Opinion: Speed is not the root of all evil

[oneofsix]

In the absence of real solutions, like improved road design and construction which is expensive, it's always going to be the cheaper option of setting-speed-limits-and- fine-the-offenders.

You miss the point. It is not about setting speed limits or fix the roads, it is be consistent and realistic with the limits that are set.

[george formby]

You miss the point. It is not about setting speed limits or fix the roads, it is be consistent and realistic with the limits that are set.

I agrozzle. It's only in the last 10 years or so that I have found myself in situations where I do not know what the speed limit is.
The occasional (very) lapse & missing the speed sign is one thing but seeing a sign on an open bit of road declaring a limit of 70 or 80k & miles later still waiting to see the 100kmh sign & no obvious reason for the go slow is weird. Sorry for mixing my measurements. I'm noticing all sorts of random limits now, both here & in the UK.

Just bad planning or a conspiracy to de-fraud? Hmmmm.

[Zedder]

You miss the point. It is not about setting speed limits or fix the roads, it is be consistent and realistic with the limits that are set.

My point OO6 is, as he wrote in the article, "A limit which is slapped on more and more roads... without justification other than if you are slower then you are safer".

[98tls]

Great read!, thanks Bob

And I totally agree in regards to revenue vs safety...and its an easy answer for NZ.

BRING BACK THE MOT (we should never have got rid of them!)

And use more unmarked cars & even bikes!, in my 30yrs of riding I have noticed one MAJOR thing about dangerous drivers...they can spot a cop car from 10 miles away! -THEN and only then! do they become a safe driver for the next 5mins....once past the cop, there back to trying to kill the rest of us.

If the police could be left to focus on crime and the MOT to focus on actual traffic safety, I feel they would both benefit and we would actually see some change on the roads and to crime stats*(*but that would involve shooting alot of lawyers as well)....and if they used unmarked cars & bikes to "blend in" with the traffic they would see exactly what we all witness day in and day out, then they could act on it.

And as for speed cameras....pure revenue! (how does getting a ticket 2weeks after the fact make you slow down?....a man with a camera AND a high speed pursuit car!...that! makes people slow down )

Just a thought.

ps:Liked the VT shadow review as well Bob

All good mate but once again it all comes back to $s,theres not enough coppers to do the actual police work as its is,take a portion away for road duties things get worse.That said my old lady works at the 111 call center and if anyone complains of not enough coppers around her the replys always the same ie theres plenty but they spend most of there time dealing with complete and utter bullshit rather than being able to get on with more serious issues.To quote her "anyone that wants to hear the true state of this country needs to spend a thursday/friday/saturday evening at a 111 call center.Off topic some sorry Bob,enjoyed reading your post as well.

[Berries]

When setting speed limits the councils take all sorts of factors into consideration. One of the main ones is how the largest, heaviest vehicles are affected.

I've been involved in setting speed limits for years and I have never heard that one before.

Things were much simpler with only 50, 70 and 100km/h as the options. 50 for urban areas, 100 for where the cows are and 70 for the semi built up areas. Now they have 60's and 80's it can get quite confusing. Basing the speed limit on the level of roadside development means speed limits become self enforcing in a way. If there are houses and shops, footpaths and kids you know it is a 50km/h area. But now it could be 60. Or 40. And the open road could just as easily be an 80. Then throw in to the mix the number of speed limits that are set to appease some vocal residents, or a councillor, which happens, and suddenly you have speed limits not based on development, that aren't self enforcing and therefore don't work. So then the Police get called in to enforce compliance. And the circle continues.

How they set speed limits in NZ

[Jay GTI]

I heard on the radio this morning that the UK Government are (again) considering raising the speed limit on motorways and dual carriageways to 80mph, or just under 130kph metric.

If you dig a little further into the reasons why they are considering this, it makes for interesting reading. In the usual furore about how fair/unfair speed limits are, the complaints about being pinged at 105kph, conspiracy theories about Police quotas and the like, many seem to forget what the purpose of speed limits are. They essentially are there to allow the general public to travel on public roads in their vehicles, in a manner that maximises efficient travel, while also managing the associated risk of those journeys to a level considered to be acceptable by society.

