Driving standards

[jjb1970]

Cracking down on road users is like a lot of other things (eg, payment of taxes, clamping down on benefits, reducing energy use etc) in that people support it so long as it is clamping down on somebody else. Very few motorists consider themselves bad drivers and it is not just about motorists. I'm a keen recreational cyclist but there are also idiots on bicycles and plenty of pedestrians are organ donors in waiting in the way they are oblivious to basic road safety.

On the professional argument, in any field we expect higher standards from professionals for the reason that they have received greater training and are supposed to have greater expertise. When I was at sea deck officers used to pull their hair out at the idiocy of some yachts that were oblivious to shipping regulations, traffic separation and the basic physics of moving a 6000TEU containership at a certain speed and the consequences of a small bit of fibreglass getting too close to it.

[Trevellan]

Cracking down on road users is like a lot of other things (eg, payment of taxes, clamping down on benefits, reducing energy use etc) in that people support it so long as it is clamping down on somebody else. Very few motorists consider themselves bad drivers and it is not just about motorists. I'm a keen recreational cyclist but there are also idiots on bicycles and plenty of pedestrians are organ donors in waiting in the way they are oblivious to basic road safety.

On the professional argument, in any field we expect higher standards from professionals for the reason that they have received greater training and are supposed to have greater expertise. When I was at sea deck officers used to pull their hair out at the idiocy of some yachts that were oblivious to shipping regulations, traffic separation and the basic physics of moving a 6000TEU containership at a certain speed and the consequences of a small bit of fibreglass getting too close to it.

 

   I've heard similar stories from a former seafarer who retired as the captain of a North Sea ferry. Earlier in his career he'd been an officer on a tanker and described incidents in the Solent involving what he called WAFIs - Wind Assisted Flipping Idiots (or words to that effect).

Edited August 10, 2015 by Trevellan

[Arthur]

I disagree, the skills lost in modern cars is thinking for oneself instead of assuming 'the car will save me' and driving nose to tail in fog at high speed on the motorway.

 

For goodness sake, really, how do modern cars stop people thinking for themselves?

 

That they may stop more quickly is a performance issue that you get used to, just as forty years ago we got used to much longer stopping distances. Yes, going back to an older car requires a readjustment that any sensible driver would make.

 

Again, are we to stop car development because the supposedly de-skilled drivers cannot safely drive a Morris Minor? Are we really saying that?

Edited August 10, 2015 by Arthur

[Guest]

Again, are we to stop car development because the supposedly de-skilled drivers cannot safely drive a Morris Minor?

Why draw the line at a Minor? Surely you could improve standards further by making everyone take their test in a Stanley steamer?

 

You know, having said that I really think you could.

[Reorte]

I disagree, the skills lost in modern cars is thinking for oneself instead of assuming 'the car will save me' and driving nose to tail in fog at high speed on the motorway.

That may be the case with a very small number but my (entirely unfounded) suspicion is that people driving like that aren't thinking that the car will save them, they're thinking that they're driving perfectly fine anyway and would've been driving the same way thirty years ago. There may be reliance on the car's capabilities but hasn't that always been the case? A car from thirty years ago will go around a corner perfectly safely that would be horribly dangerous in an early car (assuming it was capable of the same speed to begin with), thanks to better suspension, tyres, chassis etc. Is that any different?

[chris p bacon]

 When I was at sea deck officers used to pull their hair out at the idiocy of some yachts that were oblivious to shipping regulations, traffic separation and the basic physics of moving a 6000TEU containership at a certain speed and the consequences of a small bit of fibreglass getting too close to it.

It's off topic I know,  but my fathers attitude was very simple. When you are C/E on a 250,000 ton tanker en route from the gulf to Europort and the bathtubs with sheets get in the way in the channel, they must understand that you can't manouvre  so therefore if they are run down they only have themselves to blame. I do remember being on the bridge (sea trials) and even with radar there was an awful lot you couldn't see especially when running with no load and 70 - 100' out of the water.

[ParkeNd]

I disagree, the skills lost in modern cars is thinking for oneself instead of assuming 'the car will save me' and driving nose to tail in fog at high speed on the motorway------------------------

I suppose I ought to confess that driving a modern car has lost me my hand signal skills - I doubt for one minute if I could lower the window in the rain and give a left turn hand signal at 70 mph when intending to leave at the next motorway junction - nor I suppose when slowing down to join a traffic queue  at some motorway roadworks.

