Policing "attention" and lane position aren't as profitable as the generic "speeding" and "stunting"...
A cash grab is a cash cow.
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Paying attention and proper lane positioning are key..... as always.
Couldn't find direct link.
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From Motor Times, Thursday 18th...(Waikato Times).
"Safety expert for Mercedes says strict speeding laws are not the answer to lowering road tolls.
A leading safety expert says a crackdown on speeding is not the answer to reducing the road toll.
The vice president of safety development for Mercedes-Benz, Ulrich Mellinghoff, says crash avoidance systems, better roads and more roundabouts would do more to cut the road toll than tougher speeding laws.
The approach is in direct contrast to state governments in NSW and Victoria, who have been preaching the "speed kills" mantra as the number one panacea for the road toll.
Mr Mellinghoff says motorists often fell into the trap of thinking they were driving safely because they were doing less than the speed limit.
He says the German road toll had reduced significantly in the past 20 years, despite much higher speeds on the roads.
" In Germany you can drive as fast as you want. I don't think that speed alone is the problem. It's the wrong speed in a special situation. With speed limits you will not stop those situations. If you have fog and drive at 100km/h, which is allowed, you are really in high danger of having an accident. On the other hand, if you drive 250km/h on the German autobahn in clear weather conditions with no traffic, it's not really a risk and no accidents happen in those situations," he says.
His claims are borne out by German road statistics. In 1972, there were 20,000 deaths on West German roads. In 2009, there were 4100, despite 20 million more people on the road (including the old East Germany).
"That was with much worse traffic and significantly more vehicles on the road," says Mellinghoff.
"What we have seen is there are a lot of very different reasons for accidents. Sometimes it is not the high speed, it is the wrong speed. If you limit the speed, the driver often thinks all they have to do is drive the speed limit and they don't have to think," he says.
It was better to put the responsibility for driving at the right speed on the shoulders of the individual driver.
Accident avoidance technology, including pedestrian avoidance systems, also had the potential to drastically reduce the road toll.
When stability control was introduced on all cars in Germany, there was a 30 per cent reduction in accidents where a single car leaves the road.
He says Australia's New Car Assessment Program, which crash tests cars and awards safety ratings, should reward vehicles more for crash avoidance, rather than the protection they offered in a crash.
"They should focus more on these assistance systems. It makes more sense to avoid an accident than to reduce the severity of it," he says.
Mercedes was working on a variety of advanced systems designed to cut the road toll, including infra-red systems that detect pedestrians at the side of the road in the dark and spotlight them to alert the driver.
The company also had brake assistance technology that intervened to provide maximum braking force in an emergency situation.
He says the assistance, which occurs in the last 100 milliseconds before a crash, can reduce impact speeds by 5 to 6km/h.
He says Germany has seen good results from increasing the number of roundabouts, as they reduce the number of severe accidents at intersections, while better separating vehicles from cyclists and pedestrians also helps to keep the toll down.
He believes car to car communication can also play a big role in reducing the toll, with cars able to warn drivers behind them about hazardous road conditions including ice on the road or accidents ahead."
Policing "attention" and lane position aren't as profitable as the generic "speeding" and "stunting"...
A cash grab is a cash cow.
heh,, the Waikato Times is a New Zealand newspaper
Speed kills CHILDREN!!! Will somebody PLEASE just think of the CHILDREN? By advocating that speed doesn't kill you HATE CHILDREN!!!
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Like many active sports, shooting has the potential to cause personal injury.
"The proper wave to an e-biker is to raise your beer." [credit:'Baggsy@GTAM]
Originally Posted by Metastable
I wish I could quote this guy when getting pulled over by the popo or at the trial...
Get caught here doing 250 on an empty highway and you'll make the front page on every newspaper with the headline "OPP stops attempted terrorist attack"
If you got caught doing 250 km on the highway, that highway wasn't really empty enough was it?
Well I thought you'd know that your uncle Benito has planes up in the sky now to watch out for speeders so the highway could be empty while someIf you got caught doing 250 km on the highway, that highway wasn't really empty enough was it?are flying and some are hiding behind a bridge with a net...
And anyone who knows this is now the case and still goes out to do the deed, especially with the penalties now in effect for doing that deed, is little different from the fool who shoots himself in the foot.Well I thought you'd know that your uncle Benito has planes up in the sky now to watch out for speeders so the highway could be empty while some
Very much agree with this article. Speed limits are not the answer. In fact slowing down the speed of traffic creates more traffic jams, road rage, and drivers attempting risky moves to get around cars to save valuable minutes of traveling time.
Try to tell that to the government though. Those tickets are the greedy provinces cash cow.
