Speeding is dangerous

[redpaso]

I came across this & thought that some of you might be interested. the link to the site is below & worth a look.

Speeding is dangerous

The various uses and meanings of the words "speed" and "speeding" are muddled up carelessly and used interchangeably. Since the speed limit is the national measure of speed officials have tended to equate "speeding" with danger. But they are wrong and the speed limit tells us little. A speed in miles per hour is meaningless without a full proper description of the circumstances.


Imagine this scene...

Picture an English village.
The driver is doing 65mph (must be really dangerous)
on a nearby motorway (Oh, that's all right then)
traffic is stationary (Oops, might not be able to stop!)
250 yards ahead (Oh, we'll be able to stop then)
The road is icy (oh dear we'll never stop in 250 yards on ice)
but the driver has studded winter tyres fitted, (oh right that'll help the braking quite a bit - we'll be able to stop easily)
But the driver is drunk and inattentive. (really really dangerous again.)

See how the speed didn't change, but as we revealed more and more detail of the scene the apparent safety bounced between perfectly safe and highly dangerous? We ended up with an extremely dangerous but legal 65mph on a motorway.


Speed limits and safety

If a motorway is safe at 70 mph in a the rush hour is it dangerous at 80mph at dawn on a Sunday?

If an A road is safe at 60mph in clear conditions is it still safe at 60mph in snow?

If an urban dual carriageway is safe at 40mph in a 1965 Anglia is it safe at 45mph in a 2003 Lotus?

A great many factors affect the safety of a particular speed. We'll list a few:

What the driver can see.
The presence of other road users.
The width of the road.
The weather.
The characteristics of the vehicle.
The behaviour of other road users.
The severity of a bend.
The condition of the road surface.
Daylight or darkness.
And so on.

Any of these factors (and more) cause drivers to alter their speed. This behaviour is vital - going too fast is dangerous - but not one of those things alters the speed limit to warn drivers to slow down. They need their eyes to do that and responding to hazards is the essence of driving itself.

Speed in miles per hour is little help in deciding the safety or the danger of a situation. Instead we must look at speed relative to the circumstances. The official mistake here is to assume that speed in excess of a limit is dangerous and that speed within the limit is safe. Definitions of the word "speed" are vague and overlapping. The sorts of speed they are addressing are not generally the sorts of speed that cause accidents and are not even the sorts of speeds that make accidents worse.

Taken from http://www.safespeed.org.uk/conspiracy.html