Roads getting safer or more dangerous ?

thedoc46

thedoc46

thedoc46

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This really isn't for the motors forum. Reason i ask here, is cos everyone is affected. Drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, motorcycles... Anyway, since everyone this day and age is on their phone.. Have our roads, become more dangerous than ever?

I know the dept of transport keeps number of how many fatalities and accidents there have been.

smart phones came out nearly ten yrs ago..

mobiles prior to the mid 90's were seldom in use. So has there been a gradual increase in fatalities and accidents since then or have the numbers stayed on par ?

Just curious
 
I've been driving for over thirty years and the biggest problem I see today is simply the volume of traffic. There's way more cars on the roads and that creates obvious problems.

I also think standards are maybe not what they were but that could be "grumpy old git" syndrome. I routinely see behaviour that makes me think the driver couldn't possibly have passed their test.
 
In general fatalities and injuries have been on a consistent downward trend. Don't know about number of accidents, so that may be a result of improved safety as much as reduced accident rate.
 
pretty sure standards are lower than they used to be. Indicators have become optional extras on too many cars now :mad:.


I was going to start a thread on it the other day but lost the effort required. The majority of roads in my area used to be 60s now in 7 years of driving they're all 20s. Have cars become less safe?

These aren't the winding country 60s where you can't believe anyone could drive that fast here it's long straight well maintained roads without turnings off.

Also these new LED lights are blinding all I can see is glare when approaching lights now :(. Sure they must be angled wrongly.

Pretty sure drivers are just **** on average these days :D.


Not much to report :D.
 
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Kenai said:
In general fatalities and injuries have been on a consistent downward trend. Don't know about number of accidents, so that may be a result of improved safety as much as reduced accident rate.
Click to expand...

Since the conservatives took over and started cutting police numbers there have been the first two rises in serious injuries and fatalities since something like 1997.
 
Standard of driving does seem to have fallen off a cliff over the last few years. Been driving the same route to work for 10 years and there is rarely a day without some sort of near miss or road closure due to incident.
 
I don't think smartphones have made the roads any less safer than when they didn't exist.

Driving standards are lower though as mentioned above. People are in too much of a hurry and fixated with their own little ecosystem to care about anyone else on the road. This results in the roads being more dangerous, with people needlessly speeding, road raging and so on. There's no need to be a complete safety nut, though, just use some common sense and awareness. You can make decent progress while still being safe. Just use your eyes and ears.

I do not think educating drivers will change this either. It is like maternal instincts in nature, it's just something that has evolved into being.

Many people are fine, and understand good driving etiquette. But an equally large number don't care about such things, and no amount of training or punishment will change that.

Add to the fact that new drivers are being passed who have zero spacial awareness (just look at the big Youtube channels that upload countless dashcam video compilations of "Bad *country* driving" on a weekly basis as evidence.

A lot of the issues I see on a daily basis on the road result from people not knowing how to do basic things. Some of these being:

1: Merge in turn
2: Motorway lane discipline
3: Lack of indicating (the one that makes me tut the most)

Whenever I see merge in turn being used beautifully, I want to get out and high five everyone. It's that rare.
 
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Well, nothing makes me happier than driving, even with the above kind of people about :p
 
People know they can get away with bad behaviour. On my journey home today from central London I lost count of the number of drivers on mobile phones. I was even passed by a guy on a cross motorbike with no numberplate and no helmet. He roared up to a red traffic light and sailed through it while doing a wheelie. All I could think was that it is only a matter of time before he injures himself and/or someone else. Yet a couple of hundred metres earlier I passed a police car going in the opposite direction. Either they didn't see him or they didn't care - who knows.


Posted from Overclockers.co.uk App for Android
 
Just to add a London-centric, but important stat. If I am remembering correctly, the trend for hit and runs where a pedestrian or cyclist is killed or injured by a motorist has increased year-on-year. In fact, over 20% and rising are hit and runs now. For me that is a scary stat that shows the state of things right now.


Posted from Overclockers.co.uk App for Android
 
I pulled the following chart from offline. What it doesn't detail tho, is cars are getting safer. ESC, anti lock, better airbags, just better safety all round... Yet, more people are on their mobiles, facetiming texting and god knows what else... If people didn't use their phones, i'm guessing there would be a much steeper drop ?

Killed_on_British_Roads.png
 
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there's a lot of young folks round here passing their test, going out with their mates, and finding out they're not sebastian loeb and that their ancient vw lupo is not a rally car but sadly they find this out by intrudcing themselves to a hedge.

i reckon we need to introduce the scandinavian way of driving tests, taking kids onto skidpans and teaching them how to control a car in a skid, with no abs or traction control, and more importantly just how easy it is to push a car over its limits.

far too many people these days driving much faster than either they or their car is really capable of doing safely.
 
standard of driving is atrocious, people right up my back not leaving a safe distance, cutting up on roundabouts, switching lanes all the time just to get maybe one or 2 cars ahead, using phones/sat nav while driving, speeding or driving 10mph+ under the speed limit, very bright headlights dazzling everyone coming towards it and nobody knows how to use their handbrake so just rock backwards and forwards at red lights...

lazy pedestrians walking out into the road all over the place instead of using the islands or traffic lights that are less than 100ft away...

cyclists not signalling, not wearing a helmet, cycling at night with no lights, cycling with a front flashing light towards oncoming traffic... i'm sure front white flashy ones are illegal, cycling side by side with another cyclist...

no police presence anywhere, i can't remember the last time i saw police that wasn't in a helicopter.


add all that together and roads should be illegal.
 
From My experirnce of Driving in london everyday its got worse due to reduced road space due to cycle lanes, semigly more cars (congestion charge did diddly) and multitudes more foreign plates.

Where i live they are cramming so many extra houses into every little space and not changing roads etc means again more cars.

And i see many more chavs as mentioned somewhere above on thier scooters driving full speed thru town etc, almost no fear of police like i had when growing up.
 
I think more danagerous in terms of less attention/more vehicles.

Safe in terms of vehicles survive crashes better (so much lower fatalities) and i think the attitude to drink driving has seen it become less common
 
Flubble said:
cyclists not signalling, not wearing a helmet, cycling at night with no lights, cycling with a front flashing light towards oncoming traffic... i'm sure front white flashy ones are illegal, cycling side by side with another cyclist...
Click to expand...

cyclists going 2 abreast i can live with, its like a see through tractor and easy overtaken.

however there seems to be an increasing trend of putting what i can only describe as a small fusion reactor on the front of the bike aimed right at car eye level. now this is a perfect example of when the law needs to be updated to include bicycles in headlight regulations now that battery technology allows such stupidly bright lights.

the other main bugbear for cyclists for me is that they think they're immune from the highway code, this is wrong, if your on the road obey the laws of the road (particularly stopping at red lights and giving way correctly at roundabouts) or gtfo.
 
I do think its time cycalists start getring rbought into line with regulation.

Standards for lights (front/rear), reflectors and at least one mirror
 
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