speeding

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by dpastern

See my point now?

Dave

No.

The truckie was driving like a drongo.

You could *park* a truck on the wrong side of the road with similar disastrous consequences.

Plus you seem to be in denial about German autobahn statistics...every bugger there is going quite fast, yet there is *an order of magnitude* difference *less* in the accident rate.

Hence my position, it's not how fast you drive, it's how you drive.

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Oh well, I believe it's a combination of the 2, with those going faster being at higher risk of hurting both themselves and others. Yes, the truck driver was driving like a drongo, but if he was *doing* the speedlimit, or an appropriate speed, then the issue would NEVER have arisen. Speed was a factor.

Dave

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by dpastern

Speed was a factor.

Dave

....Apparently not on German Autobahns

[Astro78]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

This ignores some basic physics.
.

It certainly does, such as the impact force increasing by the square of the speed. So a mere increase of 20km/hr from 60 to 80 doubles the impact force.

An interest article -pro speed increase - http://www.smh.com.au/drive/motor-ne...1030-ho9e.html

[DJDD]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

There are times when speed is not only desirable, but safer (eg. aviation...go too slow, you stall & die)

i cannot think of any instances in day-to-day driving in a city when driving faster is safer...

Training drivers to be aware of when speed or lack thereof is appropriate would seem a better alternative....as despite draconian regulation in Oz...we bury all too many road users.

training should be a good idea, and the more training and experience we have the safer we all should be.

of course, we cannot seem to "train" our citizens that drinking a lot is unhealthy and dangerous and that eating a lot of sweet, sugary foods without exercising, as well, is unhealthy.

so, I submit that without the "draconian" regulation in OZ perhaps we would have an even higher road toll...

[marki]

Here's another great statistic. The longer you stay at an intersection the greater the chance of being involved in an accident. Logic then demands you should not stop at intersections but rather cross them at the highest possible speed your car can achieve to reduce your risk to a minimum. Not too sure about this though

Peter whilst the German system seems to work the Italian equivilant was not so successful (driver temperment?) having frequent huge pile ups. Whilst I hate over regulation by the powers that be, I also cringe at the thought of a no holds barred public race track in Australia. I see so much stupidity on the roads each day driving to and from work it is scary. I like to travel fast and have always owned big bore motor cycles but quite frankly I doubt most Australians are up to it. I do not support big brother tactics in any way and would join the fight to prevent such tatics being employed at a moments notice, but our speed limits are not all bad and you still get from A to B. Keep the high speed jinks on the race track where they belong. Everyone is going the same way, no kids to hit and there is an ambulance waiting to take you away if you stuff up.

Mark

[KenGee (Kenith Gee)]

Speed limiting road traffic would be great, I would also go for yearly driving retests and big fines and loss of licence for any infringements. It is very easy to stay within the speed limits and other roads rules, however it seems to be beyond many people. These people as often as not complain about government revenue raisers, talk about not taking responsibility. Unfortunate for most people they will not wake up to the reality of the situation until someone close to them is killed in a traffic accident.
Peter, true planes may fall out of the sky if they are not going fast enough, but they do simular things if they go to fast as well, and going the right speed is particularly important when taking off or landing is it not.

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Well, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who seems to think that speed can be an issue on our roads. There are many factors though, not just speed. Driver ability, road conditions and plain old commonsense (sadly lacking).

Dave

[Peter Ward]

Frankly I'm non-plussed by the IMHO dopey & simplistic "speed kills" mantra: it ignores so many other factors that can and do cause crashes on a daily basis.

Doing 20km an hour in the middle lane of the M5 is stupid and dangerous, as would be doing 220km/hr.

Would someone care to explain specifically why the German autobahns have 10x better safety than the speed limited roads there????

If the speed mantra were true this would clearly not be the case.

BTW as for basic physics, I was referring to the momentum of the truck.... Darwin awards are freely available for those who wish to step in front of one ( as clearly slow moving truck must be safe )

[bojan]

I totally agree.

And the secret is simple, as I mentioned earlier:
1) better cars and annual road-worthy test (not just when the car is sold)
2) driver training (some of drivers here would NEVER get their license in Germany)
3) penalties for traffic offences, including loss of license (for life, if need be)

As you mentioned earlier, speed with no limits on Autobahns does not mean they drive crazy. They drive at speed appropriate to their abilities and conditions. For slower driving there are plenty of local roads.
I was there as well, and yes, they do drive fast.. once I was driving towrds Munich from Salzburg at 130 or so..slow..) . and something black overtook me.. I think it was Ferrari Bagira or similar.. I will never know what it was because one moment it was far behind me, visible in my mirror, next moment it was far in front of me.