[Glorious NSE]

I disagree, the skills lost in modern cars is thinking for oneself instead of assuming 'the car will save me' and driving nose to tail in fog at high speed on the motorway.

 

Drivers were so much more careful years ago though, such as on the M4 in 1991 (51 vehicle collision, ten fatalities) or on the M42 in 1997 (160 vehicle collision, three fatalities)...both of which occurred before modern tech assists such as ABS, Airbags and the like would have been prevalent in the vehicles involved (let alone modern semi-intelligent kit like obstacle detection) - and both involved most if not all drivers involved seemingly consistently driving beyond their ability to see...

[Glorious NSE]

I disagree, the skills lost in modern cars is thinking for oneself instead of assuming 'the car will save me' and driving nose to tail in fog at high speed on the motorway.

 

Drivers were so much more careful years ago though, such as on the M4 in 1991 (51 vehicle collision, ten fatalities) or on the M42 in 1997 (160 vehicle collision, three fatalities)...both of which occurred before modern tech assists such as ABS, Airbags and the like would have been prevalent in the vehicles involved (let alone modern semi-intelligent kit like obstacle detection) - and both involved most if not all drivers involved seemingly consistently driving beyond their ability to see...

[hayfield]

This morning a couple of cars overtook me (into what I believed was a gap with a safe braking distance) neither passed the car which was in front of me owing to the line of traffic having little space between the cars. The first to pass me turned right at the roundabout, no others cars in front of him went that way. The other car in front of me, would have got passed me as I turned left into a petrol just before the round about, both cars must have saved a couple of seconds each if that whilst queue hopping.

 

Then after filling up with petrol I had to brake when coming up to a slip road from the M1, even though both cars should have given way. Still as I had to wait a bit further up the road at traffic lights never lost me any time to give way to them. 

[Baby Deltic]

I always think of the ABC of driving:

 

Assume nothing

Believe no-one

Concentrate

[jjb1970]

I think there is far too much emphasis on speed. I'm not advocating or defending speeding but my own experiences on the road as a driver and cyclist are that I see far more dangerous driving as a result of tail gating, poor lane discipline, poor use of indicators, poor judgement of speed/distance (or just stupidity) when emerging from junctions and cutting other users up by leaving it far too late in positioning for exits junctions etc. And as a cyclist vehicles over taking and not leaving anything like enough room (for fairness I'll add cyclists going down the eft side of trucks who are clearly positioning to turn left). However these things are not caught by speed cameras.

[Baby Deltic]

The one that annoys me is mono speed driving. I get irritated at people who have one speed regardless of speed limits, road conditions and situation. I sometimes see cars sitting at 40mph go from holding up traffic on good A roads where 60mph is appropriate to significantly exceeding the limit going through villages with 30mph speed limits. I know the speed limit isn't a target and that the fact the speed limit is at x mph doesn't mean you should drive at x mph but even so it is annoying when people make no adjustment for differing conditions like that and so end up veering between holding up traffic flow and speeding.

I too get annoyed with drivers who fail to make 'reasonable progress' on good A roads where the conditions and visibility are perfectly good for driving up to the national limit. I think the Police should clamp down on them as much as they clamp down on speeding. 40 in a 30 is wholly unacceptable and I think it should be a six point bounce considering the difference in chances of survival for a person hit at 40 compared to 30.

[cheesysmith]

Now we come to the govs often misquoted and totally wrong line speed kills. NO, speed doesn`t kill, hitting things kill. Traveling at a inaproperate speed for the road conditions/weather/traffic can result in fatal accidents. Unfortunaly, these can happen at less than the legal  limit on the road concerned. The speed limits nowadays are irrelivent to modern cars, most will quite happily cruse well above the limits posted and stop in half (or better) the distances in the highway code. Non of this will ever change, why? Because speed limits can be easily and cheaply enforced by machines, that end up costing nowt to run due to the fines. To improve driving standards would require retests, ongoing driver education and the use of police officers (who are being cut back ) to enforce. This would all cost a LOT of monies that would have no showing in the life of the parliament, therefore would never get passed, as there would be no benift to the party in power.

 

cynical, me?

[alastairq]

Actually this is a grey area as many Police think that if you cut your TED to a minimum you are a lot safer than keeping exactly to limit.

 

Traffic Police I have known did not book for this as they considered it sensible driving.

 

I would say that not using full acceleration to overtake is a danger.

 

 

Well, sadly, the opinion of a Police Officer or other individual in such a circumstance really isn't worth a light.

