Recent figures have indicated that annual road deaths in the UK have gone down - and put alongside the general increase in miles driven - the conclusion was that driving standards must have been raised.
Was anyone else on here driving down the A1 in the Stamford/Peterborough area between about 6 and 6.30 yesterday evening? The heavens opened, the rain was torrential and the road was like a river. Raised driving standards??? About half of us slowed to 40mph. The HGVs (including articulated tankers) continued on their merry way at 60mph and 10 metres behind them were the white vans and assorted cars trying to get past and resume their 70-80mph.
Competent drivers? I suspect that these may be the same competent drivers who rage on about the irrelevance of speed limits and can't understand why pile-ups happen.
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I suspect that these may be the same competent drivers who rage on about the irrelevance of speed limitsand can't understand why pile-ups happen.
not necessarily........... a competent driver, might well speed where appropriate, but in the circs above anyone with any real sense of self preservation and common sense would slow down a lot......
however, someone who regularly plods along at 60mph.....'because it's safe' and who wouldn't know 'anticipation', 'forward vision' or 'hazard awareness' if it hit them in the face with a wet fish, might well plod on regardless
sweeping statement i know, but so was yours :)
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Ah, but there's nothing more satisfying than seeing some idiot plod along at 40 when it would be perfectly safe and reasonable to do 60, then come into a 30 limit and continue at 40, getting caught by the first speed camera they pass.
It's only happened to me once, but it was a lovely sight.
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i often get it on my bike.........decent open A road i'll open it right out..........get to a village it's dead on the dot on the limit....... (safer for me and pedestrians and it doesn't wind up the local residents)
i've lost count of the times the meandering car i've overtaken previously catches me up and you can see them if you glance in the mirror........gesticulating and impatient because 'this hooligan' has overtaken them at speed on the A road (where there's shed loads of vision and the danger is noticeably minimised), but is now holding them up (where all the dangers and hazards are)....
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Gordon, I am soooooo jealous!
JH
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Wish I was there Gordon M.
I don't like drivers who stick to 25mph around town, even though the road's straight and clear and then when they get to a rounderbout or some other complicated road junction, don't slow down at all. Why do we have drivers like this?
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>I don't like drivers who stick to 25mph around town, even though the road's straight and clear and then when they get to a rounderbout or some other complicated road junction, don't slow down at all. Why do we have drivers like this?
Quite agree mk124, only way to drive in town is hard on the throttle in the three bottom gears or hard on the brake. You have all my sympathy in your contempt for these wimps.
Leer.
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>>Recent figures have indicated that annual road deaths in the UK have gone down - and put alongside the general increase in miles driven - the conclusion was that driving standards must have been raised.
Or cars are now very much safer in the event of an accident - compulsory seat belts, ABS, crumple zones, pretensioners, impact bars, countless airbags, ESP, DSC, etc.
Driving standards are definitely going down the pan.
Gordon - would have loved to have seen that! Almost as good as the plain clothed copper reading the riot act to a tailgater at a set of lights I saw earlier this year
-- You know, it\'s not like changing toothpaste
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The day before the 1987 hurricane that gave southern England a bit of a haircut (mainly old oak trees, damn) I happened to be coming back from Paris in a friend's Mercedes 280C. He had a hangover and made me drive, and we were very late for the ferry.
The hurricane was warming up over northern France, and the rain was bucketing down all the way. Overtaking HGVs on the autoroute was extraordinary, with literally hundreds of gallons of water ricocheting off my side of the rhd car.
We made the ferry, and my respect for Mercedes road behavious has been high ever since. That car simply shrugged everything off and felt glued to the road although it ought to have been aquaplaning nearly all the way.
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Cue people saying you should have driven at 20 all the way to Calais... : )
I remember that hurricane, although I was but a callow youth. My mate's dad, an ex-rally driver and an expletive deleted lunatic, gave me a lift from their house out in the sticks to mine slightly less out in the sticks. We happened across a huge tree in the middle of the road, I covered my eyes and thought "that's it we're doomed" and he just swerved right onto a tiny lane. Never even mentioned it. The car was the rather entertaining Q-car that was the Sierra 2.0iS.
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Yup I was ther in the white Porsche 944 doing imitations of a motorboat!
Nearly got taken out by a silver Focus who came close to loosing it, whilst overtaking me. I was down to 40 & at times that was too fast but I was scared of getting rear ended.
The HGV's especially the foreign ones made me brick myself, you realise the 944 is low when this happens!
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I was behind a white Porsche at one stage during this fun, but had assumed it was a Boxter. Had you stopped earlier at Grantham services? Gratifying to know that I am not the only sluggard around here ;-)
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i think the post from the op is a good example of why speed cameras don't work; but more traffic police would!
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Hello Waino.
I have to confess that I was on the A1 Southbound, travelling to Peterborough from Mansfield, so had been on A1 for sometime. I was about 5 miles from Stamford around 6.45pm. That rain storm certainly was biblical wasn't it!? I was one of those drivers doing around 70mph....in my defense, I could see the road well enough, I could see there wasn't much behind me and I passed other vehicles with increased caution. You did have to look out for floods in the road though.
I did have to slow right down nearing the A47 slip though. Good job, because the standing water I had to pass through at around 35-40mph would have been lethal had I hit it at 70mph.
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To be honest it wasn't seeing the road it was staying in control, several times at around 50 I felt a passenger as you realised the tyres had no contact with the road.....Also braking would have been impossible so I couldn't have avoided an accident as I simply wouldn't have stopped if going faster.
Some of the puddles I suspect would have been big enough to drown me in & the whole thing was far too exciting for me.
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I was behind a white Porsche at one stage during this fun, but had assumed it was a Boxter. Had you stopped earlier at Grantham services? Gratifying to know that I am not the only sluggard around here ;-)
I hadn't stopped at Grantham but white Boxsters are unusual so could have very well been me.!
It found leaks in the cra I didn't know I had!
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If everyone was still driving 1980s cars, there would be carnage.
I think road deaths have gone down due to advances in technology, medical treament and rescue services, just as fewer ships sink or get shipwrecked, this isn't due to better seamen skills or safer water, it's due to better technology and better response to accidents (medical and rescue).
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If everyone was still driving 1980s cars, there would be carnage.
Not really in very wet conditions Ashok, surely? Of course airbags, traction control and the like have come on quite a bit, but what makes cars aquaplane is light weight and wide tyres (ask tr7). A heavier vehicle with tyres of ordinary width will cut through the surface water and stay on the road, like the Mercedes mentioned in my earlier post. I was amazed by how stable and normal it felt. My Renault 18GTX which had widish, lowish profile tyres for its time, used to aquaplane quite easily.
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This wasn't aquaplaning more like being afloat for 10s of yards at a time. Also the steering pull was very violent. The 944 isn't particularly light & has 50/50 weight distribution but felt horrific. This wasn't a slightly wet road I'd guess 2-4inches minimum with more in places, not aware of any tyre that can cut through at high speed, as per the Focus that hit a deeper bit & nearly lost it. What with that, no ability to stop, couldn't see......
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