Re: Common Cause - Just zis Website

Alistair J Murray said:

Just zis Guy said:

On Thu, 26 May 2005 16:53:40 +0100, Alistair J Murray
<[email hidden]> wrote:

[...safe unlimited roads...]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Which is tragic, considering the Montana experience.

So you say. Sounds like question-begging to me...

Perhaps, but Montana provides the only hard data we have.

I apologise in advance for the crosspost but would like the input of our
esteemed US counterparts in this discussion. I have of course included
as closely as I can match the same or similar two groups. It is
basically a question of Montana providing the hard evidence that is
needed to drop speed limits, below is my initial take on the situation
and a repost to the above, this is opinion and I look forward to views.

Montana had a reduction in fatalities from 1995 to 1996 of 11% the year
the speed limit was removed. It is noted that the fatalities in the
later part of the year are reduced[1], what time in 95 were the
restrictions removed?

Why did Montana have a 31% increase in fatalities for the period 1996/97[1]?

Montana opposed the original 55mph speed limit imposed as a result of
the fuel crisis. They were forced to accept it due to federal government
guidelines. These same government guidelines saw a reduction across the
board of fatalities in states that actively enforced the limit.

A bit of googling uncovers anecdotal evidence that these laws were not
overly enforced in Montana. During the period before the abolition of
the speed limit Montana imposed a stiff $5 fine on speeders. Which
became known as the fuel tax, no points or record was kept of those
found speeding.

Were speed limits routinely ignored in Montana?

When speed limits were re-introduced in the main the automobile
associations cried foul and pointed without fail to the figure -11% of
95/96 which up to that point was already in decline. Presumably then the
+31% of 96/97 was an outlier? Since then the situation has got worse. Is
it the case that unless the limits are enforced there is no point
posting them? In which case the UK is for once a leader, speed three or
four times and you are out.

Since then Montana has had an increase and a number of rather
interesting public policies regarding speeding, including accusations of
get out of jail free cards etc.

The question is this, is Montana representative of the rest of the world?

France, Portugal, flagrant disregard of speed limits. High fatalities.

Nordic countries, obeyance of limits, low fatalities.

[1]http://leg.state.mt.us/content/audit/download/98l-11.pdf&e=9707

Vincent Wilcox said:

Alistair J Murray said:

Just zis Guy said:

On Thu, 26 May 2005 16:53:40 +0100, Alistair J Murray
<[email hidden]> wrote:

[...safe unlimited roads...]

Quoted message said:

> Which is tragic, considering the Montana experience.

So you say. Sounds like question-begging to me...

Perhaps, but Montana provides the only hard data we have.

I apologise in advance for the crosspost but would like the input of our
esteemed US counterparts in this discussion. I have of course included
as closely as I can match the same or similar two groups. It is
basically a question of Montana providing the hard evidence that is
needed to drop speed limits, below is my initial take on the situation
and a repost to the above, this is opinion and I look forward to views.

Montana had a reduction in fatalities from 1995 to 1996 of 11% the year
the speed limit was removed. It is noted that the fatalities in the
later part of the year are reduced[1], what time in 95 were the
restrictions removed?

Why did Montana have a 31% increase in fatalities for the period
1996/97[1]?

Montana opposed the original 55mph speed limit imposed as a result of
the fuel crisis. They were forced to accept it due to federal government
guidelines. These same government guidelines saw a reduction across the
board of fatalities in states that actively enforced the limit.

A bit of googling uncovers anecdotal evidence that these laws were not
overly enforced in Montana. During the period before the abolition of
the speed limit Montana imposed a stiff $5 fine on speeders. Which
became known as the fuel tax, no points or record was kept of those
found speeding.

Were speed limits routinely ignored in Montana?

When speed limits were re-introduced in the main the automobile
associations cried foul and pointed without fail to the figure -11% of
95/96 which up to that point was already in decline. Presumably then the
+31% of 96/97 was an outlier? Since then the situation has got worse. Is
it the case that unless the limits are enforced there is no point
posting them? In which case the UK is for once a leader, speed three or
four times and you are out.

Since then Montana has had an increase and a number of rather
interesting public policies regarding speeding, including accusations of
get out of jail free cards etc.

The question is this, is Montana representative of the rest of the world?

France, Portugal, flagrant disregard of speed limits. High fatalities.

Nordic countries, obeyance of limits, low fatalities.