Again, speed DOES NOT kill. Lousy drivers, however, they do.

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Frankly I'm non-plussed by the IMHO dopey & simplistic "speed kills" mantra: it ignores so many other factors that can and do cause crashes on a daily basis.

Doing 20km an hour in the middle lane of the M5 is stupid and dangerous, as would be doing 220km/hr.

Would someone care to explain specifically why the German autobahns have 10x better safety than the speed limited roads there????

If the speed mantra were true this would clearly not be the case.

BTW as for basic physics, I was referring to the momentum of the truck.... Darwin awards are freely available for those who wish to step in front of one ( as clearly slow moving truck must be safe )

[DJDD]

Originally Posted by bojan

Again, speed DOES NOT kill. Lousy drivers, however, they do.

as an analogy- guns do not kill but crazy/angry people do...hence regulations.


speed can kill rather than injure.
Since Australians will always be inconsiderate drivers (generalising from observation) and will never/rarely learn to be better drivers nor polite drivers (i.e. drive in the appropriate lane, don't get angry at small mistakes made by others, etc.) then speed limits/regulations should be enforced.

As I said, i think the road toll would be higher if we had no speed limits or higher speed limits on our roads,

[spearo (Frank)]

I cant help it, I'll join in....

I've heard both sides of these arguments for years now but I like Peter's example of stepping in front of a slow moving Mack the best!
classic!

For what its worth i'll reveal my position right away: I side with Peter here.

Speed does NOT kill (the sudden stop does)- poor skills, poor communal ability to predict what the other drivers will do in various circumstances, poor road conditions, various levels of drugs and alcohol (some having residual effects or "half life" of varying duration etc), etc. do.


I like to drive fast in some circumstances - safely (that's why I own a Fireblade 929) and safely but slower at other times (why I still have a Pathfinder Diesel...)

Its a matter of skills, adjusting to conditions etc.

Societies develop with the advent and development of infrastructure allowing the movement of goods and people with increased speed to cover larger distances. That's a historical fact.

Making Australians drive 100 or 110 or somebody-kill-me-now 80 on stretches of road that sometimes have 4 or 5 lanes when we KNOW we have long distances to travel by the very nature of the country is insane. Driving at 100 bores me to tears and causes me to want to have a snooze...bring on auto drive systems, i cant wait.
Therefore slow speeds CAN kill to IMO. In fact, i think our benevolent governement also knows that...that's why they tell you to stop every 2 hours to have a break. Let me tell you, for the average person, tired after a day's work and not psyched for the task, 2 hours of sustained attention is unrealistic...they should have said "take a break every 45 minutes, every 15 if you've ever watched MTV...) but that would be too obviously disruptive (and imaging the amount of nagging drivers would get from some backseat drivers...)

The Japanese are like the Germans (in many ways it seems...) They DONT TOLERATE drink driving AT ALL. night after night you see the "salary man" and other business people drinking to excess (thought that's a debate for somewhere else- they often don't drink that much but the social demands lead them to often act drunker than they really are...anyways i'll leave this one for another time).

Many drink every night and it doesn't cross their mind to do anything but have a driver arranged or take a cab. (and yes, i lived there for nearly a year so i know first hand)

In my opinion we need:
Less nanny state
better roads or at least better sections of roads
Less mindless revenue raising speeding ticketing systems
tougher DUI penalties
a more intense driver training system and related exams.
a multi-tier rego/safety check system
a multi-tiered driver class and rego system.

the multi tier system would allow you to have say 3 classes of driver license and 3 categories of rego.

a)basic safety of vehicle and basic driver licence : drive on roads in lanes designated for normal speeds (100, etc)

b) higher range driver class and vehicle safety rego: the car is checked more thoroughly, you must pass a tougher driving exam. You can drive in designated lanes at higher speeds (say 130-140). Drink drive and the penalties are more severe than in class a) above. Break the speed limit allowed or accepted maneuvering (as taught in classes) and suffer penalties. This class is a privilege

c) highest class drivers license and rego: car passes top testing (like the Germans) and your training and testing is higher quality.:
you can drive in special lanes in sections of roads that have been approved for it (or upgraded) at speeds similar to the autobahn.

