Road Safety Strategy Unveiled

[FCMR]

Maybe you would like to see what the standard of car driving is from the bikers veiw. Go for it Ans and Ill arrange the ride.

[Slim]

I commuted to work on a bike for about a year. I did xxxx myself. The bikes lights were xxxx, it was xxxx in the wet, cars didn't see me for xxxx, and I got a shitty wet arse when it rained. All round a xxxx experience that I don't want to repeat. I didn't see any of those things were the cars fault though, more my fault for chosing to ride a bike.

 

So the ambulance thing, was that manx radios mistake then, or was the road really one way? Either way, it's not much of an example of car safety with regard to bikes if it was a mix up over a road closure?

[ans]

Maybe you would like to see what the standard of car driving is from the bikers veiw. Go for it Ans and Ill arrange the ride. 

I doubt I'd see much if I was required to wear the blinkers you appear to have on.

[Observer]

Failure to comment on the other incident during the same week has been noted.

 

A selective view is no view.

[Uni]

a 2.0 litre all singing, all dancing, fuel injected, blah blah blah, Citroen Saxo that goes like xxxx off a shovel.

Cool, I'd get a saxo if they came in 2.0l

 

Saxo VTR 1.6 8v

Saxo VTS 1.6 16v injection

 

Both common as grass and poop slow.

[Minnie]

a 2.0 litre all singing, all dancing, fuel injected, blah blah blah, Citroen Saxo that goes like xxxx off a shovel.

Cool, I'd get a saxo if they came in 2.0l

 

Saxo VTR 1.6 8v

Saxo VTS 1.6 16v injection

 

Both common as grass and poop slow.

UniSol the nit picker! I said I don't know much about cars, I was trying to give an example of what I meant. But I'm soooo impressed with your extensive knowledge of Citroen Saxos.

[Uni]

I know, I was only messing - I don't know much about cars either.

[FCMR]

Are we talking about the one at the top of Glen Vine, did a car not overtake another into the path of an oncoming bike.

Or was it the one that involved a taxi doing a u turn on the prom.

Most bike riders are responsible and very experienced, they have to be.

This is a true fact from a survey done by the MCN 70/75% of all bike accidents are caused by car drivers.

[Slim]

A survey of the readership a bike newspaper blamed cars for the majority of accidents? What a surprise result!

[Observer]

Or are we talking about the one at the top of Glen Vine, did a car not overtake another into the path of an oncoming bike.

Or was it the one that involved a taxi doing a u turn on the prom.

Most bike riders are responsible and very experienced, they have to be.

This is a true fact from a survey done by the MCN 70/75% of all bike accidents are caused by car drivers.

I reiterate, a selective view is no view.

 

All accidents are not caused by car drivers.

[Rock]

I don't see why the bikers are having such a fit over the proposed speed limit, I mean, it's not as if they follow the road rules as it is, is it?

[Uni]

Init!

[purrrrrrrrrrry]

Does anyone know the rationale for the speed limit on dual carriageways and motorways being set at 70mph?

From the UK Parliament Stationery Office site:

 

ORIGINS OF THE 70 MPH MOTORWAY SPEED LIMIT

 

This note clarifies the origins of the 70 mph and 60 mph speed limits.

 

An overall maximum speed limit of 70 mph was introduced as an experimental measure on all roads in 1965. This followed a number of multiple crashes on the M1. The 70 mph limit was introduced purely for road safety reasons.

 

See Hansard 18 May 1966 Col 1271 about the continuation of the experimental speed limit. Monitoring of the experiment by the Road Research Laboratory noted a reduction in killed and seriously injured casualties of 19 per cent on rural and class one roads, including, motorways, in the months of January and February 1966.

 

The 70 mph limit became permanent in 1967.

 

A 50 mph speed limit on all roads was introduced during the fuel crisis in 1973 as a temporary measure to reduce fuel consumption. The speed limit was restored to 70 mph on motorways in March 1974 and to all purpose roads in May 1974.

 

In December 1974 speed limits of 60 mph and 50 mph were introduced on dual carriageway and single carriageway roads, respectively. In June 1977 these were increased to 70 mph and 60 mph respectively, and have remained so since.

Thanks for that Rallybug.

 

Amazing that they have stayed as such for so long.

 

Or am a really thinking that it's amazing that given the length of time such limits have been imposed upon roads that were actually designed to accomodate high volume, high speed traffic, that somebody, somewhere didn't think that for safety reasons, something similar should be imposed here? Certainly before now.

 

(Anyone else remember the "arguments" against seat belt laws?)

 

Ppl need to move away from the notion that imposing speed limits is some kind of indignant slant on their highly superior driving/riding ability.

 

It is f*ck all to do with that.

 

It is about protecting the majority. Period.

[=^..^=]

I started to put together a long post the other evening which points out a few holes in the proposal on the DOT and then found some more info which someone else had put together based on UK speed stats and cameras.

