How to reduce road deaths!?

[Ex-RoNiN]

Turns out one of the aims of government is to reduce the number of road deaths by 50% until 2010 Very ambitious obviously, but what do you think could be done to try and reach this target?

My suggestions:

- build in logic that breaks the car if another car approaches too quickly (like a radar, that helps you break)

- speed control via rfid chips (speed sign limiting the max speed of ** car)

- more airbags

- make city centres car free and replace them with pedestrian presincts/trams

What would you put your money on being most helpful in achieving this target?

 

[PiKe]

Pillows strapped on the front and marshmellow roads.

 

[cymatty]

Proper driving tests.

 

[Nozzer]

Drive faster, according to this ex-copper...

09:20 - 09 June 2006
A former traffic policeman has called for motorists to drive faster to cut road deaths in Lincolnshire.

Retired Keith Peat, who was an officer for 20 years, believes slow drivers cause tail- backs and frustration and can prompt other drivers to make dangerous manoeuvres.

He has now written to Lincolnshire Police Chief Constable Tony Lake asking him to instruct officers to stop and punish people who drive way below the speed limit.

In the letter Mr Peat, who is a qualified advanced driver, says the common claim that speed causes most road accidents is "fraudulent".

The 65-year-old says the increasing number of speed restrictions actually causes more deaths.

"The only time speed actually causes an accident is when a driver loses control of his car and no other vehicle is involved," he said.

"This is rare. Primary causes may be poor road layout, poor signs, badly parked vehicles, a child running into the path of a vehicle and excessively slow drivers."

"In these cases speed is not the cause, it simply has an effect on the outcome."

"We have become obsessed with speed, when driving too slow actually causes more problems."

"There is hardly any dual carriageway here and slow drivers, sometimes 20mph below the limit, create tailbacks and frustration leading to stupid overtaking manouvres."

"It is overtaking accidents that are the worst. The answer is not to lower speed limits and bar overtaking. It is to encourage people to drive at the limit and to free up the roads by reducing double hatching."

So far this year 32 people have died on county roads.

 

[JRS]

Turns out one of the aims of government is to reduce the number of road deaths by 50% until 2010 Very ambitious obviously, but what do you think could be done to try and reach this target?

My suggestions:

- build in logic that breaks the car if another car approaches too quickly (like a radar, that helps you break)

- speed control via rfid chips (speed sign limiting the max speed of ** car)

Oh good. A nanny state. Because we all like those.

What would you put your money on being most helpful in achieving this target?

How about actually educating drivers rather than training them to pass a test that has very little bearing on how they will drive 6.32 seconds after the examiner has said "Congratulations"? Or how about focusing on what really causes accidents rather than fixating on speed being the sole issue?

 

[Scuzi]

Driver training is where the money needs to be invested. Too many people are concentrating on making cars harder to crash with inept drivers behind the wheel whereas we should be aiming to train drivers to a much higher standard before letting them loose on the roads. Better trained and better educated drivers WILL make our roads safer without a doubt. However, some people don't seem to realise this.

 

[Draeger]

Proper driving tests.

Agreed.

And re-tests every couple of years from then on in, for everyone.

Wont solve the problem, but it will weed out the ones that should be sat on a bus instead of behind a wheel, when they want to go from A>>>>to>>>>B.

 

[[TW]Fox]

That bloke speaks so much sense.

If people didn't dither around on NSL roads at 40mph, hot headed morons behind them wouldn't be overtaking them on unsuitable bends..

 

[Matt82]

drive faster is possibly true for some people. i get seriously bored if im sticking to the limit on a motorway, once i go faster my mind does not wander at all, i just get absorbed into the driving.


i know one way to make the roads safer. make the driving test much harder. at the moment youre allowed 15 fault before you fail. on your test youre supposed to be near perfect, yet youre allowed 15 faults, no wonder there are so many accidents. in my line of work, i get to see what the cause of lots of accidents are.

i think we need harder tests, psychological analysis like is carried out in other european countries and then re-tests after x amount of years.

less cars on the road, less idiots on the road too

 

[tzang]

- more airbags

- make city centres car free and replace them with pedestrian presincts/trams

Most modern cars have front and side airbags as standard, I seriously doubt anymore will help. Cars like the new Chevrolet Aveo will still probably kill the driver in a 40mph or so crash, even though it has full front and side airbags as standard. You can fit a car with an airbag in every corner but a high speed collision or a car built like the Aveo will still kill the occupants within

And don't make me mention tram accidents, the number of people walking out in front of trams... I'm sure BBC News will enlighten you with these incidents

 

[PiKe]

Should have minimum speeds then, and people should get penalised in the same way as speeding, afterall, its just as dangerous.