There is no question that speed is dangerous. If you have a head-on accident with a large truck and both you and the other driver were travelling at 100kph, it will mean at least serious injury, probably death to at least one driver. So, how do we deal with that possible scenario? It has happened in real life and people have died in that exact situation. So do we legislate to prevent this? Do we lower speed limits to 50, or 30kph nationally, so as to reduce this risk as much as possible? Even though journey times will dramatically increase as a result and the economy suffers as that additional time spent in transit affects the efficiency of businesses, couriers, freight transport, journey times to your customer etc? Or do we accept that statistically this is an unlikely event when compared to the number of vehicle journeys made each day, safely and with no consequence to drivers and occupants, travelling legally at 100kph? Do we accept the impact on society of adjusting the speed limit to a lower figure is too high to justify such a reaction?

Around this is the argument being put forward by some people in the UK for higher national speed limits. In the UK, probably 80-90% of traffic on motorways travels at between 80 and 85mph already and with relative safety. They have a huge and busy motorway network covering the country, so in general driving terms, UK motorists spend a much higher proportion of their driving time on multi-lane motorways than people in NZ do. With that experience comes safer behaviour. There are un-written codes of conduct that most people adhere to, because once a driver spends a reasonable amount of time on UK motorways, they realise certain behaviours are expected of them. It's a kind of self-regulation, so people can travel at around 80mph in relative safety. While there are accidents, some of which are very serious, the balance of free-flowing, efficient transit and the level of risk while travelling at those speeds is considered acceptable, by most people.

The article by the OP is quite correct in that in other areas of the UK, there seems to be little reason for the reduction of speed limits in rural and semi-urban areas, other than "if you travel slower, you will be safer". In raw, laws of physics terms this may be true, but it completely ignores the acceptable level of risk factor. The conspiracy theorists amongst us will throw the usual "they've done it to confuse you and catch you out, so they can raise revenue" lines in here, but there is more to it than that. Speed is an easy target, it's a defined limit that can easily be measured against and easily penalised against if a driver exceeds this limit. It also can easily be related to its consequences, i.e. the bigger the speed the bigger the mess. That statement is true and I feel for the people who work for the emergency services, who clean up that mess on a regular basis. They will tell us that if only people slowed down, the mess wouldn't be anywhere near as bad. But that again is ignoring the acceptable level of risk factor. I have heard a few times, from important people in the force and Government, quotes like "the only acceptable road toll is a zero road toll". This is a nice idea, but it is not practical. The only way that can be achieved is by stopping people driving altogether. Or fully automating the process, so that human error and poor human judgement factors are completely removed, but this won't happen in our lifetimes.

The thing is, people die, regularly. They are seriously injured even more regularly. People fall off ladders, get attacked by sharks, slip down crevices on snowy mountainsides, electrocute themselves when they stick a knife in a toaster, accidentally shoot themselves, crash mountain bikes, burn in chip pan fires, drown in their own vomit after a heavy drinking session... all of these things are avoidable, but they all happen. Can we stop these things from happening? No, because there is risk in everything we do. So we instead apply human judgement, which sets the acceptable level of risk. Which means yes we will get it wrong sometimes and it can have fatal consequences, but we accept that and take the risk anyway. In scenarios where there will be wildly differing individual levels of acceptable risk and significant consequences of too much individual risk taking for society as a whole, the powers that be legislate the acceptable risk level for us. So we get speed limits and that's where this problem arises.

Most people are perfectly capable of setting their own levels of acceptable risk which, by and large, match what society as a whole believes to be the acceptable level of risk. This is why people can travel at around 80mph on motorways in the UK without prosecution, because society has dictated that is a safe enough speed to manage the risk against efficient travel. It's also why you will always have people complaining that they are being pinged for 105kph on a holiday weekend, because they think they were driving safely, or rather at an acceptable level of risk, at the time. This is also why the OP wrote the article, because in applying sensible human judgement, he could not understand why the local council had decided that a section of road that was a 70mph limit, is now a 50mph limit. Or why a 50mph limit was applied to a section of road that he and any other sensible person, could easily and safely travel along at a higher speed. Or why he was being prosecuted for something that he was performing with what he considered relative safety, simply because he had exceeded one metric in a manoeuvre that has a number of risk factors associated with it, all combining to give a overall low risk factor, in his estimation.

The issue isn't whether or not speed is dangerous, because it is. The real issue is what do we, as a society and as individuals, consider the acceptable level of risk for a task we perform on a regular basis and has great impact on how we conduct our lives? Do we legislate for the minority, the "bad" drivers, at the expense of all the good, safe and risk-adverse drivers, who exist in significantly higher proportion? Or do we legislate for the average driver and society as a whole, accepting that as a consequence, some people will die or be seriously injured because they aren't capable of applying their own sensible judgement?

