Thoughts on Excessive Speed

Why not drive around at 4mph just in case something jumps out in front of you?
because 4mph wasn't one of the options in kindai's latest nonsense post. but also because i'd not get anywhere. i'm not going to just start driving at 4mph in case something jumps out at me. what a silly question.
 
Talking about birds - the other day had a bird take an absolute dump on my windscreen mid driving :( properly obscuring my vision stuff - not something you can plan for. Something very wrong with that bird the amount that landed on my windscreen :s

Did you even get her name?
 
What about doing 150mph and driving past before the horse even runs into the road?

Can't believe you missed this obviously preferable scenario

Some truth to this but let me give a more realistic scenario.

You have 300 miles of motorway to drive and conditions are ideal.

So you can drive entire stretch at 100mph and it takes three hours.
Or you can drive at 50mph and it take six hours.

So be on the road for three hours VS six hours.

Which is safer?

This is not a justification for speeding but is a very valid point as your halving your time behind the wheel and as such reducing the risk to yourself and others, the downside is your more at risk due to the speed your doing.
 
Last edited:
Lot of truth to this but let me give a more realistic scenario.

You have 300 miles of motorway to drive and conditions are ideal.

So you can drive entire stretch at 100mph and it takes three hours.

Or you can drive at 50mph and it take six hours.

So be on the road for three hours VS six hours.

Which is safer?

This is not a justification for speeding but is a very valid point as your halving your time behind the wheel and as such reducing the risk to yourself and others, the downside is your more at risk due to the speed yoyr doing.
Depends whether 'ideal conditions' means normal conditions you might expect to encounter on a British motorway or Kindai's M5 that's been pre cleared of all possible hazards like debris and wildlife :p
 
Which is safer?
not sure but i'd guess the 6hr journey. be interesting to see if there was any actual data on that, some crowd of layabouts somewhere are bound to have been given a fat grant to study that sort of thing i'd have thought. but ultimately i'd imagine the higher the speed the greater the risks even if the amount of time spent taking those risks is reduced.
 
Some truth to this but let me give a more realistic scenario.

You have 300 miles of motorway to drive and conditions are ideal.

So you can drive entire stretch at 100mph and it takes three hours.
Or you can drive at 50mph and it take six hours.

So be on the road for three hours VS six hours.

Which is safer?

This is not a justification for speeding but is a very valid point as your halving your time behind the wheel and as such reducing the risk to yourself and others, the downside is your more at risk due to the speed your doing.

Driving at 50. Speeding increases fatal accident rates by four. So...yeah that was a perfect example of highlighting why speeding is bad.
 
Some truth to this but let me give a more realistic scenario.

You have 300 miles of motorway to drive and conditions are ideal.

So you can drive entire stretch at 100mph and it takes three hours.
Or you can drive at 50mph and it take six hours.

So be on the road for three hours VS six hours.

Which is safer?

This is not a justification for speeding but is a very valid point as your halving your time behind the wheel and as such reducing the risk to yourself and others, the downside is your more at risk due to the speed your doing.

The one with less accidents per hour.
 
Driving at 50. Speeding increases fatal accident rates by four. So...yeah that was a perfect example of highlighting why speeding is bad.

Speeding... by four? What does that even mean? Where have you plucked that statistical dangleberry from? Why is 71 in a 70 going to quadruple the fatality rate? Why doesn't the data from France where the speed limit on an Autoroute in the dry is ~80mph imply that going faster than 70 is 4x worse? Or does your stats world suggest that 71 in the UK is terribad but fine in France, whereas 80 in France is fine but 81 (speeding by 0.2mph) is immediately going to quadruple the death rate?

Speed limit absolutism is the most narrow-minded approach to speed selection there is, save for 96 year old Aunt Mabel in her Honda Jazz doing 40mph everywhere.
 
Speeding... by four? What does that even mean? Where have you plucked that statistical dangleberry from? Why is 71 in a 70 going to quadruple the fatality rate? Why doesn't the data from France where the speed limit on an Autoroute in the dry is ~80mph imply that going faster than 70 is 4x worse? Or does your stats world suggest that 71 in the UK is terribad but fine in France, whereas 80 in France is fine but 81 (speeding by 0.2mph) is immediately going to quadruple the death rate?

Speed limit absolutism is the most narrow-minded approach to speed selection there is, save for 96 year old Aunt Mabel in her Honda Jazz doing 40mph everywhere.
I believe it’s something like, every extra 10mph increases the chance of fatality by 2. So going from 70 to 90mph quadruples your chance of a crash being fatal.

Edit: and leave my aunt Mabel alone, she’s only got 1 good foot!
 
