Monday 17 September 2012

Safety Insanity

There is a prevailing obsession about speed and how speed kills. So obsessed are we that the plans to make a 20mph speed limit widespread across Towns are being welcomed as enlightened, a worthy regard for the sanctity of life. These plans are just bonkers, pure lunacy out of disconnected thoughts. Speed cannot kill. I have sped on many legal occasions and I have never ever killed. Policemen are authorised to speed excessively but their extreme speed kills no one. No it is driving errors, inattention, poor judgement, misunderstanding of reactions times, road dynamics and even pure mischance that kills. Sure speed does aggravate any outcome but is not the cause. 

None of us want to endorse behaviour that might result in the death of a innocent bystander. Being born, getting out of bed each day and going about the world is high risk behaviour that might result in your death. We know life is risky. We take a calm and measured view of the risks. What are the chances of misadventure today? Negligible. Will the bolt come out of the blue? Probably not. We weigh the chances of risk against our need to get on with life whilst taking sensible precautions to minimise the inherent risk out there.

The society we live in depends on our means to get about quickly and efficiently from one part to another. We live in cosy suburbs, away from the bustle of the city centre, because we can travel easily. We live out in the countryside away from the smells and sounds of the busy towns because we enjoy the peace and quiet yet can just as easily pop into town to go to school, or shop or work. The convenience of our world is based on being able to smoothly, easily and tirelessly move about with tolerable time expenditure. We choose not to spend hours on the business of moving from one part to another at the costs of work or family life.

In an ideal world, the world dreamed of by the planners way back in the 1960's, it was simple, traffic separation was the solution. Keep cars and people apart and problem solved. Except of course life was not that simple and has only got worse since those heady days of idealism. Just consider the range of legitimate road users that must be allowed for, mobility scooters, pedestrians ranging from the fit to the slow, roller blades, racing bikes, mountain bikes, buggies, motor bikes, horses with or without carts, cars, stretched limos, buses, trams, van lorries and transporters in all shape and sizes. Each of these legitimate forms of travelling on our roads has it own unique, widely different speed, manoeuvrability, reaction time and ability to read other users intentions. The simplistic vision just does not work, we cannot possibly separate out all those disparate road users. We have to accept they are all mixed together.

So the solution then is a 20mph widespread speed limit. Slow everything and everyone down to the slowest common denominator. In a crowded city with congested roads, crowded pavements and a 24/7 society it is just reflecting reality, that is as high as the hopes go. This nation does not comprise wall to wall cities. It has regions of great density and still has areas of very low density with the bulk of the land with a rich mixture inbetween. Many many town and villages have uncongested roads and pavements that scarcely ever see a pedestrian and a night time where the roads are deserted. So the odd road user on such roads as these should be restricted to just 20mph! This is tunnel thinking just as blinkered as the simplistic vision of traffic segregation. Our society and our lives are structured around being able to move easily and swiftly between locations.

Once apon a time, pedestrians hovered at the edge of the road calculating when there was a sufficient gap between moving cars to make it safely across the road. How times have changed. Nowadays pedestrian walk out as it pleased them across the road in the expectation that all vehicles will fully anticipate their intentions and make passage for them. Neither of course of behaviour is appropriate. What is relevant is that each and every road user has to have regard for the needs of any other road user and to be patient and considerate to those other users. In a mixed society we have to allow for and cut slack for all those others we must by necessity jostle with.

If only 20mph speed limits were definitive. Rearrange society and life based on 20mph and there would be no road casualties, ever. Would not happen, in congested streets, in adverse weather conditions or the unexpected bolt of of the blue, life would still be lost. And we as a society would have sacrificed all the benefits of being able to move about freely, for nothing. The viable speed is totally dependant of the conditions at that time, not some generalised norm. No, lives are lost by errors made by road users. We each have to take responsibility for our own decisions. There can be no hiding behind rules and regulations. We each must judge the time, the place and the conditions as and when we make those judgements. It is our decision alone, each and every time. Failing to anticipate an erratic driver as equally as failing to see a juvenile about to make a rash choice. We each have to assess all the variables like time, weather, visibility, congestion, probable movements as we make our navigational judgements. Information about other users and their limitations, information about causes of accidents, information about black spots that have above average accidents, information fed to a society that fully accepts it is each persons own responsibility for the safety of all other members of their society, that would all help. Coupled with a mature acceptance of the inherent risks in life with an acceptance of their probabilities. Each road user has to be aware and take responsibility for their actions and the affect on all other road users. No blanket traffic restriction is going to better that.