[oneofsix]

I've been involved in setting speed limits for years and I have never heard that one before.

Things were much simpler with only 50, 70 and 100km/h as the options. 50 for urban areas, 100 for where the cows are and 70 for the semi built up areas. Now they have 60's and 80's it can get quite confusing. Basing the speed limit on the level of roadside development means speed limits become self enforcing in a way. If there are houses and shops, footpaths and kids you know it is a 50km/h area. But now it could be 60. Or 40. And the open road could just as easily be an 80. Then throw in to the mix the number of speed limits that are set to appease some vocal residents, or a councillor, which happens, and suddenly you have speed limits not based on development, that aren't self enforcing and therefore don't work. So then the Police get called in to enforce compliance. And the circle continues.

How they set speed limits in NZ

Like this quote from the introduction, which seems to go to the heart of the matter;

Road users are more likely to comply with a speed limit if it is consistent with limits on other roads in the network with similar characteristics, and if limits in general reflect the factors that most influence speed choice

[swbarnett]

There is no question that speed is dangerous.

Speed, in and of itself, is neutral. The danger of driving at a given speed depends of a myriad of other factors. Any speed can be safe given the right set of asssociated factors.

If you have a head-on accident with a large truck and both you and the other driver were travelling at 100kph, it will mean at least serious injury, probably death to at least one driver. ... journeys made each day, safely and with no consequence to drivers and occupants,

Given the same conditions, having an accident does not mean you were any less safe than the guy that didn't.

[Jay GTI]

Speed, in and of itself, is neutral. The danger of driving at a given speed depends of a myriad of other factors. Any speed can be safe given the right set of asssociated factors.


Given the same conditions, having an accident does not mean you were any less safe than the guy that didn't.

You're not quite getting the point I was trying to make, although fair enough, my waffling ability often gets in the way of what I'm trying to say.

By saying speed is dangerous, I am trying to just relate it with the message the police and government throw at us whenever they push the next zero tolerance on speed blitz. 105kph is dangerous folks, you'll be penalised if we catch you doing it this weekend, because speed kills! But the factors that make 105kph "dangerous" are not some huge magnitude higher than the factors that make travelling at 100kph supposedly safe. So you are correct in that speed as a single factor of driving safely is not in itself dangerous, but we are being told it is. And if that is in fact true and you are wrong, then if 105kph is dangerous, 100kph is still dangerous.

It might have been better if I'd said that travelling at speed carries with it a level of risk. The level of risk increases with speed, not necessarily in a 1:1 ratio (in fact far from it), but it does increase. Thus we have thresholds that say "the implied risk factor is considered acceptable up to this measureable point, then it becomes unacceptable".

As for the accident scenario, again I’m not really talking about whether travelling at 100kph is in itself a safe thing to do, just that we are being told that “speed kills”, i.e. if you travel above the speed limit by a certain amount, somehow your chance of death or serious injury suddenly jumps by a huge magnitude. It doesn’t and neither does travelling at the legal speed limit suddenly remove the fact you’ll make a very big mess if you have that head-on with the Kenworth at that perfectly legal speed.

So to correct myself, travelling at speed carries with it a risk...

[oneofsix]

So to correct myself, travelling at speed carries with it a risk...

Didn't want to quote the lot so chose the last line but refering to your posts as a whole.

The point you keep hitting against is that speed in its self isn't dangerous but circumstances can be. This is what is wrong with the 100k is ok but 105 k isn't mentality. The number of times you 'have' to do 105 might be less but they more often exist at holiday time. Most of the time 105k is no more dangerous than 100k and at those time you are not going to find a Kenworth or Mac truck to smash yourself against.
Speed is just a lazy, easily enforceable, pseudo safety measure. When the margin gets down to less than 10% margin of error on the limit then you know its about $

[Jay GTI]

Didn't want to quote the lot so chose the last line but refering to your posts as a whole.

