longweekend58 wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2010 at 8:50am:




Because I do not have, or want, and cannot afford, a land-line connection.

"Speeding has long been recognised as a major factor in many road crashes. Excessive speed was noted as a definite cause in 8 percent of crashes and up to twice that as a probable cause in studies overseas. In Australia, excessive speeding has been noted as a contributing factor in up to 30 percent of fatal crashes. On these statistics, speed related road trauma is likely to cost the Australian community up to A$1 billion annually"

longweekend58 wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2010 at 10:22am:


Hey Bates, could you kindly refrain from mixing up your stats, ta!

Please delete wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2010 at 10:35am:


now the other side of that same quote. 'excessive speed' - note that it does not say 'exceeding the posted speed limit' but EXCESSIVE speed.  it also says that 92% of accidents are NOT the cause of excessive speed. the other statistic also says that in 70% of fatal accidents speed is NOT a factor. I believe that that is PRECISELY what I was saying.

longweekend58 wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2010 at 10:45am:


FFS, the local limit often becomes irrelevant and inappropriate, given that: it is always incumbent upon all drivers to drive according to the prevailing conditions at any points in time and place!

Equitist wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2010 at 10:56am:


100% agree!  one of the big problems with the over-dependance on speed limits is that drivers - especially new ones - assume that the posted speed limit is the SAFE speed. it is usually not at all. I was travelling back from Vic during the storms that hit there recently. driving rain, high winds poor visibility. maintaining 100 km/hr in even a car of my standard required a lot of concentration and was not a lot of fun whereas only hours earlier it was a breeze. most speed limits are posted because of WHERE the road is (urban or country) not because of what is really the safe speed. And i understand that there isnt any real alternative to that. but the notion that faster is necessarily more dangerous - especially on the open road - is quite simply wrong. USA increased its speed limits on its interstates are were rewarded with a slightly LOWER road toll. experts beleive it is because drivers are less frustrated when they are driving at more realistic speeds and therefore take fewer chances and make less mistakes.

longweekend58 wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2010 at 11:09am:


Noted, ta!

BTW, motion is a factor in all vehicular collisions - and collisions often occur because one or more drivers fail/s to adjust the speed/motion of their vehicle/s to the risks posed by the conditions prevailing in the vicinity. (Edit: Sorry, just noticed that I had missed your post at 11:07am!)



PS Methinks that this tangent needs to be discontinued and/or taken elsewhere.

Sorry, things got busy

"For example a driver travelling at 65 km/h in a 60 zone is twice as likely to have a serious injury or fatality crash as a driver travelling at the speed limit. Driving at 70 km/h in a 60 km/h zone, the driver is more than 4 times as likely to crash.

Based on this research it can be concluded that

    In a 60 km/h speed limit area, the risk of involvement in a casualty crash doubles with each 5 km/h increase in travelling speed above 60 km/h.

There are three reasons that small reductions in speed make such a large difference to risk.

1. Small differences in speeds mean differences both in time to collision and ability to avoid a crash.

    Even if a vehicle cannot be stopped in the available distance, the collision can still sometimes be avoided. When a driver is speeding there is less time for both that driver and any other road user (either a pedestrian or another driver) to:

    * Recognise danger
    * Decide on an evasive action (brake, swerve)
    * Complete the evasive action

    Furthermore, a vehicle travelling at a higher speed is more difficult to manoeuvre.

2. Small differences in vehicle speeds, before braking begins, can result in large differences in impact speeds.

    The diagram below shows the relationship between speed, stopping distance and impact speed. For each travelling speed both the stopping distance for vehicles travelling 50 km/h to 90 km/h are shown and the impact speeds for vehicles travelling faster than 50km/h at the point where the vehicle travelling at 50 km/h would have stopped (i.e. at 29m).

    The following example illustrates how impact speed can differ between two cars with only a 10 km/h difference in travelling speeds:

    ...consider two cars travelling side by side at a given instant, one car travelling at 50 km/h and the other overtaking at 60 km/h. Suppose that a child runs onto the road at a point just beyond that at which the car travelling at 50 km/h can stop. The other car will still be travelling at 44 km/h at that point2.

3. Even small differences in impact speed make a large difference to the probability of serious injury.

    The reason for this difference is that the force of the crash varies with the square of the impact speed. For example, a 70 km/h collision has about twice the force of a 50 km/h collision."

http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/roadsafety/speedandspeedcameras/speedingresearch.html