[OT] Reducing the amount of speeding cars on the road.

On 1 Jun, 08:43, spindrift wrote:
On 1 Jun, 08:36, "

wrote:
On 31 May, 23:54, Martin Dann wrote:

I doubt this will get any where, but it is a response to Paul smiths
petition. (ok this would never happen, but a response is needed).

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/BanSpeeders/

Martin.

would a response that doesn't make you a laughing stock be better?

Fod

The roads are too congested and twelve hundred graves a year are
filled by the victims of speeders so I've signed.


And admitted your, er, personal problem?
Get the nurse to change your bag
And get your facts right its only 5% due to excessive speed despite
your lies

"vernon" wrote in message
...

"John Kane" wrote in message
ups.com...
On May 31, 6:54 pm, Martin Dann wrote:
I doubt this will get any where, but it is a response to Paul smiths
petition. (ok this would never happen, but a response is needed).

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/BanSpeeders/

Martin.

Err, "Reducing the number of speeding cars on the road" ?
Amount is not a count noun.
John Kane, Kingston ON Canada

The OP might have meant allowing only, say, 50% of each speeding car to
continue its journey......


That would work! Anyone caught speeding will be allowed on their way with
the proviso that they remove their wheels first. It is not a stealth tax on
drivers, and it has the desired effect of preventing re-offence. :-)

David Lloyd

"Matt B" wrote in message
...
Marc Brett wrote:
... it's perverse to suggest that speeding has has no big effect on road
safety.

Let's examine what you have just said.

Presumably then, if you think that "speeding" has an effect on road
safety, you will expect that reducing its incidence will have a positive
effect on road safety, and increasing its incidence will have a negative
effect?

Now let us see two reasons why those assumptions are absurd.

1. One guaranteed method of eliminating speeding is to set the speed limit
at a level that could not possibly be exceeded by road-going vehicles.
Would the resultant elimination of "speeding" deliver the expected safety
effect?

2. A measure guaranteed to increase the incidence of "speeding" is to set
the speed limit at a ridiculously low value. Would the resultant increase
in the incidence of "speeding", even though most traffic would now
probably be travelling much slower, deliver as predicted, more dangerous
roads?

So less speeding could correlate with less safety, and more "speeding"
could correlate with more safety.

"Speeding" is *not* a reliable measure against which road safety can be
predicted.

--
Matt B

One would like to think that the speed limits applied to roads truely
reflect the hazards present on those roads. Road and weather conditions
should also feed-back into a driver's choice of appropriate speed. For a
conversation on speeding, it would be helpful to classify a speeding
motorist as one that travels at a speed greater than appropriate for the
conditions, regardless of what the signs say.

David Lloyd

On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 11:06:02 GMT, "David Lloyd"
wrote:

One would like to think that the speed limits applied to roads truely
reflect the hazards present on those roads.

They reflect more than immediately visible hazards. They may also
reflect residents' concern about air and noise pollution, and their fear
of using the footpaths and roads safely. A car driver is not equipped
to judge these factors.

Road and weather conditions
should also feed-back into a driver's choice of appropriate speed. For a
conversation on speeding, it would be helpful to classify a speeding
motorist as one that travels at a speed greater than appropriate for the
conditions, regardless of what the signs say.

It would be most unhelpful; a speed limit sign IS one of the conditions
for which a motorist has to adjust his speed.

David Lloyd wrote:
"Matt B" wrote in message
...
Marc Brett wrote:
... it's perverse to suggest that speeding has has no big effect on road
safety.
Let's examine what you have just said.

Presumably then, if you think that "speeding" has an effect on road
safety, you will expect that reducing its incidence will have a positive
effect on road safety, and increasing its incidence will have a negative
effect?

Now let us see two reasons why those assumptions are absurd.

1. One guaranteed method of eliminating speeding is to set the speed limit
at a level that could not possibly be exceeded by road-going vehicles.
Would the resultant elimination of "speeding" deliver the expected safety
effect?

2. A measure guaranteed to increase the incidence of "speeding" is to set
the speed limit at a ridiculously low value. Would the resultant increase
in the incidence of "speeding", even though most traffic would now
probably be travelling much slower, deliver as predicted, more dangerous
roads?

So less speeding could correlate with less safety, and more "speeding"
could correlate with more safety.

"Speeding" is *not* a reliable measure against which road safety can be
predicted.

One would like to think that the speed limits applied to roads truely
reflect the hazards present on those roads.

But, of course, we know that they can't. It /would/ be a very uniform
and dull land if on every inch of every urban street it was safe to
travel at precisely 30 mph, and yet dangerous to travel at 31 mph.

In reality the hazards vary by the type/size/shape/power/tyres of your
vehicle, by the day, by time of day, by time of year, by the weather
conditions, and that every inch of every road has some unique quality
which would affect the appropriate safe speed.

It is thus obvious that "speeding" cannot be considered as a measure of
"dangerousness" of a driver, and thus obvious that speed cameras, which
can only detect "speeding" are useless.