 

Read it here

 

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/effects.html

 

A few quotes

Millions of responsible motorists began to pay more attention to speed limit, speed enforcement and speedo reading. Since they only have a finite amount of attention to give, this must mean they they now pay less attention to "something else".  We are sure that on a significant proportion of occasions that "something else" includes much more immediate and vital safety factors - perhaps a dangerous situation developing ahead.

 

Millions of different, (and less skilled) motorists have received the message that keeping to the speed limit is their primary duty to road safety. It's frightening to imagine a driver steaming into danger at 29 mph convinced that his speed must be safe.

 

Responsibility for safe speed setting is being removed from drivers. Instead they must drive to standard speeds posted by local authorities and others. But responsibility is a core value of safe driving. Erode drivers responsibilities and their performance in terms of setting safe speeds and avoiding crashes is highly likely to worsen.

The last one relating to responsibility is the big one. If you don't understand it I'm not explaining it.

 

Someone asked how much a GATSO cost. A fixed unit is £40,000.

 

A quote from

 

TRAFFIC FATALITIES AND INJURIES: ARE REDUCTIONS THE RESULT OF ‘IMPROVEMENTS’ IN HIGHWAY DESIGN STANDARDS?

by Robert B. Noland

Results actually tend to suggest the counterintuitive hypothesis that these road “safety improvements” actually lead to statistically significant, though small, increases in total fatalities and injuries

 

Or simply put - improve the road surface/conditions etc and the fatalities go up. Not down. And what have DOT done on the TT course ?

 

EU traffic stats

 

Within the road mode car travel is 10 times less safe than bus travel. Motorcycle or moped travel death risk is almost 20 times higher than for car travel. Cycling and walking have on average a 7 to 9 times higher fatality risk than car travel.

 

On average, a 4 per cent reduction in crashes is estimated to occur for every 1 km/h decrease in average speed.

 

In recent years speed camera technology has been used very cost-effectively. A recent analysis of 11 studies evaluating the effects of speed cameras found an average reduction of 19 per cent in the number of casualties. The reductions were found to be larger in urban areas (28 per cent) than in rural areas (4 per cent).

 

From the IOM figures we find that on average under half of accidents are caused by speeding - if we take a closer look at the data we will find that in the 11 years covered that 2 years (1994 and 2000) had no accidents where speed was a factor. don't believe me ? check for yourself. Its page 17.

 

http://www.gov.im/lib/docs/transport/news/...e_Proposals.pdf

That makes me wonder - "What was different about those years ?"

 

A closer look at the data shows that in 1994 there were 6 accidents on de-restricted roads where there were fatalities BUT speed was not an issue.

 

Then we look at 2000 and there were 8 accidents on de-restricted roads where there were fatalilties. BUT speed was not an issue. In fact 2000 was the worst year in the survey with a fatality rate 40% higher than average. And NOT ONE was speed related.

 

Unfortunately for the DOT they have included these figures in the total - so they are saying that an accident on de-restricted roads where speed was not an issue is a justification for bringing in a speed limit...

 

So basically the figures the DOT have supplied as the basis for the requirement for a speed limit are flawed

 

I said I could find it...

 

In addition the annual average road deaths on the IoM for the last ten years is 10 a year. This is 4 higher than the UK urban average but only 1 higher than the rural average. It is also significantly lower than the EU rural average.

 

I've noticed that someone else has brought up the TT period fatalities so lets look at those.

 

We'll agree there were 7 fatalities.

 

1 life should have been saved by existing legislation. They were over 2.5 times the legal limit. In 2003 143 people were convicted of DWUI.

 

Of the remaing six fatalities three involved a Government vehicle...

 

In fact four of the six were as a result of a vehicle travelling the oppositte direction to the TT course.

 

So, simple maths here. The DOT tell us that they expect by introducing speed limits and all the other measures they expect to save ONE life in five years. By making traffic 'go with the flow' we could have saved FOUR lives this year alone.

 

I see plenty of people posting that lowering speed limits is a good idea and isn't five minutes extra on your journey time a good idea if it saves a life. So therefore it would make more sense to actually make the TT course one way only for two weeks and save more lives.

 

I thank yew.

 

I would like to remind you all about one of the facts that I mentioned above - that in 2000 14 people died and not one accident was speed related. Cold harsh fact of life time.

 

People die on our roads - we should try and stop it. Speed is part of the issue but its not the bogey man it is made out to be.

 

Please can you stop and think about this.

 

Do we want to implement a proposal that looks nice but is based on figures that are fundementally flawed, or do we want to try to implement a program of driver education which is more likely to achieve its targets with the additional benefits of improved driving EVERYWHERE not just on de-restricted roads

[Uni]

Excellent post, I just hope its possible to get the decision makers to view it like that.

 

Jittery old gits probably thinking they can stop all the "maniacs" by implementing this, thus them thinking automatically for it.