Nick Graves

Police people generally tend to be pretty pragmatic - it's rare to find a fundamentalist.

Of course, where it goes wrong is the situation one gets with 20mph zones. There is a lot of statistical evidence to suggest they have increased RTAs. They were invoked on gut feeling, but for reasons not fully understood had the opposite result of what was intended.

Some local authorities would like to revert to 30, but blew the budget on the 20mph signs...

The likes of J J Leeming and the TRRL have done a lot of sterling work on the true causes of accidents and as a result, road safety has massively improved over the decades. Not to forget the car designers, et al who are also worthy of praise.

lovegroova

Indeed.

The case of the Bath 20mph zones is interesting. In some zones (7 of 13), KSIs went up, and in the others it went down/stayed the same.

The "20's Plenty" crew have refuted the report's findings: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/l...h-zones-954096 and do make some good points - most significantly that the data in the report was from one year and thus not entirely sufficient.

Reducing mobile phone usage whilst walking/riding/driving would probably improve things even more.

Nottm_S2

this. I regularly see cars wandering lanes, sometimes towards oncoming traffic.. almost always shuffling a phone

The sentences for that ought to be significant fines imho, there's little preventative benefit in the device grassing you up after you've run into the other car

gaddafi

I recently narrowly avoided the schoolboy error of ramming someone from behind at a roundabout

Having avoided it, and as it was a two lane approach, I decided to go around the hesitator, only to see the daft bint peering into her phone

Incredibly annoying

mtunreal

I understand all the argument for and against here, especially with speed, ability, breaking the law etc.

Something that's interesting that no one here has yet touched on is the attentiveness of the driver. If you are on a spirited drive and running outside the posted limits, I imagine you are watching every little detail of the road carefully. In this condition you are prepared and very alert for potential problems. An issue we have probably all encountered is that person trundling along under the speed limit. Typically their attention is slack and reaction times are significantly increased. So.... for a given situation whats better? Old betty doing 10 under and nails an accident full tilt, or Mansell doing 10 over and being prepared to avoid one?

richmc

I remember reading an insurance report on who had accidents at various speeds and road types, from what I remember there were much fewer motorway/dual carriageway accidents than there were urban accidents. The motorway accidents were individually higher cost accidents than the urban accidents as expected. But the urban accidents when totalled cost the insurers something like ten times more than the motorway mishaps these had a higher proportion of total loss claims. The motorway accidents happened during a time span of 6.00am to 8.00pm, the urban accidents between 8.00am till 9.30am and 2.30pm and 4.00pm, with not much in between. It did go on to describe the nature of the drivers in more detail, but I bet you can guess the rest.

Now what does that say to you?

richmc

Trouble with old Betty is she is totally unaware of the string of frustrated drivers behind her who will sooner or later attempt to overtake, whether or not it's safe to do so. Poor old Betty never had an accident but seen loads.

gaddafi

We don't need ridiculous examples of 10mph drivers.

I live in the SE in an area where there are very high numbers of elderly drivers. I cannot remember ever seeing one 'trundling around at 10mph'. That sort of pace is the preserve of YOUNG learners whose instructors like the quiet roads.

What does happen is that the elderly tend to observe speed limits. They also drive in a more leisurely fashion, clearly not motivated to win races between traffic lights, gain places like driving is a race, etc.

It's THAT which seems to 'frustrate' drivers behind these elderly drivers.

Since said drivers seem to get frustrated behind learners observing the speed limit I don't think the age of the driver is in any way relevant.

mtunreal

10/10 for observation dude. Its 10 over or under, not driving at 10 mph. See how easy it is to miss something right in front of you.

gaddafi

Cool. How's this?

We don't need ridiculous examples of 10mph below the limit drivers.

I live in the SE in an area where there are very high numbers of elderly drivers. I cannot remember ever seeing one 'trundling around at 10mph under the limit'. That sort of pace is the preserve of YOUNG learners whose instructors like the quiet roads.

What does happen is that the elderly tend to observe speed limits. They also drive in a more leisurely fashion, clearly not motivated to win races between traffic lights, gain places like driving is a race, etc.

It's THAT which seems to 'frustrate' drivers behind these elderly drivers.

Since said drivers seem to get frustrated behind learners observing the speed limit I don't think the age of the driver is in any way relevant.