 

Exceeding the Speed Limit has little to do with opinion [unless, in the opinion of a Police Officer, one was exceeding the limit.],,,since it is an 'absolute' offence.

 

One is either exceeding the speed limit....or one is not.

 

Nothing 'grey' about it.

 

What is being referred to in the quote, focusses on whether a Police Officer would bother to report the offence.

 

However, consider this.....a driver/rider should only overtake, 'if it is safe to do so'.....

 

Having to exceed the speed limit in order to do so suggests the driver discovered it suddenly wasn't as 'safe' as they thought?

 

So maybe, the offence is overshadowed by one of 'careless', or even, 'dangerous' driving?

 

So, the answer to the original observation has to be, no, exceeding the speed limit for your vehicle whilst overtaking IS contrary to the Law....and to believe otherwise, on the grounds suggested, points to a lack of driver competence, if that driver genuinely believes it.. Certainly, in my example, the driver concerned fell short in many other areas of driver skill....probably because, once he had 'passed' his test, he spent years without actually undergoing any further driver education...something that is at last being address in the heavy world.

[Black Sheep]

For goodness sake, really, how do modern cars stop people thinking for themselves?

 

 

I fear I am being misunderstood, modern cars isolate the driver from the conditions allowing some to make poor decisions or blindly copy anothers actions eg 2ft off the back bumped of the car in front at 70mph in thick fog that had reduced lanes 1&2 to 40mph due to lack of visibity.

 

Modern lights may pierce the fog better than those of the Minor but does that mean you can continue at normal motorway pace?

 

The same with modern wipers and tyres in heavy rain / spray, in extreme conditions I can feel my motorbike, all 250kg of it is slightly unsettled and there is a wall is spray from each lorry but speed in lane 3 doesn't drop, silver (and other colours) cars emerge from the gloom with no lights on having moments before not been distinguishable from the weather.

[Pacific231G]

If driving standards have declined so much, how come  deaths and serious injuries on Britain's roads have both declined by about two thirds since 1990? Apart from a peak in the first years of the Second World War when fatalities rose to 9000 in 1941 and then fell away (probably due to the blackout until people got used to it) the worst years for road fatalities were the mid 1960s with about 8000 deaths per year. Since the mid 1970s there's been a fairly steady fall from over 7,700 deaths in 1972, to 1,754 in 2012 even though there are far more cars and lorries on the road. .

 

Some of that improvement may be the result of cars being more survivable in collisions and advances in medicine - I don't think there were many air ambulances in 1972- but the figures for non-fatal casualties has also fallen from 229 serious or slight casualties per 100 million kilometres travelled in 1965 to 40 per 100 million in 2012.

 

Futhermore, the same cars are now being driven throughout the developed world yet Britain's death rate per million population is virtually the lowest in the world. (though the Irish Republic is fairly close), half that of most European countries and about a quarter that of the USA. Even the supposedly disciplined Japanese are about 30% more likely to die on their roads than we are on ours.

 

Figures from http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn02198.pd prepared in 2013 and worth looking at if you want facts rather than opinions.. 

 

I've been driving since the 1970s and though I often curse poor driving, especially people jumping lights in London,  I don't honestly recall driving standards being any higher then than now.

 

Seventeen hundred people getting killed each year is obviously not acceptable. airlines and railways have improved safety even more, but to get that figure down further we probably need to look a lot deeper at what actually causes accidents rather than just putting it down to careless driving. There was a time when most air accidents were simply ascribed to "pilot error" nowadays the whole system is looked at and that has produced huge gains in safety. While only a fraction of people who drive do so recklessly, we all drive carelessly some of the time and probably a great deal more of the time than we want to believe.

.   

Edited August 10, 2015 by Pacific231G

[alastairq]

It's off topic I know,  but my fathers attitude was very simple. When you are C/E on a 250,000 ton tanker en route from the gulf to Europort and the bathtubs with sheets get in the way in the channel, they must understand that you can't manouvre  so therefore if they are run down they only have themselves to blame. I do remember being on the bridge (sea trials) and even with radar there was an awful lot you couldn't see especially when running with no load and 70 - 100' out of the water.

 

I had the same experience in the Red Sea, with the local fishing boats....no lights, and with our vessel having little sea room [the Red Sea had a series of 'channels' to be kept to, at the time]....as a young Third Officer , on the bridge, I was encouraged not to go swerving about all over the place.

[Arthur]

Well, sadly, the opinion of a Police Officer or other individual in such a circumstance really isn't worth a light.