Last edited:
Speeding... by four? What does that even mean? Where have you plucked that statistical dangleberry from? Why is 71 in a 70 going to quadruple the fatality rate? Why doesn't the data from France where the speed limit on an Autoroute in the dry is ~80mph imply that going faster than 70 is 4x worse? Or does your stats world suggest that 71 in the UK is terribad but fine in France, whereas 80 in France is fine but 81 (speeding by 0.2mph) is immediately going to quadruple the death rate?

Speed limit absolutism is the most narrow-minded approach to speed selection there is, save for 96 year old Aunt Mabel in her Honda Jazz doing 40mph everywhere.

Courtesy of the WHO. I mean they might know a thing or two.


  • An increase in average speed is directly related both to the likelihood of a crash occurring and to the severity of the consequences of the crash. For example, every 1% increase in mean speed produces a 4% increase in the fatal crash risk and a 3% increase in the serious crash risk.
50 to 100mph = 100% speed increase so 400% increase in fatal crash risk = 4x.
 
The most striking difference is our nice grade-separated entry and exit slip roads. In almost all cases in the UK, the exit slip is before the joining slip and as well as being grade separated they are usually (but not always) gently curved and/or end in a roundabout or a very visible set of traffic lights. German junctions are very very frequently not like that at all. Plenty of them, especially in rural areas, have a 90 degree bend immediately upon exiting the main carriageway, which is absolutely terrifying the first time you find yourself on an exit slip. There's also junctions like this: https://goo.gl/maps/poLw9AZRh2G1EjPs8 where you've got traffic entering the motorway before traffic leaving the motorway, with accelerating traffic and decelerating traffic sharing the slip. I think I've driven that exact junction too, although I can't be 100% sure. Not good, not good at all.

Ahh that's a cloverleaf junction.

I never thought about it but apparently the UK doesn't do the cloverleaf, it does a partially unrolled cloverleaf, which puts the exits before the entrance and solves what you say.
 
Courtesy of the WHO. I mean they might know a thing or two.


  • An increase in average speed is directly related both to the likelihood of a crash occurring and to the severity of the consequences of the crash. For example, every 1% increase in mean speed produces a 4% increase in the fatal crash risk and a 3% increase in the serious crash risk.
50 to 100mph = 100% speed increase so 400% increase in fatal crash risk = 4x.
That report is world based, including a huge percentage of statistics that make up most of it which are from low income counties, unsafe cars, unsafe road infrastructure, people not wearing helmets etc. Most of it has absolutely nothing to do with driving at 100 mph in a modern, safe car, on a UK motorway. Doing that has zero to to do with pillion riding a motorbike at 50 on a dirt road in Africa with no helmet on and slicks for tyres.
 
Driving at 50. Speeding increases fatal accident rates by four. So...yeah that was a perfect example of highlighting why speeding is bad.

Accidents many are caused by tired drivers and a 6hr journey is far more tiring than 3hrs that is a fact.

Also 50 years ago an accident at 100mph in a car would be fatal or very high chance whereas today in a modern car an accident at 100mph is far less likely to be fatal.

I’d say tired drivers are far more at risk of having an accident than tired drivers.

When traffic allows on longer trips I would always tend to do 90-100mph on the motorway because it could easily reduce my journey time by hour plus. I tend to do just 80mph now due to higher traffic and cameras.

I’ve just always personally felt that been tired behind the wheel is far more dangerous than speeding especially on a motorway.
 
That report is world based, including a huge percentage of statistics that make up most of it which are from low income counties, unsafe cars, unsafe road infrastructure, people not wearing helmets etc. Most of it has absolutely nothing to do with driving at 100 mph in a modern, safe car, on a UK motorway. Doing that has zero to to do with pillion riding a motorbike at 50 on a dirt road in Africa with no helmet on and slicks for tyres.

Then show us from uk rates that there's no increased or a lower risk.
 
No, you're the one that posted the figure, and then based it on the world data and nothing to do with UK. Why should I have to back this up?

You're the one making the claim that those stats and trends wouldn't be replicated/aren't applicable to the UK.
So back up your claim.
 
Last edited:
I’ve just always personally felt that been tired behind the wheel is far more dangerous than speeding especially on a motorway.
Exactly this, my mrs can do an 11 hour flight from San Fran, then get in her car and drive 1h30 home. She hates it, and I hate it, it's horrendous.
 
You're the one making the claim that those stats and trends wouldn't be replicated/aren't applicable to the UK.
So back up your claim.
It's literally in black and white in the document. The difference is, you chose to pick out one particular part of it and focus on it, rather than looking at it fully.

  • More than half of all road traffic deaths are among vulnerable road users: pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists.
  • 93% of the world's fatalities on the roads occur in low- and middle-income countries, even though these countries have approximately 60% of the world's vehicles.

The document is also over 10 years old. You brought up that rubbish stat, you've been called out on it twice now, why should others have to disprove you?
 
Back
Top Bottom