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How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

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Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#41

Post by iainmerrick »

hazzamanic wrote: post #17

I wonder if there will be a reversal in pedestrian deaths with the rise in larger cars. I live in a large UK city and it is mad the number of SUVs you see driving around.

Yes, I really have a hard time understanding that trend.

More than just the overall sizes of the cars (and they are big) it's those very high, flat fronts. That surely must be bad for visibility and bad for fuel efficiency at speed. I can only imagine people like that style because it looks more like a car and less like a minivan, which is what those enormous SUVs really are.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#42

Post by hdgvhicv »

robertlagrant wrote: post #29
hdgvhicv wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I drive 20 miles a day on single track roads. The widths vary from a few passing places which you have to reverse if you meet a horse or bike coming the other way, let alone a tractor or lorry, to places where you can just about pass a large vehicle without stopping, and easily pass a car. There’s even a handful of places you can overtake if the car in front stays to the left and nothing is coming. Safe speeds vary f…

It's not country road driving. What you're calling an "idiot" is probably just someone who doesn't know the roads. You'd have the same problem elsewhere.

If you are causing a delay you are responsible for pulling over.

Most slow vehicles do - bikes, horses, tractors. Just the idiot townies who filled their sat nav rather than the diversion signs.

You get people doing 15mph down a road like this

https://maps.app.goo.gl/76GxECaTe9ESePGY9?g_st=ic

They should be banned.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#43

Post by piker »

As an American who drove for 20 years before obtaining a license in the UK, I can offer some observations.

First, driving in the UK is much more a privilege than a right as in the US. You can live a complete life in the UK without a license because of the wide availability of public transit. In the US however, if you want to maintain a steady job outside of NYC, Chicago, DC, Boston or perhaps a few others, you'll have to drive. Revoking a driver's license in the US can be life-altering in a way that it just won't in the UK. Fewer people bother getting the license and fewer still drive.

Second, driving is much more physically and mentally demanding in the UK. Perhaps that serves to reduce traffic deaths by forcing focus, but it also imposes a limit on the types of people who can drive here. This selects against too young, too old, too small, disabled, etc. in a way that would not be tolerated in the US for the above reasons.

Third, annual vehicle inspections are much more stringent in the UK which takes a lot of older vehicles off the road and again selects against those of lower socio-economic status in a way that would be unconscionable in the US.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#44

Post by graemep »

KaiserPro wrote: post #20

I have children who are now approaching, or have approached large independence milestones. By the time I was my eldest's age (no just in high school [11-13 years old]) I knew of at least one kid from my school (a school of 55) who had died in a road accident. By the time I had left sixth form (18), two other people from my high school had died in RTAs and two others had life changing injuries. Granted this was rural…

> By the time I had left sixth form (18), two other people from my high school had died in RTAs and two others had life changing injuries.

I think your experience is extremely unlucky. I went to a school in London (in the 80s) with around a 1,000 kids from 8 to 18 and there was one road death, and two injuries, all in the same accident, in all the time i was there. I did not know the buy who died personally, although i knew one of the others who was in the car.

I agree with you about the improvements in general. I do think the 20mph limits where I now live (and in some other places) seem a bit random, and there are some difficult A road junctions that I think the really could do with lower limits or other improvements that do not have them.

Absolutely true that kids are objectively much safer, but people have grown fearful. I wonder whether being safer has made people less tolerant of risk more than risks have diminished. Its common to hear arguments that anything that might save even one life is worth doing.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#45

Post by baud147258 »

rkomorn wrote: post #36
PaulRobinson wrote: post #22

As somebody who has driven in a few places around the World, I would say that overall the standard of driving and safety is remarkably high in the UK given that the road layouts are often quite confusing (we have roads in use today from Roman, Saxon, Norman, Medieval, Tudor and more modern phases of development, so it can get confusing), and the level of signage around some confusing layouts is much lower than, say,…

Getting my driver's license in France required 20 hours of instruction by an accredited driving school. Getting my license in the US (CA and NJ) required... showing up with my own car. And in New Jersey, they even forgot to make me take the actual driving test.

