Carnage On The Roads - When Will We Learn?

"Speedmonkey" (Speedmonkey) 10/25/2013 at 09:43 • Filed to: Safety

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I was delayed recently by two fatal accidents on the motorways in one day, which caused me to arrive home 3 hours late - and for scores of people to unexpectedly enter into mourning for those who died.

The first first crash closed the M5 for six hours. It involved a van and a lorry. The van driver died. You can see the aftermath here.

The second crash happened on the M4 near Bristol. I was on the other side of the carriageway and had no choice but to see the aftermath as we crawled past at 2mph. Two cars were squashed flat, no more than 24 inches high. Two caravans were obliterated and the remnants strewn across the motorway. A huge truck (the type that fly through our village at speed, just where my son crosses the road after school) was parked close by them, without a scratch.

A passing biker captured the image above on his head cam. He was on the scene just after it happened, I arrived much later. At least one car lies somewhere under those trucks.

This goes on every single day of the year. A minimum of three people died in those accidents. Can you imagine if a serial killer was on the loose, taking out three people on the M4 and M5 near Bristol?

There would be uproar. Yet these fatalities will go largely unreported. Life will go on for everyone except the friends and relatives of the deceased.

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , according to ROSPA.

This is madness. It's not the fault of the car, van or lorry. It's the fault of the human in control. That human failed to drive according to conditions. That human was not in adequate control of their vehicle and so either died themselves or killed somebody else.

Motorcycle magazines frequently publish articles relating to rider safety and improving skills. Car magazines never do. Safety and skills do not sell magazines.

Most people in charge of cars out there do not have the requisite skills and full enough control of their facilities to do so. That's no official statistic, it's my observation. But surely no-one reading this will disagree.

Normally I do not advocate compulsory anything but I think it's time the general public were forced to undergo regular driver training. Those of us who have attended driver awareness courses will know they are actually educational, and make you think.

The police control the UK's roads by stealth and underhand tactics. I have no respect for the police when they control us by camera or by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

This does not improve standards, it simply generates revenue. The driver awareness courses are a success because they are run by outside bodies with no axe to grind, and no condescending lectures.

I believe all drivers should have to attend a driver awareness course at least once every five years in order to retain their licence. And all foreign drivers who will be in the UK for more than a week or so, or who drive here regularly, must do the same.

One of the most sensible and level headed advocates of driver education is a man called Paul Ripley. For seven years he wrote a weekly column in the Daily Telegraph. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Please do so, and please send the link to everyone you know who drives a car. You can browse Paul's website !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and follow him on Twitter !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

Only us car enthusiasts seem want to educate ourselves. Nobody else seems to want to educate Britain's drivers so we must encourage them to educate themselves.

I've created a label for Speedmonkey entitled "Safety" and have tagged all past articles relating to safety. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

I would like to run more. If anyone wants to send me some wisdom, or thoughts, on driver education or safety please let me know.

I wrote an article a while back. It's had a ton of hits and was endorsed by Paul in the comments section. You might want to read it if you haven't already - !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Photo credit: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

davedave1111 > Speedmonkey 10/25/2013 at 10:03

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I'm all in favour of improving road-safety wherever possible, of course, but it's worth putting these deaths into context and looking at the opportunity cost of making further improvements in what is already a very safe activity.

There are a total of around 300 billion miles driven in the UK every year, or, ballpark figure, a billion miles a day. That means there are (a bit less than) 200 million miles driven for every death. That's equivalent to saying that you could drive at 70mph for two and a half million hours - nearly 300 years. In other words, an average driver would have to drive at 70mph continually for two or three centuries before they'd expect to get in a fatal accident (on average).

To put it yet another way, it's only 10-20 times more likely that you'll die in a car crash than a plane crash, on a per passenger mile basis - and since planes carry much more than 10-20 times the number of passengers in a car, typically, that means a car is actually less likely to be involved in a fatal crash than a plane, per mile travelled.

There's certainly no call for complacency, but when you're looking at trying to further prevent very rare events, you have to look at how much that will cost, and what else might be done with the money instead. It's not like we don't have any other causes of death in the UK that could be tackled more cheaply on a cost-per-life-saved basis.

