Richmond Hill Mayhem And Slaughter

[slinkydevil]

50 is too fast.

40 is adequate - you can still pass wagons and busses in time - before the corner, at 40.

 

People dont seem to understand basic Physics. You car goes up hill, it slows down. To over come this - you need to use more power. To get the best power form your engine - the designers have added gears - if numpties changed down in good time they have sufficient power to get them up the hill round the corner and onwards at a steady speed.

 

So 50 is too fast - but your bleating about people going too slow...

 

 

The road needs to painted with the words 'crawler lane' on the left, then everybody will use the right hand lane.

 

WTF this statement just doesn't make sense. So you paint 'crawler lane' and then everyone uses the right hand lane? As opposed to what overtaking through the hedge? Or do you mean everyone uses the right hand lane? Good luck in your quest for sorting out the Islands traffic problems.

[oldmanxfella]

After following numerous cars up (and down) that hill - the main problem are these -

 

50 is too fast.

40 is adequate - you can still pass wagons and busses in time - before the corner, at 40.

 

Maybe for you in your brown Austin Montego worrying whether your trilby will blow off if you reach 55mph, but for most people 50 mph is not too fast up an open stretch of dual carriageway with good visibility.

 

Most of the stuff posted on all these accident threads is crap anyway; accidents HAPPEN they are unexpected events. They cannot be planned for, and they cannot be averted because you never know when they are going to happen. You cannot stop accidents by sticking speed limits up so all you can do is try to mitigate the consequences of accidents or reduce the likelihood of accidents happening.

 

How do you reduce the likelihood?

 

Has that stupid electronic sign halfway up Richmond Hill made any difference? It can flash "88 mph" and show a sad face but it is not going to stop speeding or an accident happening? Has the widening of the bend at the top made a difference? Probably yes, but it just means that you can take the bend quicker now so achieves very little.

 

The crash at the Ballahutchin was about 150 yards before the start of the 30 limit. Did that make a difference? No.

 

Accidents happen people and that's it. Most are caused by bad driving or lack of anticipation of changing road conditions, and driving at 40 mph when you can safely travel at 60 mph does not stop that.

[pamplemousse]

Barriers, speed limits, roads straightened, more signs, messages on the road, speed police...let's just have done with it and rubberise the roads and swaddle the kerbs and banks in bouncy foam. Bollards, lamp-posts, pedestrians etc should all be made out of bendy stuff that squeaks or honks when you plough into it. Then we can all race around in the kids' adventure playground that we deserve, gurgling away like teletubbies, having completely shed ourselves of responsibility for our own actions.

 

It seems there's a crash on these roads every five minutes these days and a fatality every fifteen. To state the obvious, this is not acceptable! Then in the aftermath, inevitably, there is the usual chin-stroking about WHAT SHOULD BE DONE. What measures should be introduced? How was such and such allowed to happen? When are the police going to do x, y, z? Why aren't the government making the horridness go away?

 

Here's a possible solution - could everyone who drives like an asshole stop driving like an asshole?

 

Not for fear of a fine or a ban but in the knowledge that by exceeding the speed limit and/ or driving carelessly and recklessly, you could take a life? And by doing so, wreck the lives of that person's loved ones?

 

No? Not a disincentive in any way?

 

The sad thing is, it's not. Because unfortunately it's human nature - generally speaking - not to give a shit about other people. They're just an abstract, another car on the road, until they smash into yours. Then the hand-wringing starts. And let's face it, none of us spend every second of our driving both super-vigilant and musing on the value of human life. There's a lot of autopilot driving, which is only natural when you think of how much driving everyone does, in cars which are probably more comfortable and cocooning than a lot of living rooms.

 

I don't know what the answer is (plainly - I'm just having a rant) because clearly people aren't capable of driving well and safely with no greater motive than that they just want everyone else out there to be ok.

 

It's too easy to scapegoat certain driving groups - boyracers and old wobblyheads - but the bottom line is, if everyone except a handful of R-plated w*nkers is observing all the rules and sticking to the speed limits, then why are there so many accidents?

Imagine if everyone REALLY DID stick to the rules for a day - the Island would grind to a halt (and if everyone kept sticking to them, there'd be next to no accidents anymore - duh! So that's what the rules are for!).

 

All this is not to say there aren't extra-special w*nkers out there from whom your average motorist does need protection. And a lot of them ARE R-platers. I used to live in Ramsey and remember the joys of being double-overtaken by two R-plated cars racing each other into the path of an oncoming lorry. Oh, how we'd have laughed as we all lay tangled up together in the wreckage - proper f*cking funny!

 

I would personally be in favour of a system where people caught speeding were thereafter restricted as to engine capacity - also new drivers for, say, 2 years (although perhaps it's just delaying the inevitable, I don't know) - but I'm not sure how feasible this is?

 

Three things I do know:-

 

1. The driving test doesn't work. It seems to have the same effect as releasing greyhounds from traps.

 

2. Speed cameras, flashing signs and smiley faces don't work either. It just enforces a system of them-and-us. The minute the teacher's back is turned, everyone steps on the gas. The logical extreme would be to have every yard of every road monitored. Does everyone want to pay taxes for that? Me neither.

 

3. Richmond Hill is blameless in all of this. Please let's have no more of the nonsense that saw Windy Corner being altered:

 

DOT 1: 'People are finding it really difficult to drive like f*ckwits round this corner without having an accident. What shall we do?'

