Two examples from me, would be interested to hear comments:
(1) Was driving through some roadworks (or rather, cones - there didn't seem to be any work going on) on the A46 (I think) near Coventry on a Saturday or Sunday. A dual carriageway with both lanes at their normal width. Road was more-or-less empty, but I was staying close to the temporary speed limit (4). In my rear view mirror I see two cars approaching, one in each lane, parallel to one another, probably doing at least 70 (the normal limit). Clearly the one on the inside lane did not anticipate the differential between our speeds, because I watched him brake sharply, flash me go past behind the other car, then gesture rudely at me as he cut back in. Clearly he was technically in the wrong, but would it have been safer for me to have been going at, say, 50 or 60 on a clear road which, as far as I can tell, was empty of workers on a weekend? (Ironically, I caught both cars up a few miles later at traffic lights on the A45.)
(2) Heading north on a deserted M1, around midnight on my way home to Derby from London. It had been a long day, and driving at 70 was exhausting. While not drowsy, I felt that I risked this if I carried on at the same speed. Wanting to get home, I sped up to 90, a much more stimulating speed, and the fatigue soon lifted. Of course, the ideal thing to do would have been to take a 30-minute nap at the next services (and had I been seriously at risk of falling asleep I would of course have done this!), but with only 30-odd miles to go, and with a sleeping family in the car, I did not want to wake everyone up, and preferred to get home quickly and safely. I'm also not convinced I'd have been any more awake for a power nap. In the circumstances, 90 seemed safer than a monotonous 70 on a straight, empty road.
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For those who like to make progress, the minefield of newly-imposed (and often absurdly low) speed limits, as well as these temporary ones where there are cones and/or workers, and the proliferating cameras which are only sometimes in places where speeding is likely to be dangerous, make driving a more fraught experience than it used to be.
Generally speaking I take my cue from traffic easily identified as regular or local traffic on that road. If you are doing 90 on a motorway along with most other car drivers, and most of them suddenly back off to 70, it's a good idea to follow suit. The chances are that they know something you don't, perhaps something really simple like a camera just round the next bend.
Unsatisfactory though all of this is - of course it would be far more comfortable just to go at your own speed without having to worry about these distractions which are essentially unconnected with the job in hand and really just put there to annoy you and mess you around - it has generally preserved me from speeding charges. Perhaps I have been lucky.
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gpmartin,
I mostly agree with what you're saying in your post and consider it to be a matter of common sense. I do however have a sense of impending doom, in that I suspect a great weight is about to be unleashed in your direction, from those people who have succumbed to the overly simplistic 'Speed Kills' propoganda. Good Luck.
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Well I'll be genuinely interested to see what people think! Incidentally, as you may have guessed, the temporary speed limit in my first example was 40, not 4, mph...
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It's almost a philosophical argument.
If I travel from A to B at the posted limit plus 10% I pass through village C at, say, 10.00 am.
If I travel at the posted speed I'm in the village at the precise second a few minutes later when a little kid runs out of his garden after his ball and straight under the car, instead of a mile and a half down the road beyond him. There's a bus stopped across the road and nothing I can do in the time but brake hard.
Accidents are a funny combination of circumstance and ill luck. The faster you're going, the worse the consequence of any accident is going to be.
But what's fast also relates to skill, to some extent at least, so speeding for me and for someone else are different things.
I like driving quickly. I dislike driving slowly. But I can't see that speeding can really be safer because no-one intends to have an accident and it's the sod's law bit that gets you every time.
Edited by Optimist on 01/06/2008 at 19:15
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I was almost going to make the same point as optimist, but he beat me to it.
Also, the faster you go the less time you spend on the road, so maybe less chance of meeting with an accident - OK, if there is one, it may be worse
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Really the answer to the question in the thread title is:
No, except in freak circumstances, but it can be just as safe, or as near as makes no difference. Lethally dangerous drivers are just as often very slow as very fast. Carp driving is carp driving, and speed has nothing to do with it.
It may be annoying being forced to mimse by the weight of mimser traffic. But look at it the other way round: if nature's mimsers were pressured into going fast there would be mayhem (although a few of them might survive long enough to improve, and get to like it).
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SFAIK, there is no data to back your anti-mimser stance. Only a rather feeble wish that it were true. Lethally dangerous drivers tend to be male, and under 30. Not known for slow driving.
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Lethally dangerous drivers tend to be male and under 30. Not known for slow driving.
Don't doubt it really nortones, the nipper angle I mean, but I'd still like to see a total breakdown. I would think a crazed teenager and awful mimser often come together to bad effect. And by the way, youngsters are often heavy-footed and reckless but seldom really fast. They aren't the same thing although it has to be admitted they intersect.
One can loathe and despise mimsers by the way without thinking they are responsible for the majority of road crashes. Perhaps their mere presence makes things more fraught for everyone else, and after the disaster they can sneak quietly off telling themselves it was nothing to do with them.
In my opinion it is to do with them far more often than people realise, or are clear enough to be able to say. After all the surroundings have a lot to do with traffic accidents, but those not involved make themselves scarce thinking: nothing to do with me.