You take a country like Trinidad - 2% of the UK's population, but the same absolute number of road deaths per year - and there's plenty of low-hanging fruit to be picked off the road-safety tree. Here, though, the standard of driving is relatively good already, and it's a lot more expensive to pick off the fruit from the high branches.

BJ > Speedmonkey 10/25/2013 at 10:19

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In a perfect world:

I think mandatory driver education courses for all new drivers are a must. We don't have them here in most of Canada, but we should. This program should apply to new drivers of any age and to all immigrants who come from a place that does not already have a similar mandatory, government-recognized program.

All people already in the system should be required, within a two-year grace period, to participate in a shortened version of the program designed to verify their skills and to catch any people who need further help or education.

I like the idea of a retraining or awareness program once every five years, up to 65 years old or following certain major medical events. In this case, it should be every two years or even yearly.

In the real world:

Mandatory driver training and awareness program for all new drivers of any age.

Casper > Speedmonkey 10/25/2013 at 10:20

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People die. It's life. Even with several happening in close proximity time wise, it's an anomaly. For the number of people driving, and distances traveled, it's a microscopic number of fatalities. To use your serial killer analogy: it would be like a serial killer jumping out and attacking you ever minute for several hundred years, and only being successful on the last day. Sure, they were trying to kill you, but after the first 100,000 times you started to think of it more as an annoyance that might go wrong rather than a real threat.

I completely agree with the sentiment that we need to start pushing for people to learn to drive and do so well. There are a HUGE number of people who are terrible drivers... and they aren't the ones tearing to traffic like assholes or cutting you off. They are the ones crawling along at the speed limit or lower, terrified they are about to instantly die. They are the ones who are completely oblivious to traffic behind them and only look forward. They are the people who panic that they missed their exit and try to cross multiple lanes to make it, never even looking to see what traffic was beside or behind them.

People need to be reeducated to understand that crashes are ALWAYS someones fault. Just because something bad happens to you, doesn't take away your blame in the situation, and there is almost always something that could have been done to avoid it.

BJ > BJ 10/25/2013 at 10:24

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Also, something that is lacking in many places is mandatory roadworthiness (is that a word?) inspections yearly or every two years, for ALL vehicles and not just those over a certain age. How many collisions, injuries, and deaths are caused by improperly maintained and unsafe vehicles? Couple this with stiffer penalties for people caught driving unsafe or unrepaired vehicles, and this could have a positive impact on the safety of our roads.

If I had a nickel for every time I've seen somebody driving with clapped-out shocks (bounce! bounce! bounce! bounce!), broken head/tail/signal lights, badly damaged windshields, bald and/or flat tires...

DasWauto > Speedmonkey 11/01/2013 at 14:22

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This is a great post and I wholly agree that more driver training needs to be mandated. Not just in the UK, but many other parts of the world as well.

I think such measures would go further in preventing roadway deaths than the constant flood of safety features being required ever will. All those 'features' are doing now is take control out and responsibility out of the hands of the driver and that is simply wrong.

This is an important point too: "Motorcycle magazines frequently publish articles relating to rider safety and improving skills. Car magazines never do. Safety and skills do not sell magazines." I think there could and perhaps should be a blog and/or other publication completely dedicated to this.

dataPOG > Speedmonkey 11/02/2013 at 09:56

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Help me with the lingo...

Lorry = big rig or 18-wheeler

Van = box trucks or delivery trucks?

Speedmonkey > dataPOG 11/02/2013 at 10:16

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Correct!

dataPOG > Speedmonkey 11/02/2013 at 10:33

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Thanks.

Finegreensilk1 > Speedmonkey 11/02/2013 at 10:40

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In New York State, so-called Defensive Driving courses are optional, but encouraged by the State through reductions in vehicle insurance costs for several (five?) years. Saving a few hundred dollars is a good motivation to take a course! The courses can also reduce points taken against a license, if there have been driving infractions adjudicated in the previous 18 months. https://transact.dmv.ny.gov/pirp/

Cé hé sin > dataPOG 11/02/2013 at 11:14

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Just to complicate things lingo wise, if you can drive it on a car licence it's generally a van. Anything bigger is a truck (if you drive them) or a lorry (if you don't).

Further complications: a truck might have more or less than 18 wheels depending on the weight as allowable gross weights depend on axle loading (and several other factors).

Oh, and Americans drive manual trucks and automatic cars, people on this side of the pond do the opposite.