 

[Dolph]

Turns out one of the aims of government is to reduce the number of road deaths by 50% until 2010 Very ambitious obviously, but what do you think could be done to try and reach this target?

My suggestions:

- build in logic that breaks the car if another car approaches too quickly (like a radar, that helps you break)

Which is unlikely to help, all it will do is encourage drivers to pay even less attention than they do now.

- speed control via rfid chips (speed sign limiting the max speed of ** car)

This definitely won't help. The government's own figures clearly show that Speed is not a significant accident cause.

- more airbags

Could help.

- make city centres car free and replace them with pedestrian presincts/trams

There's certainly a strong argument for keeping pedestrians and motorised transport seperate, shame too many councils don't see it as a sensible answer...

What would you put your money on being most helpful in achieving this target?

Better driver education, increased awareness training, that sort of thing. I'd also like to encourage people to actually recognise driving as the potentially dangerous activity it is, and actually treat it as such.

There are also strong grounds for engineering improvements to correct poor road design.

Oh, and I'd get rid of speed cameras entirely too, and replace them with coppers with discretion... Like it used to be.

 

[PiKe]

Oh, and I'd get rid of speed cameras entirely too, and replace them with coppers with discretion... Like it used to be.

But that ties up more officers which could be fighting knife crime and catching criminals.

</sarcasm>

 

[Dup]

Scalextric roads.

Unless we have cars that drive for us, we're always going to have accidents due to human error. But then we have human error in the manufaturing/design process, making things just as unsafe.

Frankly, we're at the mercy of our own actions. There is no right or wrong solution, its just getting the masses to follow the same criteria day in day out to make it work efficiently. But then that's like telling Rab C Nesbit to get a job in most cases.

 

[PiKe]

Scalextric roads.

Unless we have cars that drive for us, we're always going to have accidents due to human error. But then we have human error in the manufaturing/design process, making things just as unsafe.

Frankly, we're at the mercy of our own actions. There is no right or wrong solution, its just getting the masses to follow the same criteria day in day out to make it work efficiently. But then that's like telling Rab C Nesbit to get a job in most cases.

What about mechanical wear, tyre blowouts etc causing accidents, what do you attribute that to?

 

[Dup]

What about mechanical wear, tyre blowouts etc causing accidents, what do you attribute that to?

That's human error for not having it fixed. Thats what the MOT is for. Ask any Insurace company

 

[Ex-RoNiN]

So (much) better driver training seems to be the overwhelming answer, hmm.

Someone mentioned psychological tests - why? What would they achieve? Elimination of road rage? Of speeders? Of aggressive drivers?

What improvements/changes to the current method of educating drivers would you suggest?

 

[Matt82]

So (much) better driver training seems to be the overwhelming answer, hmm.

Someone mentioned psychological tests - why? What would they achieve? Elimination of road rage? Of speeders? Of aggressive drivers?

What improvements/changes to the current method of educating drivers would you suggest?

essentially the idea would be to look for inteligence lol

 

[Dolph]

So (much) better driver training seems to be the overwhelming answer, hmm.

Someone mentioned psychological tests - why? What would they achieve? Elimination of road rage? Of speeders? Of aggressive drivers?

What improvements/changes to the current method of educating drivers would you suggest?

Increased training in awareness and perception.

A move away from the idea that driving is simply something you do to get from A to B, that it doesn't require attention or concentration (witness the number of people you see doing stupid things like reading maps, doing makeup, writing notes etc when driving)

Most accidents are currently caused by poor observation or lack of attention, so those have to be the focal points.

Remind people they are in direct control of a 1 ton missile travelling at 70mph.... and should behave as such.

 

[JRS]

essentially the idea would be to look for inteligence lol

Wouldn't find much then.....

Remind people they are in direct control of a 1 ton missile travelling at 70mph.... and should behave as such.

Winner.

Except in my case where it's more like a 780kg torpedo if I'm in the little 'un or a 2500kg MOAB if I'm in the BattleWagon