" Run as fast as you can, then jump and slide on the pavement. Now think of traveling at 80 MPH and doing the same. Don't be a squid, wear proper gear. "
I thought we were arguing what's safe, what's not safe and police making money from things that are actually safe. Not what catching methods and penalties the gestapo uses for speeders. Or do I need to post the horse pic again?
Go ahead and post the horse pic again if it amuses your little mind.
The OP article comments are based on the driving experience in Germany. That experience consists of far more than simply higher limits on some roadways.
In Germany you have to be 18 to drive. Even then, before you can get a license you have to undergo a lot more training and testing than you do here, and it's not uncommon to spend upwards of $2000 - $2500 to get that license for the first time. Your vehicle must undergo compulsory and in-depth mechanical and emissions inspections every two years at your expense.
Speed limits on some roads are higher, but those limits are rigidly enforced by police and by automated speed cameras.
License suspensions for speeding handed out very easily, and doing as little as 30 km over results in a 30 to 90 day suspension. The cops there do not generally give the 20 kmph tolerance margin that many cops will let you have here - as little as 5 km over will put you in their sights.
The penalty for a whole range of other minor (by our standards) traffic offences is a 30 day or longer license suspension. For lesser offences, a cop can demand fine payment on the spot, else your license and car can be taken away until you do make payment.
Driving with as little as .03 BAC can land you in jail if you have any signs of impairment at all. A first offence .05 BAC is an automatic 3 month license suspension even if you have no signs of impairment, and if you do show signs impairment, you're looking at jail plus complete revocation of your license.
The reason higher speeds work on select roads in Germany is because their drivers by and large take driving more seriously and practice better driving discipline. The enforcement regime there also ensures that non-compliant drivers are taken off the road fairly quickly. I suspect that many of the riders here clamouring for higher speed limits would not last long on the road in Germany if they took their riding habits there, even with the higher limits there.
If we simply adopted higher speed limits here without incorporating more stringent training standards and enforcement standard, the result would be more fatalities on our roads. Look south and check out the general experience on US highways. In general and with few exceptions, fatalities have risen significantly on US highways where the 55 mph limit was raised to 65 mph or higher.
Last edited by turbodish; 03-22-2010 at 05:07 PM.
I would if Rob would allow it
Here you have to be 17 to drive alone or use the highways. So what's your point over 1 year difference? Yes things are more expensive in Germany, but here you can spend up to $1500 to go to driving school and get a license. And yes, we have safety certification and emissions here as well so again I ask, what's your point?
Here we have police officers who enforce 50 km/h speed limits on roads with 3-4 lanes in each direction. And they hand out tickets for going even 5km/h over the limit. So I still don't get your point...
Yes, we have DUI charges here too, they can land you in jail...
The reason why drivers in Ontario don't practice good driving disciplines is because the government gives licences to Driving Schools that don't even meet the basic standards and people are allowed to get a license without attending any formal driving education so this is entirely the responsibility of the govenrment, not the drivers. This way the government keeps the masses ignorant and also keeps punishing them with tickets for being ignorant...
Show me some statistical data that shows the increase in fatalities in the US is caused by the increase in the speed limit from 55 to 65 mph. I heard quite the opposite, and cops were ticketing slow drivers on the highways...
Moderator
You're pretty close to receiving an infraction yourself with that comment. Discussion can occur without demeaning the other party.
Morally Ambiguous (submissions welcome)
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." - Oscar Wilde
I disagree with Rossi on his reasoning. We don't have bad drivers because of a lack of driver training. We have bad drivers because we're trying to legislate common sense and circumscribe every human action with a law. That makes your average Joe think that as long as it's not against the law or enforced, it's OK to do. That's why we have people not signalling, not obeying the basic rules of lane discipline or still yapping on their cell phones - because as we all know "speed kills" and "only speeders should be pulled over."
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Like many active sports, shooting has the potential to cause personal injury.
"The proper wave to an e-biker is to raise your beer." [credit:'Baggsy@GTAM]
It's still two years difference in the minimum age before you can even set foot in a car.
People tend to value things in direct proportion to what it cost them to get it. You're not as likely to easily risk losing something that you have invested so much time and money to get. Here you "can" spend a lot to get a driver's license but you can also still get away with spending nothing but the booking fees for your written and road tests.
The German system is a lot different. It's EVERY two years whether ownership changes or not. The inspection is more exhaustive, and a minor rust spot or dent can be enough to cause a car to fail. All inspections are done by one state-wide agency, so good luck trying to bribe a shady garage to give you a phony safety.
We have compulsory safety inspections only when a vehicle changes ownership. Even then the inspection is minimal. For a car that fails to meet even our minimal safety standards, it's not that hard to find a garage that will overlook the issues and issue a safety certificate anyways. You can see the result of our fairly lax and non-secure system in the condition of a lot of vehicles you see on the roads.