[1]http://leg.state.mt.us/content/audit/download/98l-11.pdf&e=9707

Apologies for the above link. This should be correct at least it works
for me.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=U&start=9&q=http://leg.state.mt.us/content/audit/download/98l-11.pdf&e=9707

Vincent Wilcox said:

Alistair J Murray said:

Just zis Guy said:

On Thu, 26 May 2005 16:53:40 +0100, Alistair J Murray
<[email hidden]> wrote:

[...safe unlimited roads...]

Quoted message said:

> Which is tragic, considering the Montana experience.

So you say. Sounds like question-begging to me...

Perhaps, but Montana provides the only hard data we have.

I apologise in advance for the crosspost but would like the input of our
esteemed US counterparts in this discussion. I have of course included
as closely as I can match the same or similar two groups. It is
basically a question of Montana providing the hard evidence that is
needed to drop speed limits, below is my initial take on the situation
and a repost to the above, this is opinion and I look forward to views.

Montana had a reduction in fatalities from 1995 to 1996 of 11% the year
the speed limit was removed. It is noted that the fatalities in the
later part of the year are reduced[1], what time in 95 were the
restrictions removed?

Why did Montana have a 31% increase in fatalities for the period
1996/97[1]?

Montana opposed the original 55mph speed limit imposed as a result of
the fuel crisis. They were forced to accept it due to federal government
guidelines. These same government guidelines saw a reduction across the
board of fatalities in states that actively enforced the limit.

A bit of googling uncovers anecdotal evidence that these laws were not
overly enforced in Montana. During the period before the abolition of
the speed limit Montana imposed a stiff $5 fine on speeders. Which
became known as the fuel tax, no points or record was kept of those
found speeding.

Were speed limits routinely ignored in Montana?

When speed limits were re-introduced in the main the automobile
associations cried foul and pointed without fail to the figure -11% of
95/96 which up to that point was already in decline. Presumably then the
+31% of 96/97 was an outlier? Since then the situation has got worse. Is
it the case that unless the limits are enforced there is no point
posting them? In which case the UK is for once a leader, speed three or
four times and you are out.

Since then Montana has had an increase and a number of rather
interesting public policies regarding speeding, including accusations of
get out of jail free cards etc.

The question is this, is Montana representative of the rest of the world?

France, Portugal, flagrant disregard of speed limits. High fatalities.

Nordic countries, obeyance of limits, low fatalities.

[1]http://leg.state.mt.us/content/audit/download/98l-11.pdf&e=9707

Apologies if the above link doesnt work, this was the one I was using.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=U&start=9&q=http://leg.state.mt.us/content/audit/download/98l-11.pdf&e=9707

"Vincent Wilcox" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

fbloogyudsr said:

Speed limit compliance (especially on interstates - motorways for
you UK guys) in the US is not very good. The WA DOT publishes data
showing that:

Ok.

Whoops. Wrong link.
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/mapsdata/tdo/PDF_and_ZIP_Files/Annual%20Cal%20Yr%202002%20Speed%20Report.pdf

Floyd

"Vincent Wilcox" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

Fine, but which states employ the most effective/draconian (depending
upon perspective) enforcement? How has that affected things?

I'm not sure how "compliance" would be easily measured. Certainly
the WA DOT data don't show good compliance; perhaps the fars
site has that info buried somehow. Here's my anecdotal take on it.

OR(egon) probably has the best compliance - and lowest interstate
limit - on the west coast. You have the WA data; CA is probably
not as compliant: speeds on the (70mph limit) freeways there are
probably 5-10mph higher than in WA, especially as you go south
of San Francisco.

Enforcement in OR is quite a bit more overt than in WA and CA.
However, the "rule" appears to be 10mph over in the 55 limit sections,
and 5mph over in the 65 sections. MT has low enforcement (except
for out-of-staters). ID(aho) seems pretty lax in enforcement.

So, overall I would say that compliance has no effect - even
in some cases negative effect - on fatality rates. Note the
CA/WA/OR rates: OR, with highest compliance, has a higher
fatality rate than WA/CA.

Floyd

fbloogyudsr said:

Quoted message said:

Vincent Wilcox said:

I apologise in advance for the crosspost but would like the input of
our esteemed US counterparts in this discussion. I have of course
included as closely as I can match the same or similar two groups. It
is basically a question of Montana providing the hard evidence that
is needed to drop speed limits, below is my initial take on the
situation and a repost to the above, this is opinion and I look
forward to views.