Any drink driving of any kind for highest class drivers- go to jail, do not pass Go, no get-out-of -jail cards (including former judges). Drive like a moron contravening accepted maneuvers as taught etc and suffer consequences. This class is a privilege.

Lose either class B or C and you don't get a chance to earn it again for a few years.

The tier system can only be implemented in stretches of road so designated.

I believe the government still has its mechanism to earn extra money from fines, we get more control and freedom.

its a win win

frank

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by DJDD

As I said, i think the road toll would be higher if we had no speed limits or higher speed limits on our roads,

I guarantee that it would be. Again, as I said in a previous thread many months ago, if you want to grant unlimited speed conditions, then cars as they currently are, are not safe enough to deal with high speed impacts.

Peter - if you're doing 100km/h you're travelling roughly 30 metres per second. 200km/h, that's 60 metres or so, per second. Your reaction speeds must be a lot better to deal with the faster speeds. So should your eyesight. Yes, you are correct, in a perfect world, only those with the necessary abilities would drive fast. Sadly, in the real world, take away speed limits, and you will get those 'drongos' driving far faster than they are really capable of.

Tell the widow and family of a guy killed by someone speeding and crashing into them; or a mother who's lost a child due to someone speeding that it's cos the driver was a drongo, and see how far you'll get with them. That excuse won't cut mustard I'm afraid. Try it, see how far you'll get, and see what sort of reactions you'll get. I bet it won't be very pretty. As my dad always has said - "speed thrills, speed kills".

Very few drivers on our roads have the abilities of skills of a professional racing driver. The cars are VASTLY different too - high performance gearboxes and braking systems, roll cages, larger tyres with far more grip, better car balance for high speed corners, so on and so forth. Most drivers on the roads have little idea of cornering, balance of the car, power drifting, lines through corners, so on and so forth. They have little conceptual understandering of complex handling issues like understeer and oversteer (it is very easy to confuse the 2 to be honest). No - keep racing speeds for the racetrack, and normal, reasonable travellign speeds for the ordinary citizen. There is absolutely no need to go faster than the current speed limits. None whatsoever.

As an aside, our average road is far, far, far different to the Autobahn. My dad was born in Germany, lived in Germany for a number of years before emigrating to Australia, and that's his take on the subject.

Dave

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by spearo

Driving at 100 bores me to tears and causes me to want to have a snooze...bring on auto drive systems, i cant wait.

frank

then, and I'll be quite frank (pun not intended), you shouldn't be driving imho. Driver concentration should be the same at any given speed, period.

I think many on this thread are over bold in their driving abilities. Just because you can drive fast does not make you a good driver.

Anyways, I've said my bits, I have nothing more to say.

Dave

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by dpastern

I guarantee that it would be. ......,

How? On what basis? The stats are there autobahns are 10x safer. If the Germans can do it, why can't we put similar systems in place?

Originally Posted by dpastern

My dad was born in Germany, lived in Germany for a number of years before emigrating to Australia, and that's his take on the subject.

Dave

Good for him. When did he leave? the early 1960's??

I was in Germany only last year, my observation was there are many roads in Oz on a par with Autobahns which could easily take 140-150km traffic. I am not suggesting open slather, many can't.

People like yourself equate only speed as being maniacal and unsafe.

I see this as simplistic, as the German experience shows, driving at speed can be very safe. If speed alone was "unsafe" here every October there would be a bloodbath at the Bathurst 1000.

BTW If you find driving at a decent clip scary, maybe you need to take an advanced driving course (I have and recommend every driver should as well).

Speed also needs to be appropriate....there are many circumstances where the posted limit is too fast.

Training drivers to know the difference seems sensible to me, but sadly is not in the Stay-Safe Committee's mantra.

Rather than learn from the German model, our dim Oz bureaucrats are lazy and would rather bubble wrapping everything plus provide a nice revenue raising stream for their political masters.....

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by bojan

I totally agree.

And the secret is simple, as I mentioned earlier:
1) better cars and annual road-worthy test (not just when the car is sold).

Move a couple of hundred Km north. You will have annual inspections, including among other things all lights, tread depth and deceleration (braking) tests.

There are some exemptions for vehicles less than 5 years old, but it does not apply to all of them - eg anything with a tare weight over 2000 Kg.