Poor vehicle condition usually isn't a major collision factor at lower speeds, but at higher speeds vehicle defects can trigger a crash all on their own, or they can make collision avoidance more difficult if not impossible.
Getting stopped for 5 over is rare here, even if you're in a school zone. The usual speed tolerance here is a LOT higher than that, usually at least 15 kmph or so.
This shows in our respect or lack thereof for speed limits. Take the speed limit sign and add 15 or 20 or even 25 is what many here do to determine their travel speed. That simply doesn't happen very often in Germany. If the cops doesn't get you, the speed cameras will.
Not at .03 BAC they don't.
That's only part of the problem. The other problem is the attitudes of drivers once they have their license, which is at least in part aggravated by poor overall traffic reg enforcement by the police.
I would love to see us adopt more stringent standards all around, same as they do in Germany. Of course if you're crying now, you'll be crying even louder then when you find out not only how hard it is to get a license under their regimen, but also how hard it is to keep it afterwards if you're prone to violating traffic regs.
Ok. http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/speed_limits.html
7 How has abolishing the national speed limit affected fatalities?
Institute studies showed that deaths on rural interstates increased 25-30 percent when states began increasing speed limits from 55 to 65 mph in 1987. In 1989, about two-thirds of this increase — 19 percent, or 400 deaths — was attributed to increased speed, the rest to increased travel.13,14,15
A 1999 Institute study of the effects of the 1995 repeal of the national maximum speed limit indicated this trend had continued. Researchers compared the numbers of motor vehicle occupant deaths in 24 states that raised speed limits during late 1995 and 1996 with corresponding fatality counts in the 6 years before the speed limits were changed, as well as fatality counts from 7 states that did not change speed limits. The Institute estimated a 15 percent increase in fatalities on interstates and freeways.16
A 2002 study by researchers at the Land Transport Safety Authority of New Zealand also evaluated the effects of increasing rural interstate speed limits from 65 mph to either 70 or 75 mph. Based on deaths in states that did not change their speed limits, states that increased speed limits to 75 mph experienced 38 percent more deaths per million vehicle miles traveled than expected — an estimated 780 more deaths. States that increased speed limits to 70 mph experienced a 35 percent increase, resulting in approximately 1,100 more deaths.17
A 2009 study examining the long-term effects of the 1995 repeal of the national speed limit found a 3 percent increase in road fatalities attributable to higher speed limits on all road types, with the highest increase of 9 percent on rural interstates. The authors estimated that 12,545 deaths were attributed to increases in speed limits across the US.18
Last edited by turbodish; 03-22-2010 at 06:01 PM.
Moderator
My thought processes pretty much parallel this. Enforcing existing laws would tend to reinforce proper driving, without the need for a host of additional (and draconian) laws. If someone is being a left lane bandit while talking on a cell phone, you pull him over and charge him for impeding the flow of traffic. If he's speeding, you charge him with speeding. If he's a habitually bad driver then he's going to eventually lose his license, or be unable to afford insurance.
Morally Ambiguous (submissions welcome)
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." - Oscar Wilde
Well, why isn't he recieving an infraction yet? His comment was actually insulting while mine was a pure comparison with a lot of truth behind it...
Those are against the law and are enforced on a regular basis. The problem with what you mentioned is definitely ignorance, people tend to think as long as I'm not speeding I'm not doing anything wrong.
Basic rules of lane discipline cannot possibly work here in Ontario if everyone is doing the speed limit. If you pass someone on the left by doing more than the limit then you're breaking the law. So the law basically says it's safer for vehicles to travel in a large group next to each others blind spots than to have some cars advance and create open spaces for everyone. The left lane in Ontario is not a passing lane but a speeding ticket lane.
That age difference has nothing to do with what's being discussed.
Obviously, there's no need to risk losing your license in Germany, you can drive whatever speed you feel comfortalbe on certain sections on the highways and the speed limits are higher compared to here on the rest of the roads so there's no need to speed. The speed limits there make sense, they are not artificially low so the government can tax people for driving 55 km/h on a 3 lane road.
Whose fault is it if the vehicle inspection here is not strict?
DUI levels are on the hands of the government and police the very same people you keep defending blindly.
You got it all wrong about our speed limits, speeding is more strictly enforced than any other violation. I've been to court and listening to a judge telling people speeding is dangerous even if it's 1 or 2 km/h over the limit. So if this isn't strict enforcement I don't know what you call strict...