You don't state your opinion very well, your post is very disorganized
and incoherent. I'm guessing that you want lower speed limits and
want to find statistics that say that lower speed limits save lives. That
is demonstrably not the case, in terms of fatality *RATE*.

Its true, long night, sorry. No I am looking/thinking more about
compliance. Countries where the majority comply seem to do better than
countries where compliance is lower. I'd love to see the figures for
Mogadishu.

Think Greece versus Sweden for example, population of Greece 11M Sweden
9M but which country do you suppose is better at obeying simple things
like limits?

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=U&start=3&q=http://www.fiafoundation.com/resources/documents/641360272__ecmt_road_safety_data_2003.pdf&e=9707

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Montana had a reduction in fatalities from 1995 to 1996 of 11% the
year the speed limit was removed. It is noted that the fatalities in
the later part of the year are reduced[1], what time in 95 were the
restrictions removed?

Why did Montana have a 31% increase in fatalities for the period
1996/97[1]?

It was a blip. They immediately went back down the next year. See:
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/finalreport.cfm?title=States&stateid=0&year=2003&title2=Fatalities_and_Fatality_Rates

Whats the margin here? It looks like Montana has barely changed over the
entire period.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The question is this, is Montana representative of the rest of the
world?

No. They are not even representative of the US. Note that the fatality
rate is different for MT than the majority of the US (see my reference.)
Since about 2000 they have had a 75mph limit, with very poor compliance
(I've driven there, and it's more like 85mph, as is Arizona, where the
fatality rate is in line with the US average.)

Poor compliance. Greece versus Sweden?

Quoted message said:

Please read in the report you posted: the rural (non-interstate)
roads have a very high fatality count and rate. Speeds on interstates
haven't affected the rate, and in fact it is now lower than in the period
before '97, in line with the rest of the US.

But not lower than earlier figures. A plateau? Why?

Quoted message said:

Speed limit compliance (especially on interstates - motorways for
you UK guys) in the US is not very good. The WA DOT publishes data
showing that:

Ok.

Quoted message said:

http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/finalreport.cfm?title=States&stateid=0&year=2003&title2=Fatalities_and_Fatality_Rates

Also, please note the section in the report you mention that talks
about *HOW* speed limits should be set (on page 5: FHWA). There
is no way to align your opinion with demonstrated facts from scientific
studies that support these guidelines.

Floyd

Fine, but which states employ the most effective/draconian (depending
upon perspective) enforcement? How has that affected things?

fbloogyudsr said:

"Vincent Wilcox" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

Fine, but which states employ the most effective/draconian (depending
upon perspective) enforcement? How has that affected things?

I'm not sure how "compliance" would be easily measured. Certainly
the WA DOT data don't show good compliance; perhaps the fars
site has that info buried somehow. Here's my anecdotal take on it.

OR(egon) probably has the best compliance - and lowest interstate
limit - on the west coast. You have the WA data; CA is probably
not as compliant: speeds on the (70mph limit) freeways there are
probably 5-10mph higher than in WA, especially as you go south
of San Francisco.

Britain has on the whole pretty good compliance, hence the
figures.Portugal is [censored] poor as is Spain and France. The French are
rather embarassed about it and they've had around a ~20% drop but
they've really been clamping down, hard. I live in France work but work
in the Britain. I am unsure how the German figures changed after
re-unification.

Quoted message said:

Enforcement in OR is quite a bit more overt than in WA and CA.
However, the "rule" appears to be 10mph over in the 55 limit sections,
and 5mph over in the 65 sections. MT has low enforcement (except
for out-of-staters). ID(aho) seems pretty lax in enforcement.

Err, sorry I've got OR being Oregon (correct?) but I have to look up my
WA and CA definitions.WA is Washington and CA California? Verbosity here
would help.

I still don't understand what you mean though. Is this fact?

Quoted message said:

So, overall I would say that compliance has no effect - even
in some cases negative effect - on fatality rates. Note the
CA/WA/OR rates: OR, with highest compliance, has a higher
fatality rate than WA/CA.

Floyd

Thats not what we see here. The French have increased the number of
cameras, cue. Someone saying but not since ... or whatever, but in the
interim there were a mass of warnings before they were introduced. A
lorry/truck driver friend was on the ball about this years before they
were introduced, although as he said at the time. I didnt have to worry
because I had a British number plate. Not so now.

