Speed awareness courses

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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by bobins »

Interesting statistics posted by Michel. I wonder how the results would skew if they were based on "Per mile of road type" as opposed "Per mile travelled by the public on each road type" ?
i.e. for every mile of motorway you have xx deaths. For every mile of rural road you have xx deaths.
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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by Homer »

Michel wrote: 07 Jun 2019, 05:14 Urban, as has been the case since stats began. Stands to reason - there's a damn sight more cars in urban areas!

Image


Your graphic says rural. :rofl2:

But it does depend on how you fiddle the statistics.
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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by Homer »

GiveMeABreak wrote: 06 Jun 2019, 21:14 I actually came away learning something (working out the speed limit when there are no signs)


Isn't that something you should know before passing your driving test?

Or do they mean working out the speed limit when the council have not done their job and put up the required signage? :evil:
Hell Razor5543 wrote: 06 Jun 2019, 22:31 One question was based around a police recorded test. They got a advanced police driver to travel at 30MPH and then, as he passed a marker point, do an emergency stop. They then placed a marker at the point where his vehicle stopped. They repeated the test, but this time he was travelling at 32MPH.


Did they do it again, this time at 30mph while he was fiddling with his radio, lighting a fag, and chatting to his passenger while eyeying up a young lady at the roadside, then at 32mph while paying attention?

Tests like that are meaningless in the real world. Forcing people to drive more slowly just results in them paying less attention.
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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by GiveMeABreak »

Ditto that Rural for me - they now list the number of casualties over the years on many stretches of country roads here. Concealed entrances, hedge cutting, tractors, horses and other livestock, and too many people that haven't seen a traffic light on the roads yet!
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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by Gibbo2286 »

GiveMeABreak wrote: 07 Jun 2019, 09:22 Ditto that Rural for me - they now list the number of casualties over the years on many stretches of country roads here. Concealed entrances, hedge cutting, tractors, horses and other livestock, and too many people that haven't seen a traffic light on the roads yet!


My observations suggest that it's not the rural drivers but the townies who are responsible for the high accident rate in rural areas, bikers in particular sweeping at speed round winding lanes and meeting a flock of sheep or double decker bus occupying almost the complete road space.

Also stone walls and roadside trees are not going to get out of the way when attacked by a driver making a small error of judgement.
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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by bobins »

The uncomfortable truth about speed and speeding is that reducing the average speed on the road is the quickest / easiest / cheapest way of reducing serious injuries and deaths on the road. You'll never eliminate deaths and serious injury, but if you were tasked with devising a relatively quick / easy / cheap way of reducing death and injury - what would you do ?
Being caught speeding is a relatively 'binary' offence - you're either speeding or you're not - so is relatively easy to enforce. It's (relatively speaking) a lot harder to enforce something like Driving Without Due Care....
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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by GiveMeABreak »

Agree with all that it's that here the 30, 60, 40, 20, 60, 30 on a small stretch of road is the problem - there are so many speed changes and very few repeater signs that you can forget if it's a 30 or a 40 very quickly and a lot of people I spoke to on my last course were in the same boat - not speeding deliberately, but recent and frequent changes to the speeds on known roads was the issue with people genuinely getting caught. Most were saying - make the bloody road 40 or 30 and leave it at that instead of 10 changes over a few miles!
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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by Peter.N. »

My wife did one a few years ago only it wasn't for speeding but demolishing a bus shelter. I think she enjoyed it, (the course that is) it was the only accident of her making since she started driving in the '60s. She was one up on me, I have had a few accidents over the years but I have never written a car off, and it was a Citroen XM.

One warning I will give, they will likely test you on the highway code so get a copy and mug up on it.

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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by bobins »

I've just looked up the percentage of UK roads that are motorway. By my calculations motorways account for around 1% of the total length of UK roads yet account for 6% of fatalities. Funny things, statistics........ :roll:
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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by GiveMeABreak »

The only parts of the highway code they discussed in either of my sessions were stopping distances and speed limits for certain types of roads as per pictures. There's no test involved, it's a participation event and you are expected to engage. I'm sure he's well into the course now and no doubt we'll be hearing how great it was soon! :-D
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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by GiveMeABreak »

Peter.N. wrote: 07 Jun 2019, 10:32 My wife did one a few years ago only it wasn't for speeding but demolishing a bus shelter. I think she enjoyed it, (the course that is)
:rofl2: Cracking Peter.
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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by Gibbo2286 »

I've been driving on the UK roads pretty well every day since 1955 in vehicles of all types, bangers and high powered sports cars and I've never had a speeding ticket or in fact a charge of any sort for a motoring offence other than overstaying at a car parking area.

Lucky or what?

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In Birmingham head on with a Ford V8 Pilot coming the wrong side of a keep left roundabout, stationary at a narrow village road, front wing and suspension taken off by white van man unable to stop and a busy housewife, with other things on her mind I suspect, did a U-turn without signalling across my path on the A48.
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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by myglaren »

Only had two speeding tickets, first was a change of speed on a dual carriageway from 40 to 30, sign obscured by the double decker bus in front of me.

Second was rural, speed limit changed from 60 to 25.
25?
Of course I was doing 60, didn't see the van but they saw me.
All in the distant past now.

I picked up the current C5 in Buxton and pretty much go lost on the way home but through some place the speed limit, as mentioned above, kept changing from 50 to 30 to 40 to 30 to 50 - every few hundred yards and often on a bend so the signs and cameras were out of sight until they were only yards away.
Good job the brakes worked better than the engine :roll:
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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by Gibbo2286 »

Some villages and small towns along the A48 now have speed limits at 20mph but they're clearly marked at start and end with the limits painted on the road as well as the signposts, they also have speed camera boxes and signage but the cameras may or may not be present, they're shared, try your luck! :-D
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Re: Speed awareness courses

Post by myglaren »

There are loads of 20mph areas around here too, usually well signposted, mainly near schools.
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