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Instead of introducing more speed limits to roads
or speed limiters to cars, speed limiters should be fitted to
drivers’ heads, argues Mark McArthur-Christie,
road safety spokesman of the Association of British Drivers |
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| "Driving at the speed limit
does not make you safe, anymore than painting by numbers
makes you Rembrandt" |
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Ancient civilisations believed in the magical power of numbers. Seven
wasn’t just a bit more than six, in Babylonian numerology it
was the perfect number. Medieval mathematicians spent their time poring
over protective magic number squares and complex number patterns.
We like to think we’re above this sort of superstition today,
and most of us are. However, as sophisticated as we are in the age
of the internet, palmtop wireless computing and home pizza delivery,
we still believe in magic numbers and their power to protect us from
harm. We call them “speed limits” and we punish people
hard for breaking them. Some groups have even called for digital speedometers
to replace analogue instruments so that drivers can know – to
the last fraction of a mile per hour – how fast they’re
going. They believe that if drivers would just stick to the limit
they’d be safe. I wish – how I wish – it was that
simple.Speed limits are not magic numbers. Driving at the speed limit
does not make you safe, anymore than painting by numbers makes you
Rembrandt.
Bluntly, speed limits are numbers on sticks, backed by the power of
law. They will not stop you having an accident and they are not physical
absolutes in the way that water boiling at 100o or freezing at zero
are. Yet they are enforced as legal absolutes with the zeal of the
inquisition, and anyone who even attempts to suggest they are almost
completely arbitrary is instantly shouted down as irresponsible.“Stick
to the limit for safety’s sake” proclaims the National
Safety (sic) Camera website. It’s this lack of flexibility and
obsession with numerical speed limits that means we now have more
crashes than ever before – yes, MORE, not fewer.
The real measure of risk is not fatalities on their own, but fatalities
per billion vehicle miles (f/bvm) and the real measure of camera policy
is how slowly f/bvm have fallen compared to the pre-camera trend.From
1950 to 1993, f/bvm fell by a remarkably consistent 5.2% per year.
Year-on-year from 1994, as the obsession with reducing numerical speeds
took hold, the fall slowed, tailed off, and is now not falling at
all. If the pre-“kill your speed” trend had continued,
we’d have around 5,000 fewer people lying dead on mortuary slabs.Why?
Surely speed limits are a good thing and should be enforced with the
full force of law or there’ll be anarchy on the roads. Hmm!
Sort of . . . the problem is that there’s a world of difference
between a numerical speed limit and an appropriate and safe speed
for a road. Across the country, limits are being lowered and lowered
and lowered, until the centre of Oxford will shortly have a 20 mph
limit, and some streets in Plymouth have 10 mph limits. Yet drivers
still drive too fast for the conditions and crash.Local authorities
have decided to “democratically set aside” the sound advice
given on setting limits contained in Circulars Roads 1/80 and 1/93.
These government documents were based on years of collected experience
and research. They point out that drivers will obey reasonably set
speed limits and that “raising speed limits has little effect
either on the speeds of vehicles or the rates of accidents”.
And “it is a common but mistaken belief that drivers allow themselves
a set margin over the prevailing speed limit, and that if a limit
is raised by 10 mph, they will travel 10 mph faster. In fact, an increase
in an unrealistic speed limit rarely brings an increase in traffic
speeds”.
Democratically setting aside the advice given in the Circulars is
as arrogant and misinformed as trying to democratically set aside
the law of gravity.Of course, there are other physical laws in place.
Kinetic energy is much greater at higher speeds. But you only impart
kinetic energy if you crash. Better observation and anticipation (both
products of training, not speed cameras) have a knack of reducing
crashes. If you do crash, though, the faster you’re going, the
harder you hit. Even a nasty, petrol-sniffing, straight-six driving
ABD road safety spokesman knows that. But there’s a massive
disparity between free travelling speeds and crash speeds. Current
policy seems to assume that I’m bowling along when – suddenly
- with no warning at all, I crash. Although it makes for an easy argument,
this does not fit with reality. There is nearly always a considerable
gap between travelling speed and impact speed. This is, in turn, down
to driver response. Drivers (despite the best attempts to portray
us as red-eyed, slavering maniacs) slow in areas of danger and brake
– hard – in crash situations. We need to realise that
you can’t drive by numbers, and reducing speed limits does not
necessarily reduce accidents in the real world, no matter what it
does in a mathematical model. Unrealistic speed limits reduce the
respect drivers have for ALL limits. They make drivers impatient,
follow too close, attempt stupid overtakes and precipitate head-on
crashes – and two drivers travelling at just 30 mph have an
impact speed of 60 mph. You don’t walk away from crashes like
that. It’s already happening – this year is going to be
one of the worst years for casualties across the UK – because
we’ve reduced road safety to “speed kills”; prosecuted
more than five million people for speeding, and believed in the power
of magic numbers.
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| "There is nearly always a
considerable gap between travelling speed and impact speed.
This is down to driver response" |
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Putting Mystic Meg in charge of road safety would have done more good.
A completely new approach to road safety – one that does not
focus on numerical speed – is needed before more mistaken controls
are put in place. Councillors with no road safety background and no
special expertise now set speed limits against the well-researched
advice of the Department for Transport (DfT), the police and traffic
engineers, and are setting them lower and lower – often for
“environmental” reasons and to please electors. This is
the road safety equivalent of crying wolf. If there are no clear reasons
for a limit, drivers may come to regard all limits as equally meaningless.
The DfT and highway engineers need to reassert their expertise above
that of the amateur councillors.But some residents and road users
still feel drivers drive too fast. They don’t know HOW fast,
but they feel that it spoils their local environment. This is important
and it needs to be acknowledged. Sadly, at the moment, the solution
is to impose urban-style hideous humps, bumps, chicanes and all the
associated street furniture. There are alternatives, but they fail
to give some councillors the nice, warm feeling that comes from making
drivers’ lives unpleasant. Self-explaining roads (where the
road environment is altered to give all travellers equal priority)
help to lower speeds, improve environments and increase vehicle separation
distances. They may provide an effective way forward. As well as pleasing
residents they avoid the ugly urbanisation of the countryside that
is being brought about by old-fashioned calming schemes.Vehicle-activated
signs – electronic signs that warn of hazards ahead –
have already been shown to be at least as effective in reducing accidents
(if not more so) as speed cameras, yet few authorities are taking
them up. Their benefits deserve wider publication.
The safe speed for a road varies from driver to driver, from minute
to minute, yet speed limits are static. The road outside a school
may be criminally unsafe at 25 mph on occasions, yet perfectly safe
at 40 mph on another occasion. Some authorities are already investigating
variable limits with some considerable success. This should be continued,
as well as investigating the viability of advisory speed limits. But
concentrating on numerical speed is not the answer. Speed cameras,
traffic calming and lowered speed limits all encourage drivers to
believe there is a single, safe, fixed speed for the road. They encourage
them to think that by sticking to a limit they are safe – when
nothing could be further from the truth. Changes to the road environment,
driver training and education all point a way forward that has been
largely ignored.Yet each of these fits a speed limiter to a driver’s
head. Instead of fitting more speed limits to roads or speed limiters
to cars, this limiter in the driver’s head would be just part
of his or her armoury to make sure he drove safely and well –
not simply compliantly to a fixed numerical limit.
Visit the Association of British Drivers at www.abd.org.uk
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