Mountain Watch

[Boris Johnson]

7 minutes ago, HeliX said:

What's your obsession with people's genitalia by the way?

You can tell a lot about a person by them, some read palms, some read cards, there is also a little known science of co*k and ball reading.

[Derek Flint]

1 hour ago, HeliX said:

By this do you mean control of max speed to adhere to individual limits, or a generalised overall limit? Most cars have some sort of speed limiter (though often set at something like 150!). I'm not sure how I feel about a car refusing to accelerate once reaching posted limits. And I'm positive I don't like the idea for a bike, there are non-infrequently instances where speeding up is safer than braking to avoid an incident on a bike.

20s and 30s in particular should be placed with a lot of consideration, and penalties for exceeding them should be strong. In 40s and up I would argue that penalties could be less strong (or at least, more nuanced). I don't mean less strong than they are now, but in relation to strengthening the penalties for being a knob in 20-30 zones.

I don't support an all-island limit though. I do support some of the current NSL zones being turned into limit zones, mind. But I tend to err on the side of opposing removal of personal responsibility & freedoms unless the evidence suggests it would be noticably beneficial, and I'm not convinced that threshold is met in the case of an all-island limit. And certainly not when compared to other measures that I believe would reduce all accidents significantly, not just those on the mountain.

I can see electronic limitation in the future, via GPS or some other means. It would assist things like road trains, where lorries could run in large convoys saving masses of energy, and also driverless vehicles.

what does your argument for retention of derestriction look like?

[HeliX]

1 minute ago, Derek Flint said:

I can see electronic limitation in the future, via GPS or some other means. It would assist things like road trains, where lorries could run in large convoys saving masses of energy, and also driverless vehicles.

what does your argument for retention of derestriction look like?

Electronic limitation really doesn't sit easily with me. There's talk of it being overrideable if it is brought in, but that adds problems too. If you have to crack the throttle all the way open to override it, you don't have a lot of say in how hard you accelerate when it does happen...

I don't think there's particularly strong evidence to support the notion that an all-island speed limit would reduce accidents in a meaningful way. Dangerous/reckless/careless driving are all already offences. Of the crashes that happen on the mountain, what percentage are above 60mph? What percentage of those would've been prevented by a speed limit?

Perhaps it's because the granular details aren't really released to the public, and perhaps (almost certainly) you're operating with more information than I have, but I don't think introducing a national speed limit would make any real difference. It can also only possibly affect crashes which occur in excess of 60mph, in national speed limit zones, which is already a fairly serious limit to the scope of benefit.

Better training, heavier penalties for willful distracted driving (i.e. phone use) and more work on vehicle maintenance requirements would reduce accidents across the board, and I'm willing to bet by a more impressive percentage.

[Boris Johnson]

The anti sensible speed limit crowd remind me of the Trump fans in the USA. 

The evidence of speed being a factor is there, the success of speed limits the world over in reducing accidents, the fuel saving ..... but they just seem blind to it.

Normally sensible people too, I just don't get it? Maybe they are young? I used to be a bit of a speed freak in my youth but I realised the error of my ways in my mid 20s when I very nearly killed a pedestrian by driving too fast round a  corner, perfectly legally I might add. They had not seen me and it was pure luck that at the last moment before impact, sliding straight at them,  I remembered to lift my foot off the brake (My Dad had taught me that in the days before ABS) and the car could be steered again away from the pedestrian.

[HeliX]

43 minutes ago, Boris Johnson said:

I very nearly killed a pedestrian by driving too fast round a  corner, perfectly legally I might add. They had not seen me and it was pure luck that at the last moment before impact, sliding straight at them,  I remembered to lift my foot off the brake (My Dad had taught me that in the days before ABS) and the car could be steered again away from the pedestrian.

So you're saying you avoided a serious accident by virtue of having some extra training that wasn't included in the existing lessons + test scheme?

Not being able to stop in the distance you can see happens in any and all speed limits.