20 hours? You were a quick one, that took me close to 40. Though I never was a very good driver, the car I crashed can attest to that (and thankfully with no corporal damage other than a bruised ego).

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#46

Post by piker »

CalRobert wrote: post #37
piker wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly, it selects against a lot of nervous, disabled, young, drunk and other bad drivers.

Yeah, better to be confused and drive in to a ditch at 20 mph than confident and t-bone a family at 50. Not sure what you mean about disabled? If nothing else a confusing road will get drivers to put the goddamn phone down.

By disabled I mean, for example, my father has polio and has driven his entire life in the US but would be unable to do so physically in the UK because of the demands the civil engineering would impose on him here.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#47

Post by philjohn »

seszett wrote: post #4
petesergeant wrote: post #3

My least favourite part of driving in the UK is that a road like this[1] (chosen at random from rural roads) has a speed-limit of 60mph/95kmh 0: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.358056,-2.6822578,3a,75y,344...

You don't have to drive 60 mph there though. You can use your judgement. I'm more used to France's 90 km/h countryside roads (now 80 km/h for most of them) but it's the same, sometimes you can only drive 70 or 50, but sometimes 90 is perfectly fine. But you should be able to see it for yourself, and in the specific places where you can't see the danger there are generally signs and a lower speed limit.

Correct - it's a LIMIT not a TARGET.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#48

Post by philjohn »

Our driving test standards are also high, having spoken with US colleagues, much higher than state-side (although I imagine that varies from state to state).

The theory test you must pass before taking your practical also now includes a hazard perception test - you are shown multiple videos and must click when you first perceive a hazard - the earlier you click after the hazard presents the higher your score - but if you just click randomly you get a zero.

Some of them are tricky - for instance, one I remember is a van coming from a side road at too fast a speed, but you can only first see this hazard forming in a reflection of a shop window.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#49

Post by closewith »

CalRobert wrote: post #30
KaiserPro wrote: post #20

I have children who are now approaching, or have approached large independence milestones. By the time I was my eldest's age (no just in high school [11-13 years old]) I knew of at least one kid from my school (a school of 55) who had died in a road accident. By the time I had left sixth form (18), two other people from my high school had died in RTAs and two others had life changing injuries. Granted this was rural…

Similarly, Ireland has seen a massive drop in road deaths, but one problem is that a lot of that improvement came from removing vulnerable road users - the kids biking and walking to school, etc are now much more likely to be in a car. (The US is similar - biking or walking to primary school was once the norm). Similarly you’d have zero drownings if you threw sharks in every pool. I do wish we could acknowledge that…

No, that’s not true. Walking and cycling did decline, but risk per kilometre for has also fallen sharply (by approximately 50%) over the same period. Vulnerable road users are safer now than they ever were, despite similar actual numbers using the road network due to population growth and profile.

The main factors behind the fall in deaths:

* drink-driving enforcement, * seatbelt enforcement, * speed limits and speed cameras, * NCT improving the vehicle fleet, * road engineering changes, * driver training.

So the “sharks in the pool” analogy is absurd. Everyone is safer, including the most vulnerable road users, so a better analogy is the road network has changed from shark-infested seas to a managed watercourse with swimmers, surfers, and boaters are seeing vastly fewer deaths or injuries.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#50

Post by closewith »

piker wrote: post #46
CalRobert wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, better to be confused and drive in to a ditch at 20 mph than confident and t-bone a family at 50. Not sure what you mean about disabled? If nothing else a confusing road will get drivers to put the goddamn phone down.

By disabled I mean, for example, my father has polio and has driven his entire life in the US but would be unable to do so physically in the UK because of the demands the civil engineering would impose on him here.

To be honest, that sounds like he's not safe to drive in the US either.
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