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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

#51

Post by orwin »

graemep wrote: post #44
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…

Rural and metro areas, especially before traffic calming mesures of the last 20 years, were very different. I'm not from the UK, but in Brittany, everybody know of a schoolmate who died from traffic (especially since you have one high-school for like 15 towns, so in a way, you're schoolmate with half the kids in your area)

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

#52

Post by rkomorn »

baud147258 wrote: post #45
rkomorn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

20 hours was the mandatory (minimum) amount. I think I did around 25.

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

#53

Post by closewith »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #11
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...

The national speed limit for a single carriageway is 60mph, and for two or more carriageways is 70mph. That's the default. These were introduced in the 1950s - before then, there was no national speed limit. Councils and highway agencies can then decide due to a number of factors to reduce that number to what they deem appropriate. Most councils pull that down to 40mph in unpopulated areas, 30mph in built-up areas. S…

> The national speed limit for a single carriageway is 60mph, and for two or more carriageways is 70mph.

> That's the default. These were introduced in the 1950s - before then, there was no national speed limit.

There's no reason the default can't be changed. Ireland recently dropped the default speed limit on rural roads from 80km/h to 60km/h and regional from 100km/h to 80km/h. Councils can and do override the limits where appropriate, but in practice it requires an engineer's report which often doesn't, as the roads genuinely aren't suitable.

That would place the road above at a 37mi/h speed limit, which while still too fast for the conditions (it should be a 10 km/h or 6 mi/h road to support vulnerable road users) sends a much more reasonable message.

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

#54

Post by closewith »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #42
robertlagrant wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You get people doing 15mph down a road like this

What speed do you think is appropriate on that road?

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

#55

Post by KaiserPro »

graemep wrote: post #44
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 think your experience is extremely unlucky

You're probably right on that.

I'm in a london suburb now as well, which may also has something to do with it. I think the big difference is that there isn't anywhere where you can drive on to a 70mph road in the dark without a long merging lane.

> I do think the 20mph limits where I now live (and in some other places) seem a bit random,

I don't mind them being random so much, but what I hate is that they dont (or didn't) put repeater speed limit signs in 20mph zones. They normally put the signs on the road at junctions, where I'm looking for other dangers (pedestrians/cyclists and other cars)

So its fairly easy to either be dawdling in 30 or doing point/fine incurring speeds in a 20

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

#56

Post by reorder9695 »

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...

I like the 60mph limit. I'm coming from a rural background where it's unlikely anyone would set the speed limit for each individual road correctly. National speed limit is saying "you can go up to 60mph, this isn't necessarily the correct speed for the road"

There are quite a few rural roads where it is a perfectly reasonable speed (straight, wide, 2 lane), and plenty of roads where you physically couldn't get your car past 40mph without fecking it into a hedge. It's a limit, not a maximum, and it's that way so we can trust people's judgement based on the current conditions of a road, which is (at least in a rural context) almost certainly more accurate than what a council would set.

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

#57

Post by piker »

closewith wrote: post #50
piker wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He had one accident in almost 60 years of driving, so I think he'd be on the safe end of human statistics. But then again, what human is safe to drive?

[Edit: I should note that he's stopped driving over the last couple of years.]

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

#58

Post by reorder9695 »

electroglyph wrote: post #7
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're pullin my leg. is that a proper road or a bicycle path?

Proper road, very common type of road in the countryside. You're lucky there it doesn't have grass up the middle. You'd realistically be doing about 20mph on it, although speeding up when you can see far ahead and it's straight, slowing down coming up to a bend where you cant see what's coming.

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

#59

Post by robk »

piker wrote: post #43

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 hav…

I don't know I'm the same and find being in the valley more stressful than the drive to wembley from central London. More taxing mentally to have insane people passing you at 100mph. The licensing is harder but still was a one shot 5 hour prep thing for me.
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