[Two-lane]

The obsession with some on the Isle of Man with being permitted to drive at high speeds is an indication of a psychological problem, rather than a problem with the necessity to get somewhere in a reasonable time. I lived in Frankfurt where Basel is two and a half hours south (at 80 to 90 mph) and Hamburg is four hours north.  And the IoM??? - thirty miles total end-to-end.

If the driving test was replaced by a combined common-sense and psychological test, there would be far fewer accidents.

The idea of "personal freedom" and "personal responsibility" is meaningless. The people who travel at high speeds are demonstrating that they do feel responsible for the safety of other people. No-one has unlimited freedom. A person's freedom is always limited by the rules of the society and the laws of the country they live in.

You cannot avoid the reality that the IoM is the only country in the known universe that does not have speed limits on all 2-way roads. Anyone who thinks that the IoM way is the best way, is putting themselves into the same position as people in lunatic asylums who believe they are sane but the rest of the world is insane. That may seem an extreme statement, but that is reality. At some time in the past all countries had no speed limits. Over time they all imposed speed limits, and for  a reason - with the exception of the IoM.

And this post is a waste of time. Those who understand the problem do not need it to be explained to them. Those who do not understand, never will understand. In every country there are people who believe there should be no speed limits, or no gun restrictions or no drug restrictions. Governments think differently. In terms of speed limits, the IoM gov. stands alone.

[HeliX]

1 hour ago, Two-lane said:

The obsession with some on the Isle of Man with being permitted to drive at high speeds is an indication of a psychological problem, rather than a problem with the necessity to get somewhere in a reasonable time. I lived in Frankfurt where Basel is two and a half hours south (at 80 to 90 mph) and Hamburg is four hours north.

Not wanting unnecessary regulation is hardly an obsession

There's no necessity to go over 30mph on the Isle of Man.

1 hour ago, Two-lane said:

The idea of "personal freedom" and "personal responsibility" is meaningless. The people who travel at high speeds are demonstrating that they do feel responsible for the safety of other people. No-one has unlimited freedom. A person's freedom is always limited by the rules of the society and the laws of the country they live in.

I've mentioned it previously in the thread, but I'd much prefer if the traffic coming towards me was composed of people who enjoy driving, in decent condition cars with good tyres doing 80-90mph than being composed of distracted drivers who couldn't care less on ditchfinder tyres doing 50-60mph.

1 hour ago, Two-lane said:

At some time in the past all countries had no speed limits. Over time they all imposed speed limits, and for  a reason - with the exception of the IoM.

Out of curiosity, what speed limit would you impose as a national?

[Derek Flint]

21 hours ago, HeliX said:

Electronic limitation really doesn't sit easily with me. There's talk of it being overrideable if it is brought in, but that adds problems too. If you have to crack the throttle all the way open to override it, you don't have a lot of say in how hard you accelerate when it does happen...

I don't think there's particularly strong evidence to support the notion that an all-island speed limit would reduce accidents in a meaningful way. Dangerous/reckless/careless driving are all already offences. Of the crashes that happen on the mountain, what percentage are above 60mph? What percentage of those would've been prevented by a speed limit?

Perhaps it's because the granular details aren't really released to the public, and perhaps (almost certainly) you're operating with more information than I have, but I don't think introducing a national speed limit would make any real difference. It can also only possibly affect crashes which occur in excess of 60mph, in national speed limit zones, which is already a fairly serious limit to the scope of benefit.

Better training, heavier penalties for willful distracted driving (i.e. phone use) and more work on vehicle maintenance requirements would reduce accidents across the board, and I'm willing to bet by a more impressive percentage.

As I’ve said before, I’m an advocate of properly risk assessed, maximum speed for the route limits, those being not in excess of what is known as the design speed. That is a grown up approach to the safer speeds element of safe system. If you want higher speeds, engineer them to be suitable for such use, and in such a way as the consequences of a high speed crash won’t result in death or serious injury. That is the ‘safer roads’ bit

Training makes for safer people, another component , and the manufacturers are all working on making their cars safer. 