Now that confusion has been spread my work here is done!

dataPOG > Cé hé sin 11/02/2013 at 23:45

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Not that complicated, I can drive a box truck with my current license. I just can't do it as part of my job.

That's where it gets confusing.

Cé hé sin > dataPOG 11/03/2013 at 05:18

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Can't do that here. You want to drive anything over 3.5 tonnes, you get a truck licence. To drive what we call an artic (truck and trailer) you need a separate licence. To drive a manual vehicle you take a test in a manual.

If you come here from North America your licence isn't recognised because it's likely to have been obtained in an automatic and so you begin from scratch.

ravenaspects > Casper 11/03/2013 at 10:14

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They are the ones crawling along at the speed limit or lower

Implying that everyone ought to drive faster than the speed limit does undermine your otherwise reasonable points somewhat.

Casper > ravenaspects 11/03/2013 at 11:44

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No it does not. It's proven traveling under the speed limit is more dangerous the greater the value than over. For instance 5 under the limit is actually about 3% more dangerous than 5 over, but then compounds faster for a reduction in speed than an increase. So at 10 under it maybe around 11% more dangerous than 10 over, and on and on. The actual rate of increase depends on traffic type, number of lanes, etc. The critical component is the difference in speed and directionality of threat in correlation to logic. So if a person is traveling 10MPH over the limit the probability of a threat from behind decreases and the probability of a threat from in front increases. The correlating logic the herd will be following is that everyone will be doing approximately the speed limit, thus, paying attention forward is key. A person traveling under the speed limit by the same amount, they are now creating the same speed difference, but the threat from behind has been increased, the threat from in front remains the same (traffic should be traveling greater than or equal, so the only threat that ever existed was people traveling too slow or stopped, which hasn't changed), and the person can not equally control avoidance of danger from behind without reducing attention payed to the direction of their travel. Thus, the increased rate of compounding hazard for the slower driver. Regardless of whether they are traveling over or under the limit the herd logic remains the same: expectation is that everyone will be traveling approximately the speed limit.

BlackLab > Speedmonkey 11/03/2013 at 16:27

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See - I don't think the problem in the US is lack of skil. It's lack of caring. i don't know how you can 'educate' this out of people. Its not that people don't know how to drive correctly - they just do not want to. If they miss there exit they swerve over and cut people off. If they are in a rush they drive much faster then the speed limit etc etc. If someone texts them they answer their text. If they are switching lanes they don't signal. If they need to get over to the left lane for a turn they just plow over that way even if there are other cars in the way etc etc.

We need hasher punishments for non-speed related stupidity on the roads. That's the only way you are going to cut down on stupid behaviour in the states IMHO. It's not an education problem. It's a lack of consideration for others.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Casper 11/04/2013 at 09:28

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Just a note: crashes are not always someone's fault.

Most of the time? Yes. Always? No.

Parts fail, tires fail, animals enter the roadway, etc.

There will always be fatalities on our roadways, but we can do everything in our power to prevent them from being caused by ourselves.

webmonkees > BJ 11/04/2013 at 09:57

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Russia needs better brakes. Europe has the MOT. The US has smog regulations.

Last big thing I was in involved a (former) cop car with failed ABS brakes. In a line of stopped, cars, all I could do is watch in the mirror.

Bounced off me, into the oncoming line, into the fire station parking lot. I guess if they'd been going a bit faster it would have been convenient for the result.

Casper > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 11/04/2013 at 20:31

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An accident is not always someones fault because there are no absolutes, but 99%+ of the time, it is. A person hitting an animal is still at fault. One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard was from a motorcycle safety instructor. He said if you are ever surprised while riding or driving, you were doing something wrong. If you put yourself in a situation where you lacked valid escape routes and did not have vision to effectively scan, you are at fault. There are a few times where animals are at fault, for instance I have seen deer actually run into cars (even after they were stopped), but most of the time it's the driver failing to properly scan and assess.

An example of an accident in which someone was not at fault would be something completely anomalous. For instance you are driving down the highway and are hit my a meteorite. That would be completely out of anyone's control, but is also not a collision/crash. If two cars collide, it is as close to a certainty as possible that someone was at fault... even if a mechanical failure is involved. After all, ensuring a vehicle is mechanically sound is also the drivers responsibility.