Road and weather conditions
should also feed-back into a driver's choice of appropriate speed.

Exactly - for "a driver's choice". I wonder in what percentage of all
distance travelled, in all journeys, the posted speed limit is actually
at or below the /appropriate/ (safe) speed. I suspect that in many, if
not most, it is way too high to be considered an "appropriate" speed.

For a
conversation on speeding, it would be helpful to classify a speeding
motorist as one that travels at a speed greater than appropriate for the
conditions, regardless of what the signs say.

Yes. We know that current road safety policy makes that impossible
though as speed cameras cannot judge "appropriate" speed, only whether
"speeding" is occurring.[1] We know that the official collision
statistics don't even record "inappropriate" speed, if it was a
contributory factor, if "speeding" also occurred. In other words, we
don't know how many collision involving "speeding" happened at a speed
which would otherwise have been considered an "appropriate" speed for
the conditions.

[1] Most can't even detect speeding some of time because they have to be
hard-set to trigger at one give speed, yet speed limits can vary, at any
given location, by vehicle type.

--
Matt B

Marc Brett wrote:
On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 11:06:02 GMT, "David Lloyd"
wrote:

One would like to think that the speed limits applied to roads truely
reflect the hazards present on those roads.

They reflect more than immediately visible hazards.

Except they don't even reflect "immediately visible hazards". They are
blanket numbers, with the urban limits in particular, covering wide
areas of constantly varying "immediately visible hazards".

They may also
reflect residents' concern about air and noise pollution,

How can speed limits reflect those factors? Air pollution is
proportional to fuel consumption, which is not so much proportional to
speed, as to load and to engine speed. So it also depends what gear you
are in.

and their fear
of using the footpaths and roads safely.

A blunt tool indeed.

A car driver is not equipped
to judge these factors.

I think you'll find that there are better ways to controll all of those
factors than blanket, arbitrary, speed limits.

Road and weather conditions
should also feed-back into a driver's choice of appropriate speed. For a
conversation on speeding, it would be helpful to classify a speeding
motorist as one that travels at a speed greater than appropriate for the
conditions, regardless of what the signs say.

It would be most unhelpful; a speed limit sign IS one of the conditions
for which a motorist has to adjust his speed.

Yet you support speeding as a measure of "dangerousness"? It is, of
course, the only thing that speed cameras have any chance of measuring
too. Driving at the limit is probably inappropriate more times than it
is appropriate.

--
Matt B

On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 18:43:33 +0100, Matt B
wrote:

Marc Brett wrote:
On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 11:06:02 GMT, "David Lloyd"
wrote:

One would like to think that the speed limits applied to roads truely
reflect the hazards present on those roads.

They reflect more than immediately visible hazards.

Except they don't even reflect "immediately visible hazards". They are
blanket numbers, with the urban limits in particular, covering wide
areas of constantly varying "immediately visible hazards".

So?

They may also
reflect residents' concern about air and noise pollution,

How can speed limits reflect those factors? Air pollution is
proportional to fuel consumption, which is not so much proportional to
speed, as to load and to engine speed. So it also depends what gear you
are in.

"Occifer, I was speeding because my Ferrari didn't have a low enough
gear for the road!" What, now, you want to legislate for a particular
gear? Better to legislate for fuel consumption meters in every car and
let the driver choose a gear which minimises wastefulness. This would
work for all gears, all speeds and all speed limits.

and their fear
of using the footpaths and roads safely.

A blunt tool indeed.

But cost effective.

A car driver is not equipped
to judge these factors.

I think you'll find that there are better ways to controll all of those
factors than blanket, arbitrary, speed limits.

At what cost? A sign costs a teeny tiny fraction of what a Mondrian
utopia retrofit costs.

Road and weather conditions
should also feed-back into a driver's choice of appropriate speed. For a
conversation on speeding, it would be helpful to classify a speeding
motorist as one that travels at a speed greater than appropriate for the
conditions, regardless of what the signs say.

It would be most unhelpful; a speed limit sign IS one of the conditions
for which a motorist has to adjust his speed.

Yet you support speeding as a measure of "dangerousness"? It is, of
course, the only thing that speed cameras have any chance of measuring
too. Driving at the limit is probably inappropriate more times than it
is appropriate.

So drive below the limit. Is that so hard?

A robot camera, and even a wetware plod, hasn't a hope of judging
appropriate speed below the limit to a degree which would hold up in
court, unless a RTA occurs. So a legal limit, blunt a tool as you may
find it, is the only legal remedy for excessive speed. Administer it by
plods, which generates hostility against the constabulary, or by robots,
which merely generates cries of "not fair!"

You and Paul Smith go and cry in your beer.

Marc Brett wrote:
A robot camera, and even a wetware plod, hasn't a hope of judging
appropriate speed below the limit to a degree which would hold up in
court, unless a RTA* occurs.

All it needs is some legislation, and a decent set of stereoscopic
cameras or LIDAR systems, and it would be perfectly feasible to
legislate that drivers should leave certain times available for
contingencies, and then calculate whether they had left that amount of
reaction time.

