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Paul from SafeSpeed on BBC Breakfast today on Driving Offence Cameras
TripleS wrote: That's good news then. Even with the aid of suitable technology I feel that what you are trying to do is too complicated and many of the resultant speed limits will still end up being wrong. I appreciate that you're gearing this to variable road conditions, but there are also wide variations in the quality of various vehicle/driver combinations. Well yes, there may still be lower limits for some classes of drivers but one might assume that lorry drivers are better trained anyway. The aim was to (1) assess a speed based on conditions and (2) have a clear gap between a target speed and an absolute maximum speed. Automatic controls on the cars to put some kind of limiting device (with an override if available) would enable drivers to watch the road rather than the speedometers as well. In built up areas we need not have much of a problem; 30 or 40 mph limits are reasonably appropriate for the majority of situations, and I think they should be respected. I don't think they are though. I think that sometimes 20mph, 25mph and 35mph are appropriate speeds, and sometimes it may vary according to conditions, for example on a high street it may be that 25mph is the limit during busy times but 35mph is safe late at night when pretty much everything is closed and there are far fewer vehicles on the road. Outside of towns and villages, open road situations, NSL areas - get rid of limits and let us have it clearly understood that drivers are responsible for adopting safe speeds. If that responsibility were to be given to them we might find that it works quite well. I guess for the little windy country roads that is pretty much what happens as nobody in reality can surely think 60mph is a safe speed on them. I find it laughable that these roads carry a higher speed limit than, say, the North Circular (which has a maximum speed of 50mph) which is near motorway standard in sections (albeit that it has far more frequent junctions than a motorway). At any rate I would like to see this tried out as an experiment on selected parts of our road network. No doubt some will fear that such areas would be a magnet for the speed freaks, or whatever you like to call them, but I think this could be overcome. On some sections of motorway maybe. I do think it will encourage those who want to speed to go there. I have had this temptation to go to Germany so I can legally go fast on the autobahns, and I'm sure there are quite a few who have made a special effort to enjoy that experience too. Not sure exactly how safely they were driving. What we really need are thinking drivers, capable drivers, safe reliable drivers - not speed limited drivers who are switched off from the driving task. With the automatic controls I have suggested the drivers can concentrate on doing just that. |
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