Major contribuition to road safety and reducing aggressive driving.

[DT Ralge]

20 hours ago, L00b said:

I think there needs to be a clear(er) delineation between aggressive driving and fast driving, if the two topics get debated jointly in the context of this speed-themed thread.

 

Strictly speaking, they're not synonymous. Driving at or below the speed limit, but then weaving to hinder an overtake manoeuvre by a following car (without due cause), is as aggressive as tailgating and the like in my book.

 

Likewise, it's perfectly possible to driver fast(er) according the performance available as you say, without being aggressive with it as well, regardless of how that is perceived: the acid test in my book, is whether the slower drivers rightly feel threatened/endangered (as opposed to being merely annoyed/offended) by one's overtaking manoeuvres.

 

There's something to be said for a barely-muted v8 caning it past in a motorway tunnel, all that said 

I agree.  

Aggressive driving, for me, is not necessarily about absolute or relative speed, it’s about margins I.e. space and time. 

I meet drivers regularly who rush towards closing gaps and don’t appear to have worked out where the decelerator or brake is.  

I also see amber and even red light running increasingly.   Good job there’s a time gap between their red and someone else’s green. 

and so on ...

None of this aggressive driving is necessarily at an illegal speed.  It is just carried out with too small a margin for (their or others’) error. 

Edited April 11, 2019 by DT Ralge

[L00b]

7 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

Say what you want, certainly in this country it, when it comes to German cars (and particularly Audis) it`s a fact none the less.

I often wonder if people who argue this particular point are actually driving on the same roads as the rest of us.

It's not a fact. It's your subjective observation.

 

And until Feb'18, I'd been driving on UK roads, moreover mainly in/around Sheffield, for 20 years. In all that time, I can't objectively say that I'd ever noticed German car male drivers to be more aggressive drivers than reps in Fords or Vauxhalls, nor than 20-something yobbos in souped-up <insert French, Japanese, British-German make> hatchbacks.

 

Probably because I'm rarely the slowest about on the road generally, and because I don't particularly care whether another driver is aggressive or not, save as to give them more attention/room for my own safety: they can go wrap themselves around a tree on the next bend for all I care, so long as it's far enough ahead of me to not take me out. For the rest of it, I'm not a policeman, nor a wannabe one, so live and let live.

[Cyclone]

7 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

Say what you want, certainly in this country it, when it comes to German cars (and particularly Audis) it`s a fact none the less.

I often wonder if people who argue this particular point are actually driving on the same roads as the rest of us.

It simply isn't.  You claiming it doesn't make it true.

3 hours ago, DT Ralge said:

The videoed exercise we used to show in Derbyshire speed courses gave minimum impact speeds of 11, 18 and 26mph from 32, 35 and 40 mph as distinct from no impact from 30mph. 

I.e. the set up involved:

- a well-maintained car (tyres pumped up optimally - most vehicles on the road that I check exhibit under-inflated tyres 

- Class1 police driver not messing about with the brake pedal as distinct from some of the drivers I’ve sat with in emergency response (heavy braking) training who were alarmed by ABS kicking in and took their foot off the brake. 

- a disused airfield with flat, dry, high-grip surface (how many roads are like that?)

- braking at a known point from 30, 32, 35 and 40 mph I.e. NO reaction time needed so the videoed exercise shows nothing more than different braking distances and minimum impact speeds.

if you are still with me, these were 0, 11, 18 and 26 mph - as I wrote, “disproportionately huge” difference to the force of impact from every single mph. 

 

Speed courses stopped using blood and gore shock tactics years ago - they may occasionally tug at you emotionally but the videoed exercise centres on Laws of Physics far better than an equation!

 

At the impact speeds above, the injuries sustained by a pedestrian are obviously many and varied (and occasionally randomly insignificant) but range in speed from smashed legs, to the same with head injuries to the same with organ damage (and increasing levels of injury and mortality).

Which is all well and good as a reason not to exceed 30 in a 30 zone.

But how many pedestrians are we expecting to step out onto the motorway to justify the same argument between 70 and 75?

 

It's also interesting (academically) to look at the braking performance of different vehicles.  So in that test the car can stop from 30 mph, at whatever distance was chosen.  Cars vary quite considerably in their stopping behaviours though, with some performing considerably better than the average.

