Seen on the back of a bus yesterday, the Safety Camera Partnership’s latest campaign:
Less speed = safer roads; it’s a simple equation.
No, it is NOT a simple equation. A suitable and safe speed is defined by influencing factors; the road and traffic conditions, weather, the vehicle’s type, age and condition, the driver’s age, condition, general health, alertness and level of concentration. A suitable and safe speed takes into account a combination of these factors. A lower speed may well mean a lower overall impact in the event of an accident incident and in the event, walking away as opposed to dying. However, good driving and, therefore, good traffic management and education must surely be about avoiding the incident in the first place rather than mitigating the consequences.
Ah, yes, but that’s just a little too difficult – as is thinking, it would seem. An alert driver on a good road in clear conditions may drive perfectly safely and without incident at three figure speeds. It is not speed that causes accidents, it is drivers who drive at inappropriate speeds, who talk on their mobile phones, who eat their lunch, do their makeup, read, change the CD or are just too stupid to multi-task while at the wheel.
What matters is not speed taken in isolation but the driver’s ability to drive the vehicle with consideration for developing hazards and deal with them before they become a problem. Simply forcing people to drive more slowly – and, importantly, simply educating them into thinking that this will make them safer drivers – merely reduces the speed at which they drive badly. It is still possible to die in a road traffic incident at 30mph. Therefore, it would make more sense to train drivers to avoid the incidents in the first place, would it not?
Convincing people who are unwilling or unable to figure it out for themselves that driving more slowly makes them safer drivers is contributing toward making the roads more dangerous. Ah, but, that’s the hard of thinking for you. Always looking for a simple-minded solution rather than stretch the grey matter and seek a properly thought out one.
Yes, avoiding accidents is better than having them at slower speeds. Yes, better driver training would be a wonderous thing. Yes, there are many contributing factors towards accidents. None of this counters the simple fact that, most of the time, driving more slowly allows drivers to avoid accidents more easily and reduces the damage caused when they happen. It *is* a simple equation and finding borderline exceptions or other causes of accidents or other ways to make the roads safer doesn’t change it one iota.
I’m afraid we disagree on this one. Driver training is my background, so I speak from a position of having taught a great many drivers and motorcyclists to drive at varying levels of ability and experience. I have also driven professionally. I also have a background in risk management – therefore I am in a position to assure you that it is most certainly not a simple equation. It is dumbing down driving by isolating one small element. It is convincing people that simply driving more slowly makes them safer drivers – it does not; as evidenced by the amount of times drivers try to part me from my motorcycle at 30mph. The best that it can do is mitigate the outcomes of their bad driving.
Driving is a complex skill. Speed is a factor, it is not necessarily the cause (as implied by the advertising campaign) and simply reducing it is not the cure. Indeed, on long journeys travelling more quickly helps to maintain alertness. Certainly a fast, competent driver is a safer one than a slow incompetent one. What matters is their hazard perception and management skills. I would rather people looked properly, didn’t tailgate and drove with consideration for other road users than simply drive everywhere more slowly. Reducing the speed at which people drive badly does not deal with the underlying causes. As an aside, I will add here, that during driver training, taking a learner out onto fast roads and getting them to drive more quickly encourages more advanced hazard perception. In other words, driving more quickly contributes to making them safer drivers; a direct contradiction of the safety camera partnership’s silly equation.
Changing driving habits for the better in order to reduce accidents requires a more intelligent approach. The safety camera partnership’s equation is patronising and misleading.