Of course, such would require a large and unusually complex government
IT project to automatically create models from the photos and (and far
more than just CRUD on a database) as well as the will, money and
technology to make it happen.

But such things could, and should be done in 20 years time when it's
possible.
--
A

*No such thing as an RT*A*

Marc Brett wrote:
On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 18:43:33 +0100, Matt B
wrote:

Marc Brett wrote:
On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 11:06:02 GMT, "David Lloyd"
wrote:

One would like to think that the speed limits applied to roads truely
reflect the hazards present on those roads.
They reflect more than immediately visible hazards.
Except they don't even reflect "immediately visible hazards". They are
blanket numbers, with the urban limits in particular, covering wide
areas of constantly varying "immediately visible hazards".

So?

Did you, or did you not, write that speed limits "reflect more than
immediately visible hazards"? I was pointing out that they can't
possibly e expected to pint /even/ those out. Thus nullifying your point.

They may also
reflect residents' concern about air and noise pollution,
How can speed limits reflect those factors? Air pollution is
proportional to fuel consumption, which is not so much proportional to
speed, as to load and to engine speed. So it also depends what gear you
are in.

"Occifer, I was speeding because my Ferrari didn't have a low enough
gear for the road!"

You said they also reflect those things - now you see they can't do
both, as they conflict with each other. You are making a very good case
against speed limits without much help. ;-)

What, now, you want to legislate for a particular
gear?

I'd settle for the removal of farcical and ill-conceived legislation.

Better to legislate for fuel consumption meters in every car and
let the driver choose a gear which minimises wastefulness.

How about rationing fossil fuel - the Ferrari driver could then choose
how he splits the use of his allocation between fuelling his house and
fuelling his car. Today fuelling your house not only creates more
emissions than fuelling your car, but it attracts NO "fuel duty", and a
much reduced rate of VAT. If pollution is a perceived problem then why
is it only emissions from cars that attract attention?

This would
work for all gears, all speeds and all speed limits.

It wouldn't affect total emissions much though would it - as the
majority of emissions are non generated by car..

and their fear
of using the footpaths and roads safely.
A blunt tool indeed.

But cost effective.

Are you sure? Have you read RCGB recently? The downward trend has
stopped since speed limits became the central plank of road safety policies.

A car driver is not equipped
to judge these factors.
I think you'll find that there are better ways to controll all of those
factors than blanket, arbitrary, speed limits.

At what cost?

What value would you put on significantly reducing the annual road
carnage we currently suffer, and on liberating our roads and streets
from car dominance?

A sign costs a teeny tiny fraction of what a Mondrian
utopia retrofit costs.

You get what you pay for though, im terms of returned benefit - remember
RCGB?

Road and weather conditions
should also feed-back into a driver's choice of appropriate speed. For a
conversation on speeding, it would be helpful to classify a speeding
motorist as one that travels at a speed greater than appropriate for the
conditions, regardless of what the signs say.
It would be most unhelpful; a speed limit sign IS one of the conditions
for which a motorist has to adjust his speed.
Yet you support speeding as a measure of "dangerousness"? It is, of
course, the only thing that speed cameras have any chance of measuring
too. Driving at the limit is probably inappropriate more times than it
is appropriate.

So drive below the limit. Is that so hard?

So what did you say the limits were for again?

A robot camera, and even a wetware plod, hasn't a hope of judging
appropriate speed below the limit to a degree which would hold up in
court, unless a RTA occurs.

"Appropriate speed" for cars should only need to be enforced on the
streets to the same extent as it is for pedestrians in shopping malls.
Inappropriate speed is a sign of inappropriate streets.

So a legal limit, blunt a tool as you may
find it, is the only legal remedy for excessive speed.

No. As we've already seen, there is no way that a speed limit can be
used to enforce "appropriate" speed, because speed limits are
hard-coded, and do not know what the appropriate speed may be for a
given vehicle and a given driver on a given road at a given time.

Administer it by
plods, which generates hostility against the constabulary, or by robots,
which merely generates cries of "not fair!"

You can probably guess the answer to that one by now. ;-)

--
Matt B

In article , Matt B "matt.bourke"@n
ospam.london.com writes
In reality the hazards vary by the type/size/shape/power/tyres of your
vehicle, by the day, by time of day, by time of year, by the weather
conditions, and that every inch of every road has some unique quality
which would affect the appropriate safe speed.

Decent road surfaces (no pot holes and decent levels of grip) are fast
becoming a luxury, in many places (so bad in some that only approaches
to traffic lights get 'grippy' surfaces). If the road surface has low
levels of grip, there is road signage for this and it should be posted.

It is thus obvious that "speeding" cannot be considered as a measure of
"dangerousness" of a driver, and thus obvious that speed cameras, which
can only detect "speeding" are useless.

There is no clear evidence that speed cameras save lives, some figures
even suggest they increase fatalities.

--
John