Thank you, I had a quick look on the trl site but I couldn't find it in a hurry, it seemed a rather poorly designed site - but I'm not great at finding these things.
Just for the benefit of non-Garfieldian readers of this thread, I'm not making out that this report is the be-all and end-all of any debate, just that it is a good example of the many many reports that consistently attribute a massive number of deaths each year to excess speed by drivers.
Given your previous aggressiveness in debate, I think this looks quite a lot like a climbdown, as it should.
I was only intervening in this thread because a few people started sneering at the idea that "speed kills", partly by demanding that anyone who says so is also saying that "only speed kills" - a patently absurd claim - and partly sneering at the idea that "speed kills" at all.
Now you've talked about "aunt sally" arguments, and this looks like one to me.
What I've seen is people sneering at the idea that speed is the overriding factor - the "only speed kills" argument. That gets made by omission of other factors, and by inference on the basis that the law enforcement focus is now overwhelmingly aimed at control of speed.
What I think Garf (and others) are trying to say is that there is a lot more to it than speed. Let me try and give an example from my own experience.
That is an aerial photo of a road junction, North to the top. Up until recently, it was a straightforward T-junction between a smallish side road (that happens to get used by quite a lot of large tankers), and a fast(ish) main road, itself used quite heavily at times.
Then they remodelled it, putting in a central median and refuge area so vehicles turning right onto the main road could pull out of the side turning, wait in the middle, and then carry on.
If you look carefully, you will see that the sight lines from the median area looking west are somewhat obscured by the median - that's grass, and when it is long, it's pretty hard to see past. What you can't see is that the junction occurs just to the east of a slight rise, which further obscures visibility. Entering the refuge area in the centre, sight lines to the east are also impaired by a number of road signs, plus the fact that the road dips and curves.
The upshot is that a previously pretty obviously hazardous junction has now been turned into a covertly hazardous one: if traffic is approaching from the west at the speed limit for the road (NSL - 60mph), anyone moving from the refuge area is potentially moving into the path of a vehicle which they may not be able to see. More importantly, perhaps, traffic on the main road cannot see that there is a refuge area, and may well not see that there is a vehicle waiting in it.
Someone I know happens to be a transport engineer. He made all kinds of sharp intakes of breath when he first encountered it, and was not very complimentary about the design.
Essentially, the road design is such as to make it necessary for everyone concerned to have to take extra care to ensure no collision occurs. I use that junction regularly, so I am aware of the risks. Even so, it is necessary to make a pretty smart exit and turn from that refuge to avoid having to cause traffic coming from the west having to slow down sharply: this happens a lot, and I have experienced the problem both as a driver on the main road, and as someone making that right turn.
There
will be an accident at that junction. Indeed, I think there have already been several, albeit non-fatal, and it would be easy to cite the speed of traffic on the main road as the reason for the accident. It would also be easy to blame inattentive drivers, either on the main route or turning, for not checking to see that the way is clear.
I expect that they will eventually "solve" the problem by slapping a speed restriction in around the junction.
But the underlying problem is road design (and this is, I think, borne out by DfT statistics, which cite road layout issues as a significant causal factor in RTAs). If you
insist on coming at it from a Speed Kills perspective, you can make a pretty good case. And that's the problem - speed is bound to be a factor (if not always a causative one) in any accident, and is the most obvious thing to modify. But this is a junction which, for want of a little more care in design, is more dangerous than it needs to be. Speed doesn't need to be a factor, but because it's cheaper to blame drivers and implement speed restrictions, blaming accidents on speed is a temptingly easy option.
I am not saying that all accidents are caused by poor road layout, and even where layout is a problem, it's often not possible to change it (steep bends at the bottom of a hill, for example, where the landscape gives no room to remodel). But this is a
brand new junction.
So when people get frustrated with those who insist on seeing speed as the be-all and end-all in road safety, this is why: because, by starting from the premise that speed is the problem, they completely fail to take into account all of the other factors.
In our headlong dash to address speed as the primary issue, we're covering our roadsides in signage. Round here no village on a main road is content with a 30 sign a few hundred yards outside on each side: no, we have the full panoply (and I have a specific example in mind here) of 50/40/30 signs, "Police Speed Check Area" signs (these are huge), various extravagant road markings, including rumble strips, "Foobar welcomes careful drivers" signs, "Traffic Calming Zone" signs, speed camera signs, and so on. The RAC (or the AA, I forget now) have already commented unfavourably on the increasing levels of clutter by our roadsides, and the overload it is imposing on drivers.
We are actually making it
harder to drive safely, by designing junctions that make speed into a problem, then plastering the roadsides with unnecessary signage, deskilling drivers, distracting them with speed traps, etc., etc. I know some will see this as some kind of excuse-making, but it's not: driving a car well and safely is a complex operation, and one which drivers do best when they are not overloaded with sensory input. Those signs might be useful for the "bad" drivers who are incapable of recognising a built-up area ahead of them, or can't notice a solitary 30 sign, but in pandering to them, we actually make it harder for the "good" drivers to do what they need to do - make good progress at an appropriate speed, in safety.
Moreover, what we don't know and probably can't measure is how many pedestrians, children, old people and cyclists etc etc are intimidated off the roads by the fear of aggressive speeding. But every time someone thinks "fuck it I just can't face it today" and decides not to cycle or walk that's another victory for 'pure safety' in the stats - yet I'd suggest it's a huge defeat for our society. I'm confident that if speed limits were enforced,
we'd have a lot more people on our streets and they'd be safer, more sociable and happier places.
"Aggressive speeding" is a whole other issue. And, incidentally, the overweening focus on the use of cameras and non-police personnel to enforce speed limits means that those who are "aggressively" speeding and those who just happen to be doing 5-10mph over the limit get lumped together. It seems to me to be common sense that those who drive aggressively, as opposed to a bit fast, represent more of a risk - another point for the case against solely focusing on speed - but the headlong dash towards automated enforcement actually
reduces our capacity for detecting and dealing with that kind of driving.
Then you say "if speed limits were enforced". Speed limits
are enforced. Probably more than any other moving traffic offence. The problem is that speeding is being enforced more and more at the expense of those other offences. Less police on the road means more cameras - those sums are a no-brainer. But it also means that the enforcement on the rules for dangerous drivers - tailgaters, "aggressive" drivers (speeding or otherwise), drunk drivers, or just plain incompetent (don't underestimate them - it's the plain incompetents who pull out of side roads into the paths of vehicles travelling at perfectly safe and legal speeds, and kill people) - are NOT being enforced as well as they could be.
- bless. Your credibility went out the window for good on this thread when you started citing a DfT report to back up some weird "12.5%" figure - which I now think you've plucked out of the air - but the report you cite doesn't contain the figure you claim - in fact the report you cite is ABOUT SOMETHING TOTALLY DIFFERENT ALTOGETHER
