accident on mountain road

[snakebite]

i dont think there should be a speed limit on the mountain as a few people have said it may not have been speed related.

all you need to do is loose consentration for 1 second and thats it doesnt mater how old your are or how slow or fast your going.

what i think should happen is they should raise the age of driving to 18 also stop the youngsters getting big fast car say limit them to 1.3cc or below and bring in the mot this would fix a lot of problems also maybe make it like germany were you have to do a refresher driving course every 5 years then people could brush up on there driving

[Frances]

17 year old driver must have been on a P licence - which imposes a 50mph limit - most modern cars will sustain a head on crash into a concrete wall at 30mph or somewhat more(eg a smart will handle something like 40mph) without serious injury to the driver (assuming seatbelt), sideways hits into banks should be even safer. It may well be a failure of the car but at 50mph or less with no traffic heading towards you which is the usual problem for a blowout it should be possible to walk away from it.

[girl89]

Also the factor of wearing a seatbelt or not! So many other factors. But lets not judge the situation until the police tell us what happened

[The Thriller]

I lost one of my best friends in AUGUST 98 in an accident on Hillberry corner, im not sure if it was a 40mph then but even if it was i dont think a speed limit would have helped. If you watch the border News you will see that theres teenagers killed in accidents all the time on their roads even though they are 30mph/70mph limit.

[Juan Kerr]

It would be perfectly possible to enforce most speed restrictions (eg as in France raised curbs to seperate lanes and enforce lower speeds, use of rough surfaces, speed bumps, etc ) - what you cannot have is a dual use public road and racetrack without seriously compromising saftey for those who are tempted to emulate the latter.

 

Seems there are lots of people like you making safety recommendations on the back of half arsed, ill-informed assumptions about what happened. Nobody knows what happened yet and yet all the safety freaks are already condeming the situation. You're now saying the road is too good and encourages people to drive fast? That's total crap. Should we make sure all the manx roads are in a poor state of affairs just to discourage speeding?

 

The car was on "R" plates. That means its legally restricted to 50 mph so how would a speed limit or speed measures proposed by you make a blind bit of difference? "If" speed was the blame (and your all guessing here and in possession of non of the facts) what difference would the proposed speed limit of 60 mph on the mountain make as its 10mph faster than the restriction placed on any R plate car. If your prepared to break an R plate restriction you are not going to care about breaking a speed limit.

 

Any way. What a tragedy.

 

... back to the health and safety freaks for their risk assessments.

[Frances]

I have been careful to avoid stating that a speed limit on its own would be any help (I am well aware that, for example, the P plate limits are widely breached as are many of the existing 30/40mph limits) - maybe I shouldn't have commented on this individual accident until details emerge at the inquest. The figures issued last year in an attempt to steer the speed limit debate indicated that the Manx fatality/serious injury rate was something like twice that of the UK. If you look at other Islands (Wight being of comparable size, population etc) they have, it would appear, a much lower rate than the UK as a whole. Wight's roads are comparable in many ways to Manx (though they don't have the mountain road equivalent), why then is their death rate so much lower - so much so that they thought that zero road death/year was achievable. If you have a road that is the common factor in many accidents then it is sensible to see what can be done to mitigate such accidents - road layout, better signage, phyisical speed restriction mechanisms are obvious suggestions. I was struck how in many of the French roads, which being straight are an obvious attraction to exceed the 90 kph limit, that physical barriers were inserted near junctions or other danger spots to act as speed restrictors + the use of different surfaces etc.

[ballaughbiker]

Very sad.

 

My 17 year old is about to take his test (next week) and this accident has affected us both even though we did not know the driver.

[GD4ELI]

Also the factor of wearing a seatbelt or not! So many other factors. But lets not judge the situation until the police tell us what happened

I think it's safe to say that in general young males are idiots when driving, I know I was. The female of our species is much more sensible.

 

FWIW I didn't really see much speeding while on the Island last week, just the odd moron in a Volvo.

[Gerry]

As a manxman in exile for the past ten years i think it is safe to say that mandatory speed limits will not do anything to stop this terrible waste of life.I now life in Norfolk and there is hardly a week goes by without somebody being wipped out on the local roads.

Driving is inherently dangerous lets face it if there was such a thing a health and safety legislation when cars first came about they would have been banned due to them being so dangerous.

