Most people admit to breaking speed limits…

We still have a bit of a fuel crisis and the faster we use up the reserves of oil the faster fuel prices will rise. Driving at higher speeds wastes a lot of fuel.

“Today’s vehicles” are better than they were in the 1970s, no doubt about that.

But are “today’s motorways” better than the motorways we had in the 1970s? True, we now have better crash barriers – but crossover accidents were never that common. True, more sections are lit – but the lights are being turned off to save money. They’re certainly a LOT more congested – personally I feel happier on a quiet, unlit stretch than a congested, well-lit stretch.

But the really important question is – are “today’s drivers” better than the drivers we had in the 1970s?

A truly excellent point, Auspomm.

Had this happened to me, however, I would still have had difficulty living with myself knowing that I had killed a child by driving too fast. The speed limit is a maximum; the maximum was clearly set too high in this case.

Hi Auspomm and gradivus – while we encourage lively debate, please avoid getting too personal with others and keep our commenting guidelines in mind. Thanks.

Auspomm,

Apology accepted, and in turn I apologise for my harsh response – you touched a raw nerve with me.

I did read your post carefully and, as I have said, I do agree with you. It’s just that I would go even further and remind drivers that the “right speed” is often slower than the speed limit.

You both make a good point, though. Decades of driver response testing have shown that people generally get complacent if they don’t have some kind of scare or accident, and this, coupled with our known tendency to overestimate our own skill level, underestimate the hazards and believe we’re lucky, means that the majority of drivers are way too overconfident.

This isn’t a problem until the hazards pop up, especially when they’re complex. And driving in a narrow suburban street is hazardous, especially when there a lot of parked vehicles and pedestrians about. But this is such a commonplace set of hazards, that many drivers don’t prepare for trouble, say, at school kicking-out time; instead they trust in ‘good reactions’ when – too late – they begin to respond to the wild child.

So there are two lessons here. The first, and sad one, is that it’s impossible to allow for everything, and some kids will get injured and killed every year even when the only one at fault is the child. Decades ago, my dad killed a little boy who ran out of an entryway on a quite suburban street, between the row of parked cars and under his wheels. He was crushed before my dad could even react, although he was driving slowly. My dad never got over it, despite not being to blame at all.

The second lesson is about being prepared – not really possible for the first. A few years later, I was practising for my advanced driving test. My Observer had just commented on the 40mph zone (we’d just come into a village from the country) but I’d already slowed to below 30 because there was a stationary school bus ahead on the left. So when a little girl shot out in front of me from the front of the bus, I was able to stop in (we measured the rubber trail) 10 feet. Nevertheless, she hit the bonnet hard enough to dent it with her hand and was flung away in front of us. Thankfully, she was only bruised and scraped, and later that day her mother thanked me for ‘saving her’ – I was still shaking. The road was wide, there was no other traffic and no pedestrians about. She’d rushed off the bus to collect her forgotten gym gear, and the driver didn’t quite stop her, but witnessed it all, lucky for me. Most drivers, said the bus driver, pass this waiting bus at over 40mph. At this speed, she’d have been dead.

So here are two incidents which resonate with a lot of these 200+ comments. The real point is not speed limits; it’s safe behaviour. Outside some schools with a 20 limit, there will sometimes safe driving conditions at 60mph (rare, I know). But when all the kids come piling out, even the 20mph will be too fast – common sense will have to apply. The golden rule is ‘drive slowly enough so that you can stop in the distance you can see to be clear’. This makes allowance for traffic, surface, weather and observation. And to it has to be added ‘make allowances for any reasonably expectable hazard’ – like that little girl. If we all did this, the death rate on the roads would be down to a few hundred a year – about the rate on the railways, if you allow for the vastly greater road traffic. Of course, the railways only employ highly-trained and regularly tested drivers, under far more regulated conditions. This would be intolerable imposition to most drivers, who even see travelling at 80mph on a wet motorway five car lengths behind another as no hazard at all!

You’ve got it, Peter! A majority of drivers consider themselves to be fair and reasonable while actually behaving in a mildly dangerous way without realizing it. Others knowingly take risks. Add any sudden hazard to this serial bad behaviour and an incident occurs.

As road safety engineers and psychologists know well, the only way around the impasse you describe is regulation backed up by penalties which can be seen to be rational and fair. The motorway variable compulsory speed limits (upper and lower) have proved to be very effective and well-regarded in the few trials that have been done (West M25 and east M42 especially).

The overhead boards now being rolled-out on rural motorways are coupled to speed sensors under the road surface, and will, when funds allow, provide such control everywhere when conditions require it. When the system’s sensors, controls and message boards are complete, it will all be linked in the future to computer systems already being tested. These will regulate traffic speed everywhere according to conditions, and especially to keep traffic to the optimum speed while avoiding ‘concertinaing’. It will also give very prompt reaction to sudden stops in the flow (which would usually indicate an accident) before even phone calls from witnesses could confirm an incident.

The inappropriate messages we sometimes see these days on the boards are because they are currently manually controlled and mistakes do happen.

Peter, I see electronic (under-surface anonymous rather than SPECS) monitoring of speeds with compulsory control as the way forward on any crowded motorway (or major urban road). When it’s in use in the trials, drivers polled like it and it gets the most cars past any point in the shortest time, without incident or stress. Isn’t that a win-win situation, rather than a least worse scenario?

Of course, for some kinds of driver, the dream is of using police ‘blues and twos’ to bully your way past all other traffic, and some may be dreaming of Grand Theft Auto as they drive. My dream is never to come near any of them!

Just thought, Peter. As I’ve heard it, drivers who know the local SPECS system well can beat it by turning off before the second monitor, so they never get a speed check. So I guess locals who intend just this can race through the system and vanish into a side road. Luckily, there are other ways to catch them.

Sobering videos to watch, certainly. But both were caused by driver gross error. And luckily, such accidents are very rare, which is why they get on youtube. The one in the snow brought nasty memories back to me, as I was following a driver about 25 years ago who did exactly the same – tried to pull out to overtake, forgetting that slush gives no grip. That car spun into a ditch and overturned, and I was able to rescue the two reps in it. Lucky that the road was clear except for the three vehicles.

What this is telling us has been said again and again in these comments. Drivers tend to overestimate their own skills, capabilities and knowledge. The answer is further training, but the average driver, let alone crass idiots, is highly resistant to spending any time or money on this, quite apart from the ‘pride in skill’ that prevents them from admitting that they need any help at all.

The risks are always there, but people do seem to have difficulty grasping them – just as the chance of a lottery win is only dimly understood. Caution should be the watchword, but – as you say – emotion often overcomes it.

And Which? has always, right from the beginning, been in the forefront of making the risks better known. Thinking back three decades or so, who’d have known that so many drivers died in frontal crashes from a steering wheel hub stuck through the chest? It took Which? to make it public and campaign to have effective fixes on all cars. And so on. Thank you, Which?