I really don't think the UK has good compliance. The posted limit is
70 mph on motorways, but it's common to see drivers hitting 90 to 95 on
the M4 towards London.

Also, Germany's fatality rate is now lower than that of the United
States. I got it straight from FHWA... scroll down to the second
chart.

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/ohim/hs02/in6.htm

It shows Germany at 1.3 deaths per 100 million freeway kilometres. The
United States is showing 1.6. Even France with its blatant disregard
for the 130 km/h limits has lower fatalities than the United States.
Having been all over Europe, I can say that the motorways in the UK are
more comfortable and safer than that of Europe (i.e., shoulders,
signage clarity, etc.).

Furthermore, in 1995, the top 1 percentile would be about 200 km/h (125
mph). I recently went to Germany a few months ago and had an Audi A8
TDI V-8. I think the regular petrol models have a speed governor at
250 or 255, but the TDI apparently did not have any because the
governor stopped the car at 280 km/h. That's 175 mph. There were just
four cars going from Berlin to Madgeburg on a very smooth
nearly-straight three-lane autobahn A2 that was almost new. Seeing
that the S600 topped at 255 km/h, it could not catch up with us
travelling over 275 km/h, so there were just the three of us at 6 in
the morning on a Sunday when there's nobody out there. Bliss!

Lorries are still limited at 90 km/h or 100 km/h, and that's with cars
screaming nearby in excess of 260 km/h. Far safer than lorries doing
90 km/h and cars going 200 km/h? Well, the numbers show a substantial
decrease in fatalities. Look at this one:

http://www.driveandstayalive.com/info%20section/statistics/multi-country_death-rates_1988-2001.htm

This one is not per kilometre mile driven, but I can assure you more
people are driving cars in Germany compared to 1988 (especially with
the fall of the Berlin wall). Still, from 1988 to 2001, there was a
huge decrease of 36% in overall deaths. During the same timeframe, the
U.S. only dropped 4 percent - the worst of all the 30 countries on the
list.

Wiggums said:

I really don't think the UK has good compliance. The posted limit is
70 mph on motorways, but it's common to see drivers hitting 90 to 95
on
the M4 towards London.

I'm sorry that's not true.

It's common to see cars travelling at that speed all over the country.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_transstats/documents/downloadable/dft_transstats_506337.pdf

On the 9th page, you will see a chart on the top of the page that shows
55% exceeded the speed limit on non-urban motorways.

On the 10th page, 17% were travelling in excess of 80 mph (speed limit
is 70). In this survey were typically free-flowing motorways.
Motorcycles were similar to cars in exceeding the speed limit.

On the 11th page, this is where it gets interesting.

1% of the cars exceed 90 mph, and 16% are going between 80 to 90 mph.
As for motorcycles, it is 2% of them exceeding 90 mph, and 16% going
between 80 to 90 mph. I have seen many cars hitting 100 mph in the
U.K. especially at nights. You will never see that anywhere in the
United States.

Doing 85 mph on 75 mph in Arizona which is much more barren than U.K.
can get you arrested. Furthermore, I can assure you compliance is MUCH
higher in the Netherlands and Belgium where there are traffic cameras
everywhere.

"Wiggums" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_transstats/documents/downloadable/dft_transstats_506337.pdf

On the 9th page, you will see a chart on the top of the page that shows
55% exceeded the speed limit on non-urban motorways.

On the 10th page, 17% were travelling in excess of 80 mph (speed limit
is 70). In this survey were typically free-flowing motorways.
Motorcycles were similar to cars in exceeding the speed limit.

On the 11th page, this is where it gets interesting.

1% of the cars exceed 90 mph, and 16% are going between 80 to 90 mph.
As for motorcycles, it is 2% of them exceeding 90 mph, and 16% going
between 80 to 90 mph. I have seen many cars hitting 100 mph in the
U.K. especially at nights. You will never see that anywhere in the
United States.

You'd better check the WA DOT document I posted - there are certainly
places where people go over 100mph.

Quoted message said:

Doing 85 mph on 75 mph in Arizona which is much more barren than U.K.
can get you arrested. Furthermore, I can assure you compliance is MUCH
higher in the Netherlands and Belgium where there are traffic cameras
everywhere.

Hard to believe that doing 85 in AZ (or MT, many places in CA, and
other western states) gets you arrested. 85-90 is the normal/85%
speed on rural interstates there. I've driven 85 from Phoenix to Flagstaff
on I15, 85-90 on I5 in the San Joaquin valley; the only thing the cops
touch are the truckers.

