Lead footed B's.

[datsun260z]

Originally posted by Datto-Zed

Personally I don't have a problem with the speed limit being broken provided that it's done sensibly.

My criteria for sensisible being that it's done in the right time and place and is well within the limits of the car and driver.

For example, not in traffic, not in populated areas and not in old dungers driven by 17 year old P platers. Also not with other people in your car that don't consent to that sort of driving.

So who gets to decide when "the right time and place" is? There are people who have decided times and places. They are organised clubs at dedicated tracks. They have engineers who have to pass your car and require you to pass a license above and beyond a standard car license.

Anyone who speeds on a registered road is breaking the law, and that is not just the law of the raod but also the law of statistics. Speed Kills. The more people who speed, the more people will die. Plus fatalities are higher in the younger groups. But is it entirely thier fault. After all they are only following the lead of older more experienced drivers.

Case in point. A while back I was driving to work early in the morning. I was watching my mirror and soon saw a young bloke aproaching me. I was doing the posted limit of 90kmh when he overtook me, so I figure he is doing 100kmh. There is another bloke in my mirror, middle age, and he overtakes me and the other bloke probably doing 110kmh. Then there is a third bloke. 40ish with his wife in the passanger seat. He overtakes all three of us. Estimated speed 120kmh.

What were they driving. The young bloke was driving a VH Commodore (same as my daily driver). The second bloke was a old Falcon. The 40ish bloke? A Hyundi.

The morale of the story. Sure young people speed, but no worse than all the soccer mums out there. Why do more of them die. Maybe it is thier skill or lack of it. Maybe it is because they cant afford new cars with moddern safety features. Maybe it is Darwin's law of survival and they kill themselves when they are younger so less get killed when they are older. Also all three cars ended up behind a truck doing the posted limit when the two lanes merged. Speed gets you know where faster except six feet under.

I think that is about a $1.50 worth.

[Murph]

Just want to make my position clear.

I don't generally speed. I don't speed in traffic. I don't speed around others. I don't speed in places I don't know inside out. About the only time I do speed is if I am having a bit of a play in the car and I will be the only person I'll ever put at risk by doing so.

Don't get me wrong. There are a hell of a lot of people out there that do put peoples lives at risk by speeding at the wrong time in the wrong place and they should be stopped.

Back on the issue of driver education, I agree with 260DET that sometimes the posted speed limit will be too high for the current conditions (eg rain). The problem is it gets pounded into our heads day in day out that if you drive at the speed limit you are a safe driver. That's a load of $^!#. People need to be taught to be able to think and judge the conditions for themselves.

The McGrady governments speed kills/ever k over is a killer/lets put speed cameras at the bottom of every hill campaign sure as hell aint workin. These holidays we have the harshest punishments for speeding this country has ever seen, but have you seen the road toll? One of the highest ever.

You know what, I'd go as far as saying the govenment should be accountable for those deaths. Year after year they lower speed limits, increase fines, increase the number of speed cameras, but do they work? No. The road toll goes up. All the while they feed us all this crap in their advertising campaigns about how they are making the roads safer and people blindly believe it. :mad:

Sure speed kills. You know what's more dangerous? People that don't know how to control a car. People that drink and drive. People that tailgate. People that can't judge a situation for themselves.

The government isn't going to change though. They make some serious revinue out of their current system (over 300 million in a year if I remember correctly). To save lives they'll need to implement some REAL driver education and that's going to cost money.

Nothing will happen till the general pubic wakes up to what's going on and demands change.

[Alan Pugh]

Having lived in the Northern Territory where there is no open road speed limit, it was very rare to get me over 140kph in the car anyway.

On the bike on the way to work however it was a different story.

A group of us tempory Australians would meet up just outside town (Katherine) and race to work at Tindal, often hitting speeds of 250+ kph.

I haven't ridden a bike since the day my son was born as per my wifes recomendation.

[datsun260z]

Just for the record. I speed. The road I that used as an example, I have done 140kmh an hour on my way to work. But it was a clear morning, it is a well maintained road with two lanes and no oncoming traffic and there was absolutly no traffic. I did it once just to see if the car could do it.

But still I know it was wrong.

Plus it was not a once off, but the worst offence (except that time I got my 120Y coupe upto 160kmh, but that was so far in the bush that it was practacly the N.T.).

The thing that pisses me off are people who casually speed when there is other traffic around, whether it is light or heavy. Something goes wrong when speeding on your own, well you may have done the world a favour. Do it in heavy traffic and you could kill someone's mother, wife, sister, niece, I think I have made my point

[Murph]

I agree with you 100%.

As for the 120Y.....that's an achievement!

But yeah, I'm sure most of us have done some pretty dumb $^!# when we were younger. I know I have. :stupid:

[1 Bravo 6]

Your absolutely right when you say that it's "The Other Bloke" who lacks road savvy. (Good grief, I said s-a-v-v-y. I'm startin' to talk Yank. I blame you and Carl). Mate, I was never taught to drive. I was TRAINED to drive. I had 17 years driving experience in the Army on everything from cars through land rovers, 2 1/2 ton 4x4, 5 and 8 ton 6x6, all busses including 54 seater coaches and fork lifts up to 18,000 kg. When I passed my Transport Supervisors course I was authorised to train, test, pass or fail student drivers.

On discharge, my Army driving record was perfectly clean.