DOT 2: 'Clearly the corner is at fault. Have it altered immediately. Oh, and have the valley filled in. It's a nasty, deep one, that, and we don't want anyone falling foul of it if they're hitting 90mph and leave the road through no fault of their own'.

DOT 1: 'Aye'.

[keyboarder]

Can anyone from the"accidents happen, get over it" brigade come up with a single reason why the Isle of Man SHOULDN'T have a national limit?

 

 

Edit to add "good" reason.

[Gladys]

Simply because it will not be enforced (and cannot on an island-wide continuous basis) and so will be meaningless. If an accident has been caused by speeding, regardless of whether a speed limit existed or not, the driver was most likely driving beyond their capabilities and so has been reckless. That is the best limiter: drive within your capabilites and within the conditions.

[Celt]

Pretty simple really.

 

Most, if not all, locals know what the hill is all about, yet still give it big licks.

 

You don't think you will crash, wrong.

 

You don't think you can die, wrong.

 

You don't think you can kill some of your m8s as well , wrong.

 

Arseholes driving to fast on that corner tend to crash, the corner deosn't make them do it, their driving does.

 

I think it is about time that people got real and blame the drivers and not so much the roads.

[keyboarder]

Simply because it will not be enforced (and cannot on an island-wide continuous basis) and so will be meaningless. If an accident has been caused by speeding, regardless of whether a speed limit existed or not, the driver was most likely driving beyond their capabilities and so has been reckless. That is the best limiter: drive within your capabilites and within the conditions.

 

So the island is alone in the western (indeed, apart from Nepal and a couple of Indian states* the whole) world in being unable to implement a national limit on the basis of it being unenforcable? I can't accept that.

 

 

*Wikipedia

[Gladys]

If it cannot be enforced, what is the point? Lack of enforcement will mean that those who want to drive at excessive speeds will feel fully able to do so. And when they end up in a mangled wreck, are we all going to say, 'well, there was a speed limit there' in the hopes that makes it all alright?

 

I fully agree with Celt; accidents are, in the main, the responsibility of the drivers. A speed limit is not going to stop accidents; it will just put the blame on the driver if speed is a factor, which is where it should be regardless of a speed limit.

[Snaipyr]

I'd make it single lane heading south - with barriers if need be, and a run off lane and gap in the barriers to the Horses Home and the house at the top. I really don't care whether everyone has to drive at 20 mph up the hill following a tractor. Safety is more important than the so-called 'right' to drive fast and if we all have to suffer because of impatient idiots, so be it. There's far worse suffering in the world.

[keyboarder]

Speed limits can be easily enforced, if the will is there.

[Gladys]

I am told that there are only ever two traffic police units operational for the whole of the island. It would require a huge investment in additional policing and/or electronic gadgetry to cover all the island's roads. It is just impractical.

 

I am not a quick driver, my little car would have bits falling off if I ever went much over 60, but slapping speed lmits on the roads then not enforcing them (because it is almost impossible to do so) just smacks of the authorities doing something token, but visible, to address safety issues, rather than getting to the real nub of the problem and that is to look at education. That is a harder nut to crack, so the easy option is to slap up a few signs and then put your feet back up on the desk, making paper airplanes thinking your job is done.

[=^..^=]

Back in the day when there were no speed limits on that section of road I followed a police car up there and he quite easily navigated that corner at over 90 miles an hour.

 

No, I'm not waving my willy about to show its size I'm making the point that if you actually think about your driving and know what you are doing then you can actually go safely round that corner a lot faster than the current speed limit. He did and I did so it is physically possible.

 

The only way to crash on that corner is to be speeding (and a national speed limit ain't going to change that - its already a restricted road), to not be paying attention to what you are doing (which is also against the law), to be driving recklessly (again which is against the law), or to have a badly maintained vehicle (guess what - thats against the law too)

 

I don't think that it is unfair to say that the standard of driving for any driver that causes an accident on Richmond Hill is below what could reasonably be expected of a driver with a full licence.

[keyboarder]

I'm not suggesting that speed limits are imposed as a sole gesture - they should be part of an overall strategy which would also include education. I think you are overlooking one important factor though - most people do actually stick to the limits even though you'll always get the odd nutters.

 

I wonder how many Gatsos or even traffic patrol salaries you'd get for the cost of 1 fatal RTA?

[=^..^=]

The only way to ensure that there is a fall in fatal RTAs is to stop using vehicles. Surely if it saves a life then the disruption to our lives is worth it ?

[Gladys]

I'm not suggesting that speed limits are imposed as a sole gesture - they should be part of an overall strategy which would also include education. I think you are overlooking one important factor though - most people do actually stick to the limits even though you'll always get the odd nutters.

 

I wonder how many Gatsos or even traffic patrol salaries you'd get for the cost of 1 fatal RTA?

Agreed, but I suspect that most people drive at the right speed for their capability and the conditions, which by happenstance will be within the speed limit.

 

As for the cost of Gatsos versus the cost of a fatality, you are absolutely right, but that cost will not be borne entirely by Government and the portion that is will be spread across a number of budget areas (health, social security, police, etc) so the cost to Government will not be in an easily identifiable lump. In any case, the actual costs of an accident will be lost in the mire of annual expenditure, whereas the cost of buying Gatsos or employing additional bobbies will be an identified additional cost in the police budget, making it vulnerable to striking out when budget time comes. Add to that the 'spend it or lose it' basis on which most Governments control their expenditure (i.e. if a department has budgeted X, it had better spend X as anything less than X at the end of the financial year will set the basis for the next year's budget), the rational argument you put forward butters no parsnips in the world of public finances, I'm afraid.