The point you keep hitting against is that speed in its self isn't dangerous but circumstances can be. This is what is wrong with the 100k is ok but 105 k isn't mentality. The number of times you 'have' to do 105 might be less but they more often exist at holiday time. Most of the time 105k is no more dangerous than 100k and at those time you are not going to find a Kenworth or Mac truck to smash yourself against.
Speed is just a lazy, easily enforceable, pseudo safety measure. When the margin gets down to less than 10% margin of error on the limit then you know its about $

Ah no, I did say that speed is dangerous but then I did try to correct myself, as it wasn’t the point I was trying to make. Speed, in itself, is not dangerous. However it has an associated risk when it is a factor of an action we perform. When you drive home tonight, there will be a level of risk that is inherent in that action. There are a huge number of inputs that make up that risk and all help you decide to make that journey in the manner you will. The speed you travel will be one of those factors and the speed you decide to travel at, in that context, has a risk factor, which you apply to the decisions you will make during the course of your journey… Thus if you make good, sound judgement calls on the risk factors you are able control, there is a very high probability you will get home without issue. But speed, in the context of your journey home, does carry a risk factor and it cannot be separated from the action as it will have an impact on the potential consequences, if (and only if) something goes wrong.

But anyway I am yet again waffling away trying to prove something kind of pointless when, in essence, I agree with you completely.

[bluninja]

OMG New Zealand is moving at aprox 1280 Kmh, so even if I'm stationary on a road I'm going 1175 kmh past the 105 kmh danger mark and we know that 'speed kills'.

The earth itself is moving at 107,279 kmh......the bigger the speed, the bigger the mess! For creationists the earth hasn't had a serious collision for 20,000 years, for geologists it's about 3.5 billion years.

Some of the arguments in this thread are pretty bogus as they rely on a static speed under all conditions.

If we are talking risk of accident:

If I go down a straight empty road with no junctions at 150kmh the risk of a collision or catastrophic failure inducing a crash do not increase significantly.

If I now change the circumstances and add a junction ahead. Then you add some potential hazards which change the risk factors. Higher speeds reduce the time and space to respond to a change in circumstance, thus the risks of accident due to unforseen road conditions (diesel spill) increases.

If we are talking of risk of injury then for any given accident the more energy dissipated in the accident (mass x velocity) the more damage. But this risk factor only exists when an accident occurs. So if a 40,000 ton ship hits Auckland waterfont at 50 kmh it will do far more damage than a motorbike doing 300 kmh into a concrete bridge support (assuming the bridge can absorb the impact without catastrophic failure when it's full of vehicles travelling at 100 kmh - for the pedants).

Under these conditions I can be stationary in a vehicle and have a significant risk of harm if someone just drives into me.

If the government was really serious about reducing the road toll then they could simply (but not without lots of money) seperate opposing traffic flows on major routes with 100 kmh limits. They remove the opportunity for people to be on the wrong side (overtake, loss of control) and collide at 200 kmh closing speed. That reduces the risk for those collisions that carry the highest impact speed.

Wow, this cough medicine is working wonders.

[swbarnett]

You're not quite getting the point I was trying to make, although fair enough, my waffling ability often gets in the way of what I'm trying to say.

No worries. Thanks for the clarification.

The level of risk increases with speed, not necessarily in a 1:1 ratio (in fact far from it), but it does increase.

While usally true this is not always the case. A lower "boring" speed can lead to a loss of focus whereas a higher speed can see the return of that lost focus, therefore making the speed actually safer.

[swbarnett]

But speed, in the context of your journey home, does carry a risk factor and it cannot be separated from the action as it will have an impact on the potential consequences, if (and only if) something goes wrong.

But anyway I am yet again waffling away trying to prove something kind of pointless when, in essence, I agree with you completely.

Indeed. I think the problem comes from the term "dangerous". What does this actually mean? On the one hand there is the risk of having an accident. On the other there is the level of injury you are likely to sustain should an accident occur.

This is why I don't consider riding a motorcycle any more dangerous driving a car. An experienced rider does not have an increased risk of having an accident over a car driver. However, should an accident occur the injuries are likely to be more severe.

[bluninja]

No worries. Thanks for the clarification.


While usally true this is not always the case. A lower "boring" speed can lead to a loss of focus whereas a higher speed can see the return of that lost focus, therefore making the speed actually safer.

Hmmmm so adding a bit of adrenaline to 'fix' the loss of focus? and when the self induced shot of stimulant recedes you lose focus at a higher speed?

I appreciate the point; a better scenario (perhaps) for a motorcyclist is getting tailgated or squeezed when going 'slower', against going 10 kmh faster and having a safety envelope behind (yes I know there will always be dickheads that will tailgate you at any speed, you always have the choice to pick your spot and pull over to get them past).