And yet, I do not class myself as a GOOD driver. There ain't no such animal mate. I'm just COMPETENT. And SAFE. It was drilled into me.

I don't know what the license testing is like up your way but down here, if you can answer most of the written questions, drive in traffic without causing an accident, angle park, paralell park, do a hand brake hill start, 3 point 180 turn, all without giving the assessor a heart attack, you'll probably get your license. I understand that Driving Schools have recently begun taking students out onto the open road to "Gain Experience". What a laugh.

Datto, I heartily agree with a lot of the points you make. The Government/s are NOT doing enough re. driver education. Forget Teaching people to drive,--TRAIN them. There's a bloody BIG difference. And, I believe, the Army way is the BEST way.

A full time, 6 weeks course of instruction to be licensed to drive a car, then further courses for 4x4's and drop sided utes.

How does that sound ????

Rick.

:devious: :devious: :devious: :devious:

[speedyblue]

They have really got to do something. But nothing is going to happen while they stick to the speed kills slogan.

I have seen it in a few of my friends (strangely enough mostly female)the attitude that once you get your license you know how to drive. After a few years of driving they come to realise how much they can't drive. (Most do anyway)

One who was a real leadfoot rolled her car with her sister in it ( didn't suprise anyone). They were both ok, but her sister didn't learn a thing from it and speeds along narrow country roads, blind corners and all. Last time I was ever a passenger in her car.

Why is it that every young guy gets his license and wants to buy a Commodore or a turbo vehicle. It is absolutely stupid.

Fortunately I can't comment on my own skills, because I can't observe my own driving independently. I know I drive fast. That is why I stopped driving my 240Z 18 months ago and bought a fourby that I don't drive over 80kph.

But the Z is going to be on the road again soon so I am really going to have to show some restraint. The Gold Coast coppers are getting pretty tight with it all, and with all the tools doing 1 wheel doughnuts in their VK commodore wagons with multi colour panels, I don't blame them.

[Zrush]

Driving is a Privilege, not a Right. You don't even need to be speeding or even on the road to cause mayhem. Here in Florida you read in the paper every day where some old duck has mistakenly hit the gas instead of the brake and gone right through a business store front. Such a shame IMO. This is when you really need to give up your license and ride the bus.

[Murph]

Compulsory retesting at least every 10 years should be a must.

[TomoHawk]

I think it is agreed that speeding is OK in the right time, place and conditions. I'll throw in my (too sense) and add what my experiences have been:

"I don't have to follow any speed limit. My SUV/vette/whatever is SAFE."

Yeah, right. American bloody arrogance at its best(worst?) I hear a LOT about American "freedom" since 1990, and you have to conclude straight away that Americans just make up their freedoms as they go. "Freedoms" like:

To disobey the speed limit, then complain when they get caught.

To toss cigarette butts out the window on the highway/street/grass.

To carry a gun, and shoot people who don't drive YOUR way.

To basically do what you want, because you are "American."

I first think it happens because we ("Americans") get a false sense of security by thinking that our vehicles are safer due to design, or we are better drivers because of our so-called laws, or more experience driving "safely" (if/when we did!) or that the other guy is looking out for us & himself as well. Maybe we think we're all racecar drivers? There's probably more to it; some psychological reason that pleases the id in all of us to BE dangerous.

I'm 40, I usually drive within the posted speed limit (except to pass) and generally try to drive safely. I even STOP for stop signs. That doesn't mean I don't have my momentary brain-lapse, which occurs occasionally. Fortunately, I've never done anything to not come out safely.

Maybe we should all take a child psychology class to figure out why the kids do it?

[speedyblue]

It is one thing to be caught speeding, ie driving faster than the set limit, but how do we know that the limit was set correctly in the first place?

New roads are designed with a target speed in mind. This design speed controls the minimun site distance around corners, over crests ect, so it is fairly obvious what the speed should be set at, but what about the older roads that twist and turn through the hills. The road out to my house is signed at 60. It is a good road surface with lots of hills and corners.

In NSW there are LOTS of narrower roads with hills, tight corners and blind corners that are singposted at 100kph. It is ridiculus to do those speeds.

There was a whole study done (Swiss I think but I can't find my old textbook) on working out the best speed for a section of road. They monitored the speeds of cars and then broke it down into percintiles, eg 20% of the cars travelled under 50kph, 40% of the cars travelled under 52kph, 60% of the cars travelled under 56kph, 80% of the cars travelled under 60kph and 99% of the cars travelled under 70kph.

They graphed this against the number of crashes with the speed limit set at different percentile ranges and found that there were the least crashes when the limit was set at the 80% limit. Set it higher, more crashes. Set it LOWER, more crashes.

It didn't take in to acount the severity of the crashes from what I remember (cmon, it was 4 years ago) but I bevieve it is still the system used for setting the speed limit in many European countries.

Much better than some of the 'stab in the dark' methods used here when the local politicians lobby for lower speed limits.

I probably have got a few thing slightly wrong here because it was a while ago, but the majority of it should be right.

My long winded opinion anyway.

Scott

(Civil Engineer and novice road designer)

[Murph]

There are many many countries that quite successfully use the 80th percentile rule.

I suppose the problem is that they have to set the speed limits keeping the lowest common denominator in mind. Judging my some of the mind blowing idiocy that I see on the roads, that's prett damn low. This is yet another reason why need better driver training. Bring that lowest common denominator up to a reasonable level so we don't have to drive at 50kmh on every bloody road for the rest of time.