Floyd

Wiggums said:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_transstats/documents/downloadable/
dft_transstats_506337.pdf

Quoted message said:

On the 9th page, you will see a chart on the top of the page that
shows 55% exceeded the speed limit on non-urban motorways.

On the 10th page, 17% were travelling in excess of 80 mph (speed limit
is 70). In this survey were typically free-flowing motorways.
Motorcycles were similar to cars in exceeding the speed limit.

On the 11th page, this is where it gets interesting.

1% of the cars exceed 90 mph, and 16% are going between 80 to 90 mph.
As for motorcycles, it is 2% of them exceeding 90 mph, and 16% going
between 80 to 90 mph. I have seen many cars hitting 100 mph in the
U.K. especially at nights. You will never see that anywhere in the
United States.

Which is simply because US cars are slower.

Quoted message said:

Doing 85 mph on 75 mph in Arizona which is much more barren than U.K.
can get you arrested. Furthermore, I can assure you compliance is
MUCH higher in the Netherlands and Belgium where there are traffic cameras
everywhere.

Hardly suprising is it?

Wiggums said:

I am in Orange County where the posted limit is 65, but everybody does
75 to 80. Police enforcement here is noticeably lower than that of the
UK. On UK motorways, I have gone past speed cameras at 15 mph above
the limit, and there was no flash from the Gatso cameras.

15mph indicated? Could have been as little 77mph, which is within the
ACPO guidelines. Even then, I suspect cameras are often set even higher
as there is little point catching 100 people doing 80mph and then
running out of film, when setting the camera at (say) 85-90ish would
catch 100 more serious offenders instead.

I would be really surprised if I was flashed at doing less than 85 mph
on the motorway. I just go along with the flow and it's generally 80
to 85. As you said, it's possible the Gatso's are set up to not run
out of film. I do remember right after the petrol crisis, there were a
lot of cars barrelling at over 100 mph because they knew all the
Gatso's were out of film!

Brimstone ([email hidden]) gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying :

Quoted message said:

(BTW - it was a bit of gentle micky taking so that seem like a double
WOOSH.

May I refer the honourable gentleman to the time of a Friday night it was
posted, and the state of the wine bottle next to my laptop?

Adrian said:

Brimstone ([email hidden]) gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying :

Quoted message said:

(BTW - it was a bit of gentle micky taking so that seem like a double
WOOSH.

May I refer the honourable gentleman to the time of a Friday night it
was posted, and

Quoted message said:

the state of the wine bottle next to my laptop?

Not full?

Brimstone ([email hidden]) gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying :

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

the state of the wine bottle next to my laptop?

Quoted message said:

Not full?

In the recycling box now.

fbloogyudsr said:

Hard to believe that doing 85 in AZ (or MT, many places in CA, and
other western states) gets you arrested. 85-90 is the normal/85%
speed on rural interstates there. I've driven 85 from Phoenix to
Flagstaff on I15, 85-90 on I5 in the San Joaquin valley; the only
thing the cops touch are the truckers.

I used to regularly drive all over the US at 65-80mph just keeping up
with the traffic when the national limit was still 55mph. On the
Boston-NY run it was like lions and a herd of wilderbeest. You would be
in a big pack of traffic rolling at 85mph and suddenly in the middle of
it a set of blue light would start flashing and one of the pack would be
pulled over while the rest thundered on unslowed.

--
Tony

"A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought" Lord
Peter Wimsey (Dorothy L. Sayers)

Wiggums said:

I am in Orange County where the posted limit is 65, but everybody does
75 to 80. Police enforcement here is noticeably lower than that of the
UK. On UK motorways, I have gone past speed cameras at 15 mph above
the limit, and there was no flash from the Gatso cameras. On the M4 to
London, I can say with certainty it's well less than half of the cars
complying with the limit and roughly 2 percent exceeding 90, probably
to beat the queue (traffic). When the M4 turns into A4, compliance
increases. It seems cameras on the A4 are more trigger-happy.

There are three variants on the state of Gatsos. Some are switched off,
some are active with no film and some are fully active. They move them
round and rely on the fact motorists do not know which is which to make
them all effective. On the M25 roadworks people are over compliant at
the camera points and not elsewhere, traffic allowing.

--
Tony

"A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought" Lord
Peter Wimsey (Dorothy L. Sayers)