Zoom!

[andrewducker]

From the observation last night in conversation with Lilian that people complain about speed cameras all the time, but you rarely hear anyone saying that the actual limit should be raised.

Note for for'n types - speeds are in MPH.

[Poll #1257772]

Comments

[drplokta]

We should increase speed limits on urban trunk roads to 40, and reduce them on urban non-A-roads to 20. That will slow down traffic on most urban roads, while probably having little effect on journey times.

And we should enforce the law. It brings the law into disrepute to have laws on the books that are not enforced. If you don't think you should get a ticket when you are speeding, you should call for speed limits to be abolished, not for speed cameras to be abolished.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I'd really like to see dynamic speed-limits. We already have them variable by road, (and in some very few cases by time of day, I think?); there's easily the technology to have them variable by visibility, rain, traffic levels, pedestrian count, and so on. It'd mean that drivers would have to pay a bit more attention, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[andrewducker]

Definitely agree with the latter sentiment.

She former sounds sensible, but I'll need to think about it more. Certainly, the bendy backstreets should be 20-mph, but there are non-A-roads that are intermediate cases. Hmm.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I was discussing this with someone recently - ways of doing it, reducing speed limits in fog/rain, raising it on good days - we worked out that in addition to the regularly stationed sensors they would also need to be networked with each other, since it's important that when it's foggy you're already at a lower speed, so the limit you see needs to be correct for the sensors in the road ahead, not where you are, and...

...well, and so on, and so forth. But I'd love to see it happen - while there are days and roads where 80mph or even more is perfectly reasonable there are also days when even the present 70 is suicidal.

On the camera note, what irritates me is not speed cameras, but speed traps - situations designed to catch people speeding rather than discourage them immediately from doing so - police waiting behind the rises of hills to catch folk etc. The idea of having targets is also abhorrent for the same reason - if you have to meet a quota, you need people to keep breaking the law; it's ridiculous.

The new "average speed" cameras are good I think - the best idea I can think of with the current tech on the roads is to have a beg, well-marked, shiny/blinky/huge lettered "START OF AVERAGE SPEED CAMERA ZONE"... and then hide the end of it, and not mark it at all, and the only way you know you've been out of the zone is when you see that the next one has started...

[drplokta]

There's a problem with average speed cameras on roads other than motorways, which is that to prove an offence was committed, you don't just have to prove that the vehicle passed point X at time A and point Y at time B, but also that the entire journey between X and Y happened on the public roads, and that the route on which you base the average speed is the shortest route between X and Y. These are difficult things to prove for most roads.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

What about having a 'spy in your car' that is a GPS system that records your location. Rather than in the nightmare scenario where this info is wirelessly transmitted to MI5/6 all the time, it could only be required to be produced (needing to be done physically) at the time an offense was suspected of being committed?

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

I think the current limit of 30mph is slow enough from a survivability POV - what advantages does lowering it have other than increasing motorists' blood pressure?

[matgb]

I don't think there should be a set speed limit for motorways and each should be approached on a case-by-case basis, but that many roads would benefit from no upper limit if it's safe.

You could also increase penalties for causing accidents by dangerous driving, and include excessive speed in that even if there's no limit, no limit should be "use your judgement" not "go as fast as you like".

I concur though, people whinging about cameras really annoy me, get the speed limit changed you fool.

Of course, it'd also really help if we had a compulsory motorway driving skills element to the licence, and civility and getting out of the way were taught, driving in Germany on two-lane autobahns is normally easier than t3+ lane motorways over here.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wouldn't propose them anywhere other than on long stretches of motorway. And an appeal system is already in place for just such misunderstandings if they happened even then.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

Whoever thought the motorway speed limits should be 60 has clearly never driven on a motorway.

Personally I dont think general road speed limits need to be raised, but I think the policy of changing roads from 60 to 40 or from 40 to 30 for no reason needs to be stopped and reversed. I also think that using road narrowing instead of speed bumps is utterly stupid - they CAUSE accidents. Speedbumps at least have the amusing side effect of breaking the front spoilers on chavs cars.

[red-phil.livejournal.com]

how big is this unit?
where on my motorbike do I put it?
who pays for it?