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Re Luds comments. Mimsers are annoying, it is very true. Mostly because the mimsing seems to come with a stiff-necked, eyes-front attitude. Unaware or uncaring about the impact of tootling on others, which is a good point you made. I suppose experience and a quickish car helps to chill a bit until the next clot along:)
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Cars don't kill people, people do.
Is someone who has a gun but keeps it permanently holstered as dangerous as someone who waves it around?
Excessive speeding shows a total lack of respect for the safety of others.
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Cars don't kill people, people do. Excessive speeding shows a total lack of respect for the safety of others.
Correct. However, speed itself doesn't kill. Moronic lack of thought kills. Inattention kills. Impact kills. Bad driving kills. Careless pedestrians get killed. But speed itself doesn't kill.
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>> Excessive speeding shows a total lack of respect for the safety of others.
If the statement was 'excessive speeding in some circumstances....etc' i'd agree with it. As it is the statement is too simplistic by far. 90mph down an empty m/way is not inherently dangerous or lacking in respect of others. 25 mph in the wet past a school on a school day, at certain times, could well be.
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Excessive speeding not within braking/rolling/flipping fireball distance* of innocent parties shows a total lack of respect for the safety and/or lives of others?
Probably more accurate but a bit of a mouthful.
*Which looking at this thread nobody can accurately agree on, let alone calculate when you're getting the big "I am" adrenaline rush.
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Glacier,
Sorry to be a pedant, but if you're doing 60mph up a near empty, dry, m/way in good daylight and someone else passes you at 80mph...i don't see that as being necessarily dangerous.
There are plenty of situations when it could easily be though.
Which is why it is overy simplistic to say 'speeding is dangerous'. Some is, some isn't.
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Some posters also seem to fetishise the question of speed differentials. Of course we all know that two cars going in the same direction at the same speed can't collide, and that without a speed differential there can be no collision (or need for sudden, clumsy, uncontrolled evasive action).
That apart though, speed differentials are inevitable as some vehicles are limited as to cruising speed and some aren't. The important thing is that they should be managed sensibly. So if you are really blasting along and you see someone mimsing up ahead, it's not a bad idea to flash main beams and perhaps even give a toot on the piercing air horn you will have had fitted, so that at least the rigid, deaf tootler ahead will have some idea you are coming and drive accordingly.
I can't avoid the suspicion though that some people here think the dangerous speed differential is always caused by the driver doing 80 or 90, not the mimser pootling along at 45 or 50. And I can't avoid the suspicion that it annoys some people here to be overtaken, especially if they think they are driving at the safe limit. Certainly there are people like that out on the roads, and very lethal they can be too.
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If the statement was 'excessive speeding in some circumstances....etc' i'd agree with it.
Actually Westpig (and this happens very infrequently) I disagree with you here. But it's entirely a matter of semantics.
The statement "Excessive speeding is dangerous" is perfectly true in my opinion.
Were the word excessive missing, then I would have an issue with it.
Of course, the definition of what is excessive becomes very complicated.
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The statement "Excessive speeding is dangerous" is perfectly true in my opinion. Were the word excessive missing then I would have an issue with it.
harrumph...having analysed it most carefully I regretfully have to state you're absolutely correct
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Thanks for the replies, folks.
I think gpmartin has caught the gist of what I mean- my general question is: is there ever a set of emerging circumstances on the road where is it ever safer to speed up, as opposed to slowing down.
For those who think that I'm having a go at fast driving: I'm not, and I'm sorry if you got that impression. Where appropriate, I know what my right foot is for.
Interesting instances gp, I hadn't considered those. Food for thought. In the second example you cite, in which I've been myself, surely though its just more expedient to speed, not actually safer?
theterranaut
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More expedient to speed than to find the next services, park the car and take a 20-minute kip; safer, I'm convinced, than to carry on at 70mph, which on that road at that time of night involved little more than resting foot on throttle and occasionally turning the steering wheel very gently. Which is quite soporific!
Having said that, though, I wonder if perhaps it was also safer than stopping. I'm not convinced that a power nap would have done me any good at that time of night, when I was ready for a proper sleep. A brisker pace was enough to 'blow away the cobwebs' and concentrate the mind, where a nap would, I think, just have left me dazed.
In traffic, I suspect as you say that more speed is unlikely to help - even if it doesn't actively hinder, it will mean that if there is an accident, the consequences will be worse, as other people have pointed out. But I think that in certain conditions, it's probably preferable.
A third example which has just occurred to me: when overtaking on a single-carriageway road, I generally attempt to get around the other vehicle as quickly as possible, rather than paying attention to my speedometer, and this means I exceed 60 on occasion. It's probably moot whether or not this is safer than the alternative, and clearly a lot will depend on the particular circumstances. I think, though, that in some countries (France?), it is legal to exceed the speed limit when overtaking (on single-carriageway roads).
Graham
Edited by gpmartin on 01/06/2008 at 23:40
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As GPM has amply demonstrated, it depends on the particular road situation. There are times to accelerate out of trouble, times to slow down or stop. Examples like the ones given are very helpful, but only for similar situations. A second or two's change of positions and the right answer could be quite different.
