Posted By Brett Day
J Knight, I can see where you are coming from but as pointed out inappropriate speed (either excessively high or low) is dangerous. NOT speed per se. Also when I refer to education I am also referring to the Speed Kills campaign, television, radio and press road safety campaigns designed to inform and educate drivers.

The one third statistic comes from a study for the DfT by the Transport Research Establishment called TRL 323 it looked at accident causes and how they were recorded using the STATS 19 form that police use when attending RTA’s (Sorry but was taught RTA, so am sticking with what I am familiar with for now, saves confusion on my part).

This report actually had two sets of statistics that were combined to make the one-third statistic; unfortunately it did not differentiate between speeding (i.e. above the speed limit) and speed (i.e. legal but inappropriate for the road weather and traffic conditions).


This was picked up by Hampshire County Council who conducted their own survey and asked traffic officers to complete an amended version of the STATS 19 form, the results were quite surprising:

Driver Error: 65.6%
Excessive Speed: 1.4%
Driver Impairment: 4.8%
Action of pedestrians: 1.8%
Road Conditions: 3.7%
Vehicle Defects: 1.3%
Weather Conditions: 4.4%
Other: 7.0%


Of the Excessive Speed category these broke down thus:


A. Under the speed limit (but inappropriate for road, weather & traffic conditions): 67%
B. Over the speed limit, lawful (i.e. not committing any other offence) and affected by enforcement: 8%
C. Over the limit, lawful by unaffected by enforcement (i.e. Emergency services vehicles): 8%
D. Over the limit and lawless (i.e. committing an additional offence, theft car theft etc..): 17%.


Not very catchy or good for a sound bite but very telling, two thirds of all UK road accidents are caused by driver error!!


Yet despite this in the first two years of setting up camera partnerships we only spent 10% of the road safety budget on driver education, about 70% was spent on speed enforcement and even less has been spent on occupational driving (company car drivers).


Stationary vehicles DO cause accidents, poorly parked, drivers that open doors into traffic and the like, we should not get bogged down and assume that speed is the cause of bad driving it is a symptom and yes it can increase the severity of the outcome, but it is not the end all and be all and emotive adverts do not help in the long term.


I was taught at on my Police Class 1 that you should drive at a speed that enables you to stop in a controlled manner on your side of the road in the distance that you could see to be clear. Prior to that I was taught by the IAM the same but with the following addition “…except where other limitations apply (i.e. speed limits)".

Following the above you will always be driving at the appropriate speed, irrespective of speed limits, there are times when I drive at the limit, and other times when I am driving at less than half the posted limit. I am assessing the road, weather and traffic conditions as I drive.


With regards your question ”What’s wrong with emphasising speed?” When anything is over emphasised or made overly important, other things such as observation receive LESS attention.

We now have drivers who when questioned by the police are convinced, despite causing an accident that there were safe as they under the speed limit, we have drivers trying to merge with motorway traffic whilst running at 35-40mph, they often run out of slip road or cut in at the last minute forcing other drivers to take avoiding action. We have drivers that drive at half the posted limit on single carriageway roads (NSL 60mph for cars) on good clear dry conditions causing tailbacks and encouraging road rage and poor/dangerous overtaking.

Taking this to it’s extreme we now have ‘Pace Car’ schemes popping up over the country where drivers are encouraged to put a pace car sticker in the rear screen, drive at a speed within the limit that they feel is safe and effectively act as a rolling road block.

Given that most car insurance policies specifically exclude cover for motor sports, pace setting, pace making and pace car duties, our over emphasis on speed has now led to an official scheme that potentially is inciting a driver to commit an offence (driving whilst without insurance), likewise it is also potentially an offence under s3 of the Road Traffic Act.


For what it’s worth I passed my test in 2000, things that I learnt two years after passing my test were:

POWER checks

IPSGAR

Anybody fancy a crack at these??

Yet the IAM and Police consider these to be the basics.

By the way I am not in any way, shape or form advocating speeding just safe, sensible driving.