[DJDD]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

If the Germans can do it, why can't we put similar systems in place?

our dim Oz bureaucrats are lazy and would rather bubble wrapping everything plus provide a nice revenue raising stream for their political masters.....

maybe I am being overly critical of Australians but perhaps we cannot implement similar systems to those in Germany simply because we are rude, inconsiderate drivers. perhaps the "dim" bureaucrats know this? (hey, gotta give the pollies and public servants a wrap sometimes).


ok, lets' start...
- the first thing that could be improved in Melbourne would be to ensure that drivers do not run red lights.

- what do we do to stop this?
educate people?
or hit them where it hurts by fining them. this option seems the best way to get through to people.

- so, how to we catch the people running red lights?
put in speed cameras at EVERY light.

- what is the consequence?
a lot of people complaining about revenue raising and australia becoming a "nanny state".

even though this may be the most effective way to stop that particular problem.

we have to recognise that there is a problem first and face the consequences. that is, short term pain so that our children can grow up driving with higher speed limits on the roads...

[spearo (Frank)]

Originally Posted by dpastern

I think many on this thread are over bold in their driving abilities. Just because you can drive fast does not make you a good driver.
Dave

That's a rather bold statement in and of itself, how do you know my driving abilities or the skills of any of the others posting on the topic?

Beside, it isn't the point.

The point is Australia is supposed to be the clever country isn't it?

Wouldn't it be a real clever thing to do to study the particular issue and determine what would truly improve the situation. At least start from a hypothesis and test it out?

Instead all I hear are emotive arguments. Yes of course its terrible that people die, its terrible that people plough into other innocent people etc. Emotive statements wont help us think through, devise and progress a better system...they'll just lead to a "scare campain" like so many others and the usual simple solutions politicians can get through that the masses wont be too anxious about. "reduce all speeds by 10 or 20 KM/hours because we "know" speed kills" and report the first noted downward trend and you'll have the population voting for you again.

That doesn't mean that its the best balanced system.

I suspect that if we did have a new system that taught drivers and tested them properly, that could be evaluated.

If there was a trial of a new tier system, that too could be evaluated.

What I think of my driving abilities is not relevant to the analysis of the issues and the proposal of a potential better model. One that could even be tested. I'd rather have a logical approach to addressing the issue as apposed to one based on emotive scare campaining...

And in the fullness of time, should such a trial occurs and i go for my top class license and the system finds my vehicle isn't up to scratch or I cant pass the test (theory and practice of course) then the system would be shown to be effective and I shouldn't drive any faster than whatever class license i get.

Rather than leaving it to me to guess my driving abilities, why not introduce a system that tests this?

You pass, you get access/permission to drive faster on approved roads. Noone has a real problem with Police or Ambulance driving fast. "they get better driver training" some might think. Exactly right. Let people have the option to get that training too and benefit from it on roads designed for it and in vehicles inspected to ensure it can be done safely.

frank

[DJDD]

Originally Posted by spearo

Wouldn't it be a real clever thing to do to study the particular issue and determine what would truly improve the situation. At least start from a hypothesis and test it out?

I like the idea of testing a hypothesis based on research, however, since all public policy decisions are just hypotheses when do you see this ever happening in a way that does not result in a government being thrown out because they may have got it wrong?

[Miaplacidus (Brian)]

Oh, still going, I see.

I would be interested to hear the opinions of people whose job it is to scrape dead people off the roads. Surely they would have some interesting things to say about the common causes. A bit of science would be good, too, I agree, but just chanting "autobahn, autobahn" won't persuade many, methinks.

Also, no one seems to have acknowledged something basic about humans. Namely, our self-conceit when it comes to assessing our own abilities. Many studies have demonstrated that 70%+ of individuals surveyed state that their driving ability is "above average". (Note, this isn't actually impossible, if one accepts that each person is free to determine what constitutes "good driving".)

For me, I look for the same qualities in a driver as I do in a surgeon. That is, someone with a good reputation and a patient and methodical nature, someone who doesn't operate unless they have to, who performs enough procedures to remain skilled, who knows his limitations and is prepared to ask for help, who avoids operating when tired, who plans where they are going and puts themselves in the ideal position well in advance, but is also prepared for unexpected detours and side trips, and knows what to do in a sudden emergency. Someone who remains calm in a crisis. Someone who is prepared to say "No, I won't do that." Efficiency, yes, but speed for speed's sake is only idiotic. (Speed was only a virtue in the days before anaesthesia.) Small hands are a definite plus. (Well, maybe scratch that last one...)