That data does not specify the conditions under which the deaths occured. Just saying speed kills doesn't cut it. Here's a study with details about rasing and lowering speed limits: http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html
The data clearly show that lowering posted speed limits did not reduce vehicle speeds or accidents. Also, lowering speed limits well below the 86th percentile speed did not increase speeds and accidents. Conversely, raising the posted speed limits did not increase speeds and accidents. The majority of motorist did not drive 5 to 10 mi/h (8 to 16 km/h) above the posted speed limit when speed limits were raised, nor did they reduce their speed by 5 or 10 mi/h (8 to 16 km/h) when speed limits were lowered
Yes it does. The higher age requirement and other measures that make it harder to earn and keep a driver's license in Germany are all factors in that driving environment. You can't just look at higher speed limits there and ignore the other components in their system.
Aside from increasingly limited stretches of the autobahn, speed limits in Germany are not much different from here. In fact, in urban centers you'll find posted speed limits as low as 30 kmph. Suggesting that the unrestricted sections of the Autobahn eliminate the need to risk losing your license by speeding on other roads is naivety at its worst. It's like saying that if only there was no limit or higher limits on the 401, that nobody would ever feel the desire to let loose on Snake Road or the 507.
It isn't a matter of "whose fault it is". It's a matter of looking at what is in place in the driving environment here as opposed to Germany where speed limits are higher.
Speeding may be more strictly enforced here than other violations, but when the norm is that you won't get a ticket unless you are doing 20 or more over on the highway, it's pretty clear that speeding is not very stringently enforced either.
These "study" numbers do not correlate to real life observed results over the longer term. The studies assertion that raising speed limits does not result in appreciable rise in actual travelled speeds are at odds with most other studies available from NHTSA.
Crash forces rise exponentially with speed, and typical freeway crash survivability starts diminishing greatly after you pass the 100-100 kmph threshhold. The IIHS has long-term nationwide stats on change in average speeds due to higher speed limits. Those numbers note that rises in speed limits are followed by rises in actual travelled speeds, and that actual travelled speeds are usually in excess of whatever speed limit is posted. The overall increase in thruway fatalities in certain parts of the country can be attributed in large part to now higher travelling speeds in those areas.
Most states raised speed limits in response to the 1995 abolishment of the national maximum speed limit, and the higher limits were associated with immediate increases in travel speeds.
- Within one year after speed limits were raised from 55 to 70 mph on three urban freeways in Texas, the percent of passenger vehicles traveling faster than 70 mph increased from 15 to 50 percent; the percent exceeding 75 mph increased from 4 to 17 percent.9
- On California urban freeways where speed limits were raised from 55 to 65 mph, the percent of motorists traveling faster than 70 mph increased from 29 to 41 percent.9
A more recent Institute study examined longer-term changes in traffic speeds on roads where limits were increased following repeal of the national speed limit.10
- Ten years after speed limits were raised from 65 to 75 mph on rural interstates, the proportion of passenger vehicles exceeding 80 mph tripled in Nevada and nearly tripled in New Mexico.
- By comparison, declines in travel speeds were observed on urban freeways in California and Nevada, where there also were large increases in traffic volume and development of surrounding areas.
In 2006 Texas raised the daytime speed limit for passenger vehicles on segments of I-10 and I-20 from 75 to 80 mph.
- During the 16-month period following the speed limit increase, mean speeds of passenger vehicles on I-20 increased by 9 mph relative to the comparison road, where no speed limit change occurred and traffic speeds declined.
- On I-10 mean speeds increased by 4 mph relative to the comparison road.11
In 2007 the Institute monitored travel speeds on interstates in 8 metropolitan areas (Albuquerque, Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, Omaha, Tampa and Washington, DC).12
- On urban interstates, the average speed of passenger vehicles exceeded the limits in all 8 metro areas.
- On suburban and rural interstates, average speeds were faster than the limits in half of the metro areas.
- The proportion of passenger vehicles exceeding 70 mph on urban interstates ranged from 1 percent in Denver and Tampa to 38 percent in Albuquerque, while the percentage exceeding 75 mph on suburban and rural interstates ranged from 6 percent in Los Angeles to 49 percent in Tampa.
The same study examined segments of rural interstates located 30-50 miles outside 3 of the metro areas (Washington, DC, Atlanta, and Los Angeles).
- Outside Washington, where limits are 70 mph, 19 percent of passenger vehicles were logged exceeding 70 mph, and 3 percent surpassed 75 mph.
- Speeds were much faster on the Los Angeles intercity segment, where 86 percent of passenger vehicles surpassed the 70 mph limit and 35 percent traveled faster than 80 mph.
Last edited by turbodish; 03-22-2010 at 08:31 PM.
Since we went to general discussion of traffic laws (as well as speeding) I want to share my thoughts on the subject.
I think that if HTA was changed from a set of laws to a set of rules, drivers and police alike would find it easier to understand what is expected of them on the road as well as clear up court congestion! Also, it would eliminate some ambiguous definitions of the law!
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