It all has to work together. You can’t just opt out of bits.

[Apple]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-55319033

 

...and he was only in a rush to get home. Tragic.

[Derek Flint]

Absolutely flying eh?

80 miles per hour.?

that is also a shit sentence

[Non-Believer]

He should have been jailed for doing 80 in a Defender, let alone the crash...

[wrighty]

11 minutes ago, Derek Flint said:

Absolutely flying eh?

80 miles per hour.?

that is also a shit sentence

How long would you have given him Derek?

[HeliX]

3 hours ago, Derek Flint said:

As I’ve said before, I’m an advocate of properly risk assessed, maximum speed for the route limits, those being not in excess of what is known as the design speed. That is a grown up approach to the safer speeds element of safe system. If you want higher speeds, engineer them to be suitable for such use, and in such a way as the consequences of a high speed crash won’t result in death or serious injury. That is the ‘safer roads’ bit

Training makes for safer people, another component , and the manufacturers are all working on making their cars safer. 

It all has to work together. You can’t just opt out of bits.

The question is how do you properly assess that though? And in a way that works for all vehicles, and doesn't result in very very low limits? There's a certain tolerance for accidents (in terms of what the public is willing to put up with) - and all of the variables are ever-changing. Cars are safer than ever, tyres are better than ever, brakes are better than ever. Those factors under a risk assessed scheme would lead to increases in speed limits vs what we had 30-40 years ago, no? Unless our appetite for risk is also decreasing.

Better trained drivers are better equipped to make the risk assessments themselves - which is important.

Take the Ballakeighan as an example, in good weather, off-peak hours I would argue in a modern car you can safely do triple digit speeds there. The hedges are low enough to check there's no tractors nor animals, it's long enough that you can safely accelerate and decelerate from considerable speeds if something were to come around the corner at the end (I'm not a believer in putting other road users at risk). I wonder if you would come to a similar conclusion? Obviously that wouldn't work for a speed limit, because there are also times where a quick personal risk assessment would come out with 40-50mph as an acceptable speed for the same piece of road.

1 hour ago, Derek Flint said:

Absolutely flying eh?

80 miles per hour.?

that is also a shit sentence

"almost" 80mph according to the report. So 79 or less I guess. Tragic, but a bit of a strange link to post in a thread about potentially applying an island speed limit to the Isle of Man. The crash occurred in a 60mph zone.

[Derek Flint]

1 hour ago, wrighty said:

How long would you have given him Derek?

The max penalty is 14 years. But it is never, ever seen. 

You, like me, will have sat with a family after you’ve tried to do everything you can to save them after catastrophic high speed injuries from a collision, which was likely wholly and completely avoidable.

How do you begin to put a price on that?

https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/crown-court/item/causing-death-by-dangerous-driving/

[wrighty]

11 minutes ago, Derek Flint said:

The max penalty is 14 years. But it is never, ever seen. 

You, like me, will have sat with a family after you’ve tried to do everything you can to save them after catastrophic high speed injuries from a collision, which was likely wholly and completely avoidable.

How do you begin to put a price on that?

https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/crown-court/item/causing-death-by-dangerous-driving/

You can’t put a price on it. 
A friend of mine killed a cyclist. He was blinded by the sun. Most of us thought “there but for the grace of god...”. The guy was still dead though, despite the lack of intent, or even misadventure, on the part of my mate. 
Should a sentence for killing someone on the road be proportionate to the degree of idiocy of the errant driver? My friend at the one end, with a 1 year ban (I think) up to 14 years for a grand theft auto style 160mph rampage with multiple fatalities?

I don’t know what the answer is. 4.5 years for this guy seems reasonable. Longer won’t bring back the little girl, and whatever the sentence he’s still got to live with the guilt and his life is basically ruined.