  

What is being referred to in the quote, focusses on whether a Police Officer would bother to report the offence.

 

.

Somewhat contradictory I would say. It might well be an absolute offence but that isn't worth a light if the Police Officer chooses not to report it.

 

The point being made is that in the real world a Police Officer might choose to turn a blind eye if the overall manoeuvre was conducted appropriately.

 

Cameras, of course, are a different matter.

[Taz]

I fear I am being misunderstood, modern cars isolate the driver from the conditions allowing some to make poor decisions or blindly copy anothers actions eg 2ft off the back bumped of the car in front at 70mph in thick fog that had reduced lanes 1&2 to 40mph due to lack of visibity.

 

Modern lights may pierce the fog better than those of the Minor but does that mean you can continue at normal motorway pace?

 

The same with modern wipers and tyres in heavy rain / spray, in extreme conditions I can feel my motorbike, all 250kg of it is slightly unsettled and there is a wall is spray from each lorry but speed in lane 3 doesn't drop, silver (and other colours) cars emerge from the gloom with no lights on having moments before not been distinguishable from the weather.

 

Wasn't it ever so? People have always driven too fast and too close in bad weather conditions. It has jack to do with how modern the car is.

Unfortunately far too many drivers do not adjust their speed and behavior to the prevalent conditions.

[Arthur]

I fear I am being misunderstood, modern cars isolate the driver from the conditions allowing some to make poor decisions or blindly copy anothers actions eg 2ft off the back bumped of the car in front at 70mph in thick fog that had reduced lanes 1&2 to 40mph due to lack of visibity.

Modern lights may pierce the fog better than those of the Minor but does that mean you can continue at normal motorway pace?

The same with modern wipers and tyres in heavy rain / spray, in extreme conditions I can feel my motorbike, all 250kg of it is slightly unsettled and there is a wall is spray from each lorry but speed in lane 3 doesn't drop, silver (and other colours) cars emerge from the gloom with no lights on having moments before not been distinguishable from the weather.

I appreciate your reply, but what are you saying?

 

Modern headlights and efficient wipers are a safety hazard? I'm still not buying this somewhat Luddite idea, and you are not alone Black Sheep, that modern cars make people worse or unsafe drivers. From your last point, headlights coming on automatically at certain light levels would be a good thing, yet some argue it's a 'dumbing down driving' technology. Which is it?

Edited August 10, 2015 by Arthur

[Pacific231G]

Drivers were so much more careful years ago though, such as on the M4 in 1991 (51 vehicle collision, ten fatalities) or on the M42 in 1997 (160 vehicle collision, three fatalities)...both of which occurred before modern tech assists such as ABS, Airbags and the like would have been prevalent in the vehicles involved (let alone modern semi-intelligent kit like obstacle detection) - and both involved most if not all drivers involved seemingly consistently driving beyond their ability to see...

Drivers clearly weren't any more careful years ago. I looked back even further and found serious motorway pile ups in fog going back to 1971, 1972 and 1974 and even a parliamentary question on the problem from 1965

That's interesting for the police response

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Tom Fraser)

My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary received full reports from the police forces of Lancashire and Staffordshire on Monday, 8th November. The conclusion to be drawn from these reports is that the multiple accidents were caused by vehicles travelling at speeds which were too high for the prevailing conditions. The police representatives are convinced, as I am, that the remedy is to drive more slowly and carefully.

 

That's been the only response to these regularly recurring and often fatal accidents ever since and it's completely useless. Those drivers didn't all set out with the intention of driving stupidly so the perceptual factors that lead reasonably responsible drivers to not know that their speed is too high and separation in fog is closer than they realise needs to be looked at.

"Just tell them to be more careful" was never an effective policy for reducing raill or air accidents and it isn't for road accidents either.

Edited August 10, 2015 by Pacific231G

[ParkeNd]

How about a test.

 

1. Hands up anyone with a 2014/2015 car who wants brakes with a longer stopping distance, 1980 standards headlights, wipers that lift off the screen above 50 mph, or slower acceleration when overtaking.

 

2. Hands up anyone with a 51 reg people carrier who would like it serviced free every year, the tyres and brake pads/linings replaced now, the steering ball joints and steering rack replacing free now.

 

 

Which one of these two options will worsen your safety - and which one might improve it?

[Guest]

1. Hands up anyone with a 2014/2015 car who wants brakes with a longer stopping distance, 1980 standards headlights

No. But can I have my 1980 eyeballs back please?

[MJI]

1970s cars had  a better gearchange normally