Isn't the ever-changing demand on our skills what makes driving interesting?
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Isn't the ever-changing demand on our skills what makes driving interesting?
That's the problem. Some people don't see it as a skill and that there are ever changing scenarios. To the uninitiated it's a simple task, maybe boring, put the radio on to keep you occupied, yap to passnegers, look at things out of the windows.
How about properly concentrating on the task, constantly assessing the hazards, changing your driving patterns to suit the conditions, rather than blindly charging along as you always do.
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safer I'm convinced than to carry on at 70mph which on that road at that time of night involved little more than resting foot on throttle and occasionally turning the steering wheel very gently. Which is quite soporific!
But surely at 90mph on a quiet motorway you are doing nothing more than resting foot on throttle and occasionally moving the wheel?
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Yes, but things are going past more quickly requiring greater concentration, you get to overtake more vehicles, and so it is altogether more stimulating. Driving at 70mph in those conditions is mind-numbingly easy; a little faster just focuses the mind a bit more.
Edited by gpmartin on 02/06/2008 at 08:29
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If the motorway was as empty as said then I doubt there'd be much of a difference between 70 and 90, other than the reduction of time before you crash when you doze off...
Many years ago I came across an accident where a lorry had driven over a minibus parked up on the hard shoulder and killed 7 people when the lorry driver had dozed off - not a pretty sight! You may think that you are more allert at 90 than 70, but on a quiet motorway I doubt it... perhaps someone with medical background could clarify?
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I am most definitely more aware and alert at faster speeds, no shadow of a doubt. It is some of what Safespeed's Paul Smith was advocating.
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I am most definitely more aware and alert at faster speeds no shadow of a doubt.
You might be initially, but I suspect that soon wears off - if you were "dropping off" before, then speeding up will only stimulate the adrenelin for a short time, then you'll be back to where you were before - same effect as opening a window or drinking coffee - they are all short term fixes... that's what I suspect, unless you have medical proof to say otherwise?
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... that's what I suspect unless you have medical proof to say otherwise?
I don't have medical proof (but there's some compelling arguements on Safespeed.org, have you read that site?)...however i have lived for over 27 years in our capital, with relatives many hundreds of miles away and am used to regularly travelling long distances, often either overnight or non peak hours.
I have also been blessed with being taught to drive to a very high level, a standard that allows you to be most aware of your surroundings and greatly increases your hazard perception.
I have found that with the increase in speed, obviously the hazards or potential hazards are likely to come at you quicker, so you have to concentrate more. It's the concentration levels versus boredom that do it. Obviously eventually anyone could get tired and you should deal with that sensibly, but i've found that tootling along leaves me mind numbingly bored and my mind wanders.... nipping along my concentration is well up and can last for quite some time. I can travel many hundreds of miles without losing concentration at all. How many times have you seen cars on the motorway with a number of occupants yapping away, oblivious to the world, not the slightest clue to what's happening around them, inc the driver...yet they might well be travelling at 60 or 70 mph and consider themselves 'safe'. Safe my foot.
read the Safespeed site, when I first did a load of things clicked into place.
p.s. even on a 520 mile hike to Scotland (next one at the end of the month) I NEVER have the radio on; the climate will be switched down a bit ('er indoors packs a blanket); the windows will be spotless inside and out; SWMBO won't yap to me when i have to concentrate properly.. and having taught her some of the hazard perception techniques, she joins in, as after all, no one is perfect...
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Not everyone is like that though Westpig. I too can maintain concentration at the wheel for many hours, although probably not as many as twenty years ago. I'm afraid though that this is because we like driving and maintain a continuous, conscious, internal discourse about what is going on around us. We are actually interested in our surroundings and understand that changes in the surroundings are important in highly specific ways.
But quite a lot of drivers aren't like that at all. In a sense, they are incapable of concentrating in the same way as you. Their grasp on what is happening is weaker and much more haphazard than yours. Perhaps the entire activity is a bit boring for them, and at the same time a bit frightening, because events you (or even I) might anticipate come as much more of a surprise to them. So they may be doing the right thing by staying at or below the limit: as I suggested elsewhere, if mimsers were pressured into going fast they might well be more dangerous than you are when forced to go slowly.
I don't always keep my windows, mirrors etc. spotless though. Too idle for that. But it does give my car that authentic invisible sink-estate look. If you ever pull me for looking like a toerag, I'll forgive you...
:o}
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Oh, and I have radio 4 on quite a lot of the time, or the occasional tape when those rural types come on. I also do a fair amount of rabbiting even when unaccompanied (bit worrying that). But I seem to be capable of shutting out all irrelevant stimuli when extra concentration is called for, so I don't even hear what is said to me. Sometimes have to apologise and ask someone politely to say it again when things have returned to normal and my highly- developed autopilot has been switched back on.
I suspect you may disapprove of some of this, but it does take all sorts after all...
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Perhaps I wasn't very clear - if someone is already tired and losing concentration then I suspect that speeding up will only give a temporary fix for the majority - stopping and having a nap is a better and safer solution... ?
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