Road safety advice: Speed limits kill!

For some years now the UK governent have been running a road safety campaign entitled "Think!". As part of this campaign we're regularly fed new slogans, including "Speed Kills".

Before I go any further with this post I have to point out that I am not writing this to hurt the feelings of anybody who has lost somebody or has themselves been injured in a serious crash, on the contrary I want to provoke people into doing what the advertising campaign suggests we should do, but seems to encourage us not to do: Think.

First of all I'd like to take issue with the statement itself. "Speed Kills". Ok, but you can replace Speed with lots of things. Guns, Knives, Cars, Planes, Buses, Televisions - yes, if one was dropped on you from a high building you would be killed. I've also read several times that in the USA that more people are killed by doctors than by guns. I don't know the source of this information but can well believe it to be true but do we want to ban doctors? Don't be silly, people want to ban guns instead! The real issue here is that most things in the wrong hands can become an instrument of death and the real answer is to ensure that anybody using the more clearly lethal of these items is properly trained and responsible, hence why pilots, drivers, doctors (and even those who use firearms!) are required to have training and hold licenses. If speed is a problem then there is either a problem with the way we're being trained, or there is a problem with what we're learning once our training has ended and our licenses have been granted.

Moving on, let's have a little history lesson. Many years ago our motorways had no speed limits, and then, after a spate of serious accidents in fog, a temporary 70mph limit was imposed. Since most cars could not exceed this speed at the time it probably didn't actually do anything to make the motorways safer, but it wasn't questioned at the time and in 1967 was made permenant by then Transport Minister Barbara Castle (a non-driver!). Since then cars have clearly got faster, but in-car safety systems have also improved considerably since then and as a result the number of deaths and serious injuries has fell. Many other countries (including the ultra-conservative USA) have higher motorway speed limits than the UK and experience shows that this does not actually make the roads more dangerous.

Although the number of deaths and serious injuries is much lower now (based on percentage/number of motorists) there are a lot more cars on the road now and information is a lot more accessable to the general public and as a consequence there is a growing road safety movement who seem to be hell bent on trying to bring the number of casualties down to zero. Let's be honest though, that is never going to happen how hard we try. Even if we make driving 100% safe and foolproof somebody is going to have a heart-attack while driving and there will still be death on the road. I'm not entirely convinced that the road safety thing is entirely what it seems though and it seems that it is being hijacked by environmentalists who want to stop us from driving at all costs anyway, regardless of how fast we're going.

Now the thing that really made me want to say something on this subject was a news report I saw several days ago on the BBC News Website. The report in question (which can be found here) was about resurfacing work due to commence on the A14 in Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. The main point of the report was that the new surface would improve safety on the road, but the thing that I picked up on was the last paragraph which reads "Recent figures from the Highways Agency showed a sharp increase in road worker deaths across England during 2005". Now this I found most interesting because during 2005 us motorists have seen a sharp increase in 40mph speed limits in motorway roadworks, often accompanied by speed cameras, both of which we are told "to protect the workforce". So how many other people can see the correlation here? Clearly somebody needs to take a serious look at how lower limits and speed cameras have had an effect!

So, what is my point? Basically, the real problem with road safety isn't the fact that we're driving too fast, it's actually a combination of things.

• Speed is only a factor in road safety if combined with road conditions and driver experience. Doing 30mph in heavy fog is dangerous even though the speed limit is 30mph and on the same basis 30mph is dangerous on the motorway on a clear road in good conditions!
• The way road safety is being enforced is making drivers complacent. People are starting to believe that if the sign says 50 then that is the safe speed. Cameras don't catch people going too fast in rain and fog so people start believing they don't have to slow down.
• On the same basis as above, cameras don't encourage good driving. Overtaking in the wrong lane, not wearing seatbelts, tailgating and lack of concentration are all things that speed cameras do not catch. Well trained Traffic Officers can catch these things, but police forces are scrapping traffic units and instead spending money on cameras so the actual standard of driving on our roads is actually dropping as a result.
• People are getting so paranoid about being caught speeding that it is becoming their single concern when driving. Many motorists are driving slower than the speed limit on open roads causing delays and causing impatience. Many motorists drive through known speed cameras gazing at their speedometers, hence not watching the road. Many motorists do not fully understand the way speed limits work on British roads and often brake sharply to 10-20mph below the speed limit on seeing cameras and camera vans, even when they are already within the speed limit.
• Local authorities are coming under more pressure from "safety" groups to lower speed limits to points where they are far too low for the prevaling conditions and as a consequence many more experienced (and hence safer) motorists are losing confidence in the speed limits and the authorities that set them.

Many governments are currently involved in developing black-boxes for our cars which could potentially take control of our cars and limit the speed we can drive. Many believe this is dangerous in itself as the only thing we would have left to do is steer. Speed limiters are already being used in goods vehicles throughout Europe and as a consequence accident rates within this group of extremely experienced and well trained drivers is actually increasing; usually because these usually alert drivers are becoming bored with becoming little more than passengers in these large and heavy vehicles. I personally will do everything I can to avoid such a device being installed in my own car!

If the UK government wants to make the roads safer what they really need to do is encouraging both drivers AND policy makers to do what their campaign is saying. Think!