[dreema.livejournal.com]

I object to speed cameras that are put in place purely to raise revenue, quite often they're in the middle of nowhere on a straight bit of road that could possibly be the only safe place to overtake on that road for miles. People end up fustrated stuck behind slower moving traffic, and hence are more likely to take risks when overtaking.

Raising speed limits should be taken with a pinch of salt - not all conditions/roads warrant travelling at maximum permitted speed - example on skye where there are derestricted areas of road, but due to bends and blind crests of hills, you'd be insane to do more than about 40.

Motorways, again, take into account traffic conditions - I've driven up the m74 numerous times and been the only car for miles, having an increased speed limit in cases like that makes sense. In france we noticed that the motorways over there have two max speed limits, one for good weather (130kph) and a lesser one (110kph i think) for adverse conditions, again, makes sense.

What I'd also like to see are minimum speed limits - doing 40mph on a motorway is tantamount to suicide, it's almost as dangerous as driving in excess of the speed limit. And trucks, when they decide to overtake each other going up a hill on a dual carriageway...

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how big it'd need to be, probably not very big at all. I'm not thinking big Tom Tom like device with a huge LCD screen, I'm talking a few chips (for the GPS / CPU / flash) and a built in aerial. We're talking watch size here, nothing bigger.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to introduce it as a phased in thing, where all new vehicles have to have such a device equipped. Or alternatively you bit the bullet and say that everyone has to have such a device installed by 20XX.

One way or another we pay for it. That's how all such things work.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Linky

The evidence of increased pedestrian safety at 20 mph is strong. The chance of a pedestrian being seriously injured or killed if struck by a car is 45% if the car is travelling at 30 mph but only 5% at 20 mph. Government research showed that 20 mph zones reduced the incidence of traffic accidents by 60% and cut child pedestrian and child cyclist accidents by 67%, while overall vehicle speeds fell by an average 9.3 mph (14.9 kph). There was no evidence that accidents increased on surrounding roads. Research by local councils produces similar results. For example, Havant Borough Council has imposed a 20 mph limit on 20 miles of road and has seen traffic accident casualties drop by a significant 40%.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

How much of that was due to traffic finding alternative routes to avoid the stupidly low 20 mph?

[chuma.livejournal.com]

I agree on all points. Nicely put.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Gosh, it's a good thing that traffic was just the good drivers who never have accidents, eh?

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

The problem is one deeper than just speeding, it's an inherent problem of law. Law is a binary function over an anlogue system. The actual safe driving speed for any piece of road varies wildly with the specific context of time, weather conditions, traffic, time of day, driver condition, car condition and so on. A sober driver, at 3am, on a clear dry night, on a motorway, driving a modern car at 120mph, with a couple of training courses under their belt is likely to be safer than a driver just under the drink drive limit, in heavy traffic, on a rainy day, driving at 50mph, just after passing their test.

The difference between the two situations has to be the judgement of whoever it is enforcing the laws (either the police who decide whether or not to arrest you, the prosecutor deciding whether or not to take the case to court or the judge deciding whether or not you're guilty). This is the reason I object to traffic cameras. They have no opinions and neither do the people that process the photos and send out the fines. It's also why I object to the police having quotas for tickets. It wholly removes the reason for the laws in the first place: to make the roads safer.

[cdave]

That's what I was going to say.

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

Woah Polls with stats...

Salivates...

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

Pavlov interfered with my natural response to anything number based when I was a young un...

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

Us Northen types have 20mph limits around all our schools.

However one worrying knock on effect is that kids seem to have less road sense. Although I couldn't empirically prove that and it is just based on my opinion of just picking up my Dad from work. (kids everywhere)

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

I'm a boring driver. I like not dying horrible fiery vehicular death.

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

Road narrowing was one of the measures mentioned in a well publicised traffic psychology (or such) paper. No road markings was also something that was found to decrease traffic.

Unfortunatly one of the major reccomendations (or worries rather) of the report was that if this information was in the public domain. I.E. the public were aware they were being duped the traffic calming measures that worked previously would cease to be as effective.

Well done the Dept. of transport for publicising the reports findings then. (although I can't remember what its called I remember being quite amused at the time)

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

I love your icon.