Re: Cyclist rant: back in black



On 10 Mar 2005 21:18:55 GMT, Adrian <[email protected]> wrote:

>>>Personally, I'd far rather have them paying attention than being even
>>>more on autopilot because they're travelling slower. Maybe I'm odd
>>>like that.


>> Hurrah! I knew that festering red herring would be along some time.
>> Driver X is unable to concentrate when driving slowly. Should he (a)
>> speed up to the point where he can concentrate or (b) get off the road
>> before he kills someone?


>or (c) continue to bimble along at 29mph on autopilot?
>Ummm, I'll have a B, please, Bob.


So will I, which invites the question why many (including you in the
earlier post) suggest A as the preferred option.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
 
On 10 Mar 2005 21:19:36 GMT, Adrian <[email protected]> wrote:

>> Which is even more paradoxical given that Adrian assures us that those
>> travelling at the higher speed will be paying more attention not less.


>Please point me to where I said it was a direct correlation? I said it
>could happen. And it does.


The clear inference from actual study data is that, in general, for
the majority of roads, drivers and conditions, it doesn't. In the
balance of cases it is probably true to say that if the driver is not
capable of concentrating adequately without speeding he should not be
on the road in the first place.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
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88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
 
On 10 Mar 2005 21:24:11 GMT, Adrian <[email protected]> wrote:

>They have replaced traffic police. We have 1/3 the traffic police we had a
>decade ago.


And that is because the Daily Mail think the only proper place for the
Police is guarding Middle Britain's video recorders from the
attentions of marauding chavs. I suggest you write to them and invite
them to campaign for traffic policing to be made a Core Duty in the
performance criteria, preferably with some meaningful targets. Don't
expect much editorial support, though.

Guy
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88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
 
On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 06:18:30 +0000, Not Responding <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Mways are the safest because they are designed for high speeds and
>exclude all other road users. There is no relation between mways and
>99.99% of the roads in the UK.


I also wonder whether this perceived safety is as clear-cut as people
make out. If you measure risk per interaction with another vehicle,
i.e. per opportunity to crash, I'm guessing that figure might be a
little different.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
 
On 10 Mar 2005 21:21:34 GMT, Adrian <[email protected]> wrote:


>"Kids who might not be in class" is bollocks, because no kid that's skiving
>or outside school hours wants to be anywhere near a school.


There is, however, a surprising amount of foot traffic during school
hours at many schools. To be honest I think the urban limit should be
25mph or less anyway, and 15mph outside schools at key times.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
 
On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:43:21 -0000, "Tony W"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>A sensible government (???) might have said 'OK, we all speed. We know
>speeding increases the risk of accidents being serious. Here is the deal,
>folks. We will use cameras to catch you. They will be hiden so don't even
>think about speeding. However, we will experiment with increased speed
>limits on some roads (motoerways and near motorways) -- but will drop the
>speed limits in residential areas and on most urban roads -- which will make
>little difference since you are normally queued nose to tail anyway :~).


One flaw in this plan is that the most dangerous roads in the country
are cross-country roads like the B4009 Watlington-Princes Risborough
which feeds the M40. So, as ever, the question "safe for whom?" needs
to be carefully answered before introducing the measure.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
 
On 11 Mar 2005 09:18:19 GMT, Adrian <[email protected]> wrote:

>Just zis Guy, you know? ([email protected]) gurgled happily,
>sounding much like they were saying :
>
>> In 2003 there were 392 billion vehicle km travelled by car and 4.5bn
>> by bike. No, let's make this look as good for the car as possible and
>> assume that bikes /never/ use major roads, so that's 176bn for cars on
>> roads with cyclists, and 4.5bn for cyclists. Let's assume that
>> cycling is under-counted by half, it is probably more than that.

>
>Nice little set of assumptions. You've instantly closed the gap by 4:1.


OK, so we'll go with the original figures: 392 to 4.5. That means
that for each bike the car driver has to avoid, the cyclist has to
avoid 87 cars. Yes, that makes all the difference, doesn't it?

Hey, I forgot to double the 4.5 in the previous figure, so it's 20:1
by my version and nearly 90:1 by yours.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
 
On 11 Mar 2005 09:00:55 GMT, Adrian <[email protected]> wrote:

>What's the speed limit, and what speed were they doing?
>Most of the unlit country lanes round here are 60 limits.


Was also the case hereabouts, most villages now have 30 limits, to the
delight of their residents (although the occasional 80mph twunt still
blows through). The fact is it was never safe to drive at more than
30 anyway in the village where my outlaws live.

>FWIW, I grew up on the edge of a peak district village, and now live on the
>edge of countryside in Herts, so - yes - I have walked down a few lanes in
>my time. And I'm alive.


Alive and well and ignorant of the casualty figures for rural minor
roads, it appears.

>BTW - It's my b'day today, and SWMBO is taking me away for a weekend, so
>I'll be quiet in this thread from nowish on. Please don't assume I'm
>sulking because I've lost...


OK, we'll assume that you're dancing in the streets because you've
lost then ;-)

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
 
Just zis Guy, you know? ([email protected]) gurgled happily,
sounding much like they were saying :

>>What's the speed limit, and what speed were they doing?
>>Most of the unlit country lanes round here are 60 limits.


> Was also the case hereabouts, most villages now have 30 limits, to the
> delight of their residents (although the occasional 80mph twunt still
> blows through). The fact is it was never safe to drive at more than
> 30 anyway in the village where my outlaws live.


Right. Which shows that "speeding" - exceeding some arbitrary number - is
largely irrelevant as any kind of an indicator to road safety.

Yet it's the only moving traffic offence we prosecute.