Posted By IT
I agree that there is a need to improve the skill base for Drivers ,but can not accept that the Bad Driver issues raised throughout this discussion is as a result of poor training or hazard recognition, May I suggest that it is infact due to LACK OF ENFORCEMENT we all see it on the roads, it is a conscious decision by a driver who holds the same license as we do (different endorsements )to undercut,force,bully or threaten other motorists because they don't want to wait or need to be 2 cars in front.


Another example yesterday ,car pulls out of middle lane drives at speed down the inside lane and then sees a gap in front and in he went ,causing the car behind to emergency brake ,some pleasantries exchanged and the guy laughs at the person behind him, then proceeds to do the same for about 1 mile ,causing people to brake so he could merge and all this time laughing at the other drivers ,DOES HE need retraining ???? Or to become a pedestrian for a couple of years???

Look toward the cause of the incidents/accidents as you would any industrial accident and then apply corrective measures ,I see plenty of advice about reporting Mangers to the HSE or Local EHS etc.

Posted By Brett Day

John, whilst speed is a factor, we should look at the cause, for example driving a car is a factor in road accidents. Should we then be restrictiong cars ?? I think not.

In safety we are required to provide necessary, information, instruction, training and supervision.

Apply that to the road safety

we do not adequately train our drivers - as an example as a learner you are not allowed to drive on the motorway, you can (especially if you live in central London) have learnt to drive and have taken your test without ever doing any fast road/dual carraigeway driving yet the day after passing your test you can freely drive on the motorway - does that make any sense ??

Supervision, as IT points out and I whole heartedly agree our traffic divisions have been slowly been whittled away since the introduction of speed cameras - they detect speed and little else. But a Traffic Officer will ALSO detect drunk, drugged, aggressive and the sort of driver that IT described above.

Durham is the only county without a camera partnership they still adhere to the old fashioned idea of Traffic Officers getting out on the roads and enforcing road safety.

Speed is not the root cause an agressive driver will still be agressive at 30 or 70, and at 30 near a school has more scope to kill than at 70 on a clear road.

Train and test drivers properly.

Enforce the roads properly - i.e. get traffic officers out pulling drivers without due care and attention.

I realise that speed is an emotive subject but look at my previous post, how can you defend a scheme (related to speed) that potentially is inciting a driver to commit a criminal offence??

Posted By Brett Day

Hello John, my comment about aggressive drivers having more scope to kill at 30 near a school than on a clear road at 70 is very valid - come and have a look at the school just down the road near me, most of the traffic is travelling at 5-10mph but drivers are not looking, not indicating just pulling out, given that there are kids coming out of school this is a far more dangerous situation than some one driving at 70 on a clear road.

As for the incitement, as I said it is and offence to drive whilst uninsured. Standard exclusions include for hire and reward, motorsports, pace setting, pace making and pace car duties. So how can a scheme that asks people to put a pace car sticker in thier car and set a speed (in effect acting as a rolling road block) not be inciting a driver to commit an offence given the standard insurance policy exclusions ???

I have contacted two of the pace car schemes with this very question, to date three months on they have not replied. I contacted one by phone and was told that they will not reply to this question, which quite frankly worries me, if what they are advocating is legal then why be evasive ??

As an aside I have just checked the accident stats from the website for one of the areas running this scheme, it would seem that accdents are up from the last quarter, perhaps we should leave rolling road blocks and pace car duties to the police??

Posted By Brett Day

John

Can sympathise and understand where you are coming from, drop me an e-mail.

Posted By John Mackessack
Oh. Whilst I'm on a roll...Speed does not kill, but it does have a big effect on the quality of the crash.

Posted By David Horenr
John,



You state that "your drivers were doing nowt wrong". Do your employers’ internal control systems include Occupational Road Risk policy? This should undoubtedly include advice regarding defensive driving technique i.e. in this particular case, the identification of and keeping clear of potential blind spots. One of my specialist areas is Occupational Road Risk; Defensive Driving Training does pay off - it’s a jungle out there!


David Horner CMIOSH
IAM Observer and qualified Defensive Driving Assessor