JRS's Road Safety Proposals

[JRS]

Getting these down in writing for when this planet recognises my genius and elects me Supreme Overlord.

1) Any road that isn't a 30 limit -> NSL. Any road that is a 30 limit -> 20mph limit. Motorways and dual carriageways -> no speed limit at all.
2) Traction control, ABS, servo'd brakes, power steering, AYC, stability control etc -> all banned. Airbags banned.
3) Driving test -> remove the stupid hazard avoidance video thing, as it isn't a good test of a potential driver's ability. Instead, in addition to a driving test that now includes motorway driving we shall have new drivers do a real hazard avoidance test in a Tesco carpark. If they come out of it with only one scratch - they pass.

Hopefully this would scare away all the truly hopeless drivers, and everyone that's left would be concentrating harder thanks to the lack of safety equipment/driving aids.

Anyone got any to add? There'll be a Transport Minister post when I create a new government upon my election.....

 

[JRS]

Do away with ABS, but not power steering!

Midgets like me need all the help we can get

Bah! If you can't do without PAS you shouldn't be on the road!

 

[JRS]

So let me get this straight. Your "proposal" is to majoritively increase road speeds across the country, whilst at the same time, removing all assistance, and taking cars back to the 1950's, thus INCREASING braking distances et al?

Madness.

Sorry, when did I say I was taking cars back to the 1950s? Taking away the driving aids wouldn't undo ~50 years of improvement in brakes, tyres, suspension etc.

The plan is to get drivers to focus on the "I'm in control of a huge lump of metal" aspect of driving. The way I see it, that means making cars more difficult to drive


***edit***

Not totally. It makes people stop feeling immortal in a car to a certain extent. Probably better to leave the speed limits at where they are at if you do that.

Fine. Leave the speed limits as they are for the most part. But I'd still lower the 30 limits to 20 and raise the motorway speed limit.

 

[JRS]

Yawn, the whole 'ABS, PAS, whatever sucks and real men dont use them so they should be banned' thing is just boring now.

So is the whole 'Modern cars do everything so much better than older ones, anyone who buys an old car is just throwing money away', but you don't hear me complaining

And besides which - my point was that driving seems to be seen as something very routine now, and one reason for that is the amount of equipment on a car that makes it easier to operate. My point was not meant to say 'real men don't use driver aids'....

 

[JRS]

most ludicrous post ever

Why thank you.

 

[JRS]

a well written post

Quite correct Will. The driving test needs to be beefed up considerably from the current format, as it's quite obviously letting complete morons out onto the road (I'm looking at you, mazza ). Motorway driving should certainly be added, and I think the argument could be made for doing the test in a car without ABS to give the emergency stop some relevence. Skid pan training would help, but would raise the cost of the driving test somewhat - and it's already pretty expensive to get on the roads.

One of the other little issues I see with the current system is the fact that you can do all your learning and pass your test during a dry, warm spell in summer - and have absolutely no clue what you're doing as soon as winter comes around and the roads become slightly more slippery.

Just often do you folks test out your DSC, ABS and the like on your normal commute (as opposed to going out and having a drive for fun) anyway?!

What "DSC, ABS and the like"? Both the cars sat on the driveway outside right now have PAS and servo'd brakes. That's it. Actually, not strictly true - the PAS on the Olds is broken