[Billy One Mate]

THE ANSWER

 

SPEED RESTRICTORS TO BE FITTED TO ALL CARS OF NEWLY QUALIFIED DRIVERS FOR A PERIOD OF TWO YEARS.

[When Skies Are Grey]

THE ANSWER

 

SPEED RESTRICTORS TO BE FITTED TO ALL CARS OF NEWLY QUALIFIED DRIVERS FOR A PERIOD OF TWO YEARS.

 

 

Two things...

 

One...how do you proposed that this little gem is introduced or governed?

Two...no need to shout.

[Nitro]

all you need to do is loose consentration for 1 second and thats it doesnt mater how old your are or how slow or fast your going.

 

what i think should happen is they should raise the age of driving to 18 also stop the youngsters getting big fast car

 

Contradicted yourself a bit there!

 

I think part of the problem is what young drivers can actually afford to buy, tax and insure, Most have to start out with a little small cars with next to no safety features at all, They just don't stand up to accidents.

 

also maybe make it like germany were you have to do a refresher driving course every 5 years then people could brush up on there driving

 

Great idea, This would hopefully keep a lot of dangerous drivers off the road, Both old and new.

 

Its a shame this young lad died, Just starting out and whether it was his own fault or not, It shouldn't make a difference to how people feel, The death toll on the road is just far to high now, When is it going to be cut down.

 

Edit : Messed up quote tags

[Max Power]

As previously said, you can't legislate against youthful exhuberance (I'm not saying that this was the case here btw).

It's only natural for young people to push the boundries and that is how the human race has come so far. It may sound callous, but we may have to accept that these things will happen and try to minimise the effects as best we can.

In motoring terms I think the only way to erradicate fatalities is to ban the motor vehicle. Don't forget all the fatalities that were caused by falling from horses and bicycles though, the problem would just move to another scenario.

[Pragmatopian]

Great shame for someone to have their life cut so short, and sadly he's not the first and is unlikely to be the last.

 

I have too few specifics about this accident, but speaking generally I can appreciate as well as anybody that driving fast can be fun. However, we owe it to others to drive safely on open roads. Driving safely is not just about speed - it's about having regard to all the prevailing conditions acting accordingly. 'Prevailing conditions' includes being prepared for other drivers with different levels of ability and driving vehicles less capable than your own.

 

It's a somewhat off-the-wall suggestion, so please feel free to denounce me as a heretic, but has any consideration been given to providing low-cost track days to allow people to quench their thirst for speed in a safer way? I'm sure the Duke ones are very good, but might be a bit pricey to tempt young motorists off the roads. It could even form part of an incentive for driving responsibly on the open roads - perhaps people admitted in exchange from some kind of tachy reading taken to show that the car hasn't gone over xmph? If not unique, it would certainly be an unusual road safety campaign and I think one that sits comfortably with the Island's reputation for motorsport. Am I the only one who thinks this might be more effective than the usual tactics?

[Max Power]

Great shame for someone to have their life cut so short, and sadly he's not the first and is unlikely to be the last.

 

I have too few specifics about this accident, but speaking generally I can appreciate as well as anybody that driving fast can be fun. However, we owe it to others to drive safely on open roads. Driving safely is not just about speed - it's about having regard to all the prevailing conditions acting accordingly. 'Prevailing conditions' includes being prepared for other drivers with different levels of ability and driving vehicles less capable than your own.

 

It's a somewhat off-the-wall suggestion, so please feel free to denounce me as a heretic, but has any consideration been given to providing low-cost track days to allow people to quench their thirst for speed in a safer way? I'm sure the Duke ones are very good, but might be a bit pricey to tempt young motorists off the roads. It could even form part of an incentive for driving responsibly on the open roads - perhaps people admitted in exchange from some kind of tachy reading taken to show that the car hasn't gone over xmph? If not unique, it would certainly be an unusual road safety campaign and I think one that sits comfortably with the Island's reputation for motorsport. Am I the only one who thinks this might be more effective than the usual tactics?

 

A good idea, in fact a low cost version of track days is autocross, which improves driving skills and teaches car control in a very exhillerating way. Also provides a competitive outlet for people of all ages.

 

It's just a case of venues and organisation really and there are good motor clubs with all the knowledge and structure to do it if encouraged. May even spawn another future champion!