>>BTW - It's my b'day today, and SWMBO is taking me away for a weekend,
>>so I'll be quiet in this thread from nowish on. Please don't assume
>>I'm sulking because I've lost...


> OK, we'll assume that you're dancing in the streets because you've
> lost then ;-)


Ppppffffttt....

BTW, Guy - Any opinion on Ray Ozzie's new job as CTO of MS?
 
In message <[email protected]>, Mark McNeill
<[email protected]> writes
>Response to Peter Amey:
>> > So when TRL measured the crash rates of different kinds of road and
>> > found that the crash rate increased with average traffic speeds for
>> > each type of road studied, they were actually using the
>> > attention-o-meter instead of the speed gun and they hadn't noticed,
>> > yes?
>> >

>>
>> Which is even more paradoxical given that Adrian assures us that those
>> travelling at the higher speed will be paying more attention not less.
>>
>> So we have:
>>
>> Higher speed -> higher crash rate (TRL)
>> Higher speed -> more attention (Adrian)
>> Less attention -> higher crash rate (Adrian)

>
>I mentioned earlier that the Cat & Fiddle has dropped out of the top ten
>most dangerous roads, following stricter enforcement of speed limits


Is that because the bikers slowed down, or because they buggered off to
have their fun elsewhere?

--
Steve Walker
 
"Steve Walker" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> >
> >I mentioned earlier that the Cat & Fiddle has dropped out of the top ten
> >most dangerous roads, following stricter enforcement of speed limits

>
> Is that because the bikers slowed down, or because they buggered off to
> have their fun elsewhere?


Anecdotal evidence here - local plod say that the halving of the fatality
rate for bikers round here in 2004 compared to 2003 was because they started
really hassling them. No obvious reduction in biker numbers though.

(btw that's halving from 26 to 13 deaths or something like that)

I do wonder how much of this was due to a greyer summer in 2004 though.

clive
 
On 11 Mar 2005 10:19:31 GMT, Adrian <[email protected]> wrote:

>>>What's the speed limit, and what speed were they doing?
>>>Most of the unlit country lanes round here are 60 limits.


>> Was also the case hereabouts, most villages now have 30 limits, to the
>> delight of their residents (although the occasional 80mph twunt still
>> blows through). The fact is it was never safe to drive at more than
>> 30 anyway in the village where my outlaws live.


>Right. Which shows that "speeding" - exceeding some arbitrary number - is
>largely irrelevant as any kind of an indicator to road safety.


Not that you are an apologist for illegal behaviour or anything.

Back in the real world, there is conclusive evidence that on a given
road the risk of crashing and the severity of injury when a crash
happens increases with average speed. Which is why speed limits were
introduced in the first place. Some people have apparently never got
over that.

>Yet it's the only moving traffic offence we prosecute.


A demonstrably false assertion. It's not even the only one we
prosecute with cameras.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
 
Just zis Guy, you know? ([email protected]) gurgled happily,
sounding much like they were saying :

>>Yet it's the only moving traffic offence we prosecute.


> A demonstrably false assertion. It's not even the only one we
> prosecute with cameras.


OK, apart from red lights.

I'm surprised you want to raise that one, Guy...
 
Tony W ([email protected]) gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying :

> On roads such as the B4009 (which I do not know)


I do.

There's some hidden junctions with very poor sight lines and the section
heading into Watlington's just a plain mess when you consider it's one of
the main routes into that section of Oxon.

The M40 junction itself is a godawful mess, too, and the area under the
bridge is perma-parked-solid with people (presumably) using it as a Park-
and-Ride.

Again, nothing to do with speed limits, everything to do with poor
observation and a lack of thought - and some road engineers needing to be
lined up against the wall and shot.
 
On 11 Mar 2005 11:22:07 GMT, Adrian <[email protected]> wrote:

>>>Yet it's the only moving traffic offence we prosecute.

>> A demonstrably false assertion. It's not even the only one we
>> prosecute with cameras.


>OK, apart from red lights.


And bus lanes. And VED, using ANPR. Which other ones do you think
could be enforced with cameras?

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
 
Just zis Guy, you know? ([email protected]) gurgled happily, sounding
much like they were saying :

> And VED, using ANPR.


Point of order, Sir...

That's *detected* using cameras, and enforced using the much under-used
RLSV technology.
 
Just zis Guy, you know? ([email protected]) gurgled happily, sounding
much like they were saying :

> And bus lanes. And VED, using ANPR.


Oh, yes... How many people die annually because of muppets driving in bus
lanes or not renewing their tax disc?
 
Adrian wrote:
> Just zis Guy, you know? ([email protected]) gurgled happily, sounding
> much like they were saying :
>
>
>>And bus lanes. And VED, using ANPR.

>
>
> Oh, yes... How many people die annually because of muppets driving in bus
> lanes


Impossible to tell the number that die because of health-related
illnesses arising from pollution caused by congestion caused by bus lane
abuse, but the number is non-zero. The cost to the economy is also
significant.

> or not renewing their tax disc?


The correlation between drivers with out of date tax disks, and those
drivers wanted for more serious offences, is quite high.

You're very good at weaselling out of the questions you can't answer and
instead latching onto some very insignificant point where you can prove
that you are "right".

R.
 
Adrian wrote:

> Yet it's the only moving traffic offence we prosecute.


Are - Dangerous Driving, Driving without due care and attention not by
definition moving traffic offences?

Allan
 
Allan ("amv.2f"@uc(delete)df.gla.ac.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying :

>> Yet it's the only moving traffic offence we prosecute.


> Are - Dangerous Driving, Driving without due care and attention not by
> definition moving traffic offences?


How do we prosecute those with cameras?