[DT Ralge]

9 minutes ago, Cyclone said:

It simply isn't.  You claiming it doesn't make it true.

Which is all well and good as a reason not to exceed 30 in a 30 zone.

But how many pedestrians are we expecting to step out onto the motorway to justify the same argument between 70 and 75?

 

It's also interesting (academically) to look at the braking performance of different vehicles.  So in that test the car can stop from 30 mph, at whatever distance was chosen.  Cars vary quite considerably in their stopping behaviours though, with some performing considerably better than the average.

Indeed but, by the same logic, the difference between stopping from 70 and not stopping (and impacting on whatever) from 80, 90 and 100 mph is remarkable.

 

Cars vary in their ability to stop, clearly, and they vary even more as a result of driver inactions and neglect and road/weather considerations. 

 

In areas where pedestrians die (20,30,40 zones) at a rate just over 1 per day (representing a quarter of all road deaths), they don’t choose to cross a road rashly based on any rationale like “it’s a Ford Anglia” or “it’s a Ferrari” coming down the road. 

[Cyclone]

Absolutely, but I think that using pedestrians is unfair here as nobody has argued that 30 limits should be increased except in the case where there aren't actually any pedestrians...

My personal bugbear are 60 roads reduced to 50, others have talked about motorway speeds.  I don't think anyone wants to be able to drive at 35 through a town centre.

[L00b]

53 minutes ago, DT Ralge said:

Indeed but, by the same logic, the difference between stopping from 70 and not stopping (and impacting on whatever) from 80, 90 and 100 mph is remarkable.

 

Cars vary in their ability to stop, clearly, and they vary even more as a result of driver inactions and neglect and road/weather considerations. 

 

In areas where pedestrians die (20,30,40 zones) at a rate just over 1 per day (representing a quarter of all road deaths), they don’t choose to cross a road rashly based on any rationale like “it’s a Ford Anglia” or “it’s a Ferrari” coming down the road. 

I'd actually typed a long-ish reply to your previous post (quoting mine), basically observing that whilst everything you wrote was perfectly acceptable, it still did not make the differentials "disproportionately huge", and making substantially the same point about pedestrians as Cyclone just now (...but my iPad ate it, when it decided to reload the page out of the blue ).

 

That is because in a driving context, speed-related (physics) relationships about kinetic energy, momentum braking, etc. are non-linear (as I previously observed): if you plot them against speed, they're curves, not straight lines. But they're always, invariably, proportional to the speed indicia.

 

The variance between differentials is remarkable, certainly. But then, that really is just 'because physics', and is part and parcel of the reasons why the speed limit in urban environments is 30 mph, not 50 nor 60: vastly more danger factors (pedestrians/cyclists, obstructed views, intersections, traffic density, etc, etc.) in those circumstances, than on single and dual carriage lanes in t'country, so vastly increased fundamental requirement for shorter stopping distances.

 

Over in France, they dropped the NSL from 90 to 80 km/h not so long ago, and there are increasing instances of urban areas dropped from 50 to 30 km/h. Tedious isn't quite the word, let me tell you. It'll soon be slow enough, that using your mobile whilst driving is actually safe enough  (...joke: it's a BIG bugbear of mine, because it's got to be one of main reasons for congestion on my daily commute - just about every last driver in the queues with their nose in their mobile, not noticing the queue moving )

Edited April 11, 2019 by L00b

[WiseOwl182]

18 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

Say what you want, certainly in this country it, when it comes to German cars (and particularly Audis) it`s a fact none the less.

I often wonder if people who argue this particular point are actually driving on the same roads as the rest of us.

I'm with Justin on this, although in my experience it's usually BMW drivers that are the worst.

[Justin Smith]

14 hours ago, WiseOwl182 said:

I'm with Justin on this, although in my experience it's usually BMW drivers that are the worst.

They used to be, but in my experience Audi drivers have usurped the crown

[L00b]

5 minutes ago, Justin Smith said:

They used to be, but in my experience Audi drivers have usurped the crown

Naaah, you’re just more envious of Audis than BMWs now 😜

 

[willman]

5 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

They used to be, but in my experience Audi drivers have usurped the crown

Thats because they can't afford the BMW they really want. (i drive a Skodas btw so i don't know what envy is)

Edited April 12, 2019 by willman