The “shocking consequences of speeding” are the focus of Transport for London (TfL’s) latest road safety campaign which targets young drivers.
‘Kill Your Speed Not Your Mates’ – which is showing at cinemas across London and on the XBox Dashboard – depicts a young man facing the tragic outcome of showing off in the driving seat.
The campaign targets young drivers with the clear message that they should take more care of the people they care about; their friends.
Leon Daniels, managing director surface transport at TfL, said: “Driving too fast for the circumstances is often a factor in road collisions. Young drivers can lack road experience so judging hazards can be difficult.
“This hard hitting campaign reminds young drivers that they are responsible for the safety of their friends and of the consequences of not taking care behind the wheel.”
The campaign is the latest in a series by TfL to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured in the Capital. TfL says it is taking an “even handed approach, with campaigns working alongside each other to protect all road users”.
Want to stop drivers ‘speeding’, easy, just get rid of all speed limits!
Prevailing conditions dictate whether a speed is dangerous or not, not speed alone alone.
The ‘ills’ of society do not go away when somebody gets a driving licence, we have to look much further afield if we are going to seek more improvements in attitude when driving.
Terry Hudson
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Excessive speed for conditions or for the drivers individual abilities, is indeed contributory factors in collisions. I am concerned by emotive descriptions of community concerns about “speeding”: some of these concerns expressed are about drivers or riders speeding through their communities. Very often “speeding” is a euphemism. A bit more conversation will identify the real issue, whihc may be:
• Volume of traffic – leaving few gaps to get across a road
• Types of traffic e.g. If a road is a lorry route
• It may be a motorcycle route where the noise bikes create all weekend is more of a factor than their speed.
These issues are routinely covered by the umbrella term of “speeding”. I am not saying that “speeding” traffic isn’t an issue in some places but that we should be very wary of ascribing all peoples concerns to “speeding” when other factors are involved and also need to be identified and addressed.
Honor Byford, Chair, Road Safety GB
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With regard to speed, and circumstances, Mr King is mistaken as both Mr. MacKillop and Mr, Francis have explained. As a child, my being unable to go to school brought a smile – not tears.
Derek Reynolds, Salop.
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Eric is right, but Rod King’s first paragraph plays with words to distort their meaning. Driving too fast for conditions (the word used in accident reports, not circumstances) has nothing to do with speed limits per se. Nor does setting speed limits by what passes as a democratic process mean that they are always appropriate.
Idris Francis Fight Back With Facts Petersfield
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In the UK the “circumstances” as I understand it are that in order for it be legal to use a motorised vehicle on public roads then it is necessary to be a licensed person and conform to all the traffic regulations and rules. Hence driving above the speed limit set by democratic authorities at national or local level is driving “too fast for the circumstances”. And that “little sign at the side of the road” is just like all the other “little white lines” or LEDs in a traffic light which are all representations of decisions made by those authorities.
Maybe those complaining about too much focus on controlling speed should get out onto doorsteps in communities and find that whilst individual speeders only sometimes cause tears, the collective actions of individual speeders can blight communities and centres and schools causing real tears or fears in the many people that who feel so threatened as to modify their behaviour either in how they use those public spaces. The tears come from the children not allowed to walk or cycle to school, the parent requiring the time to take them, the elderly feeling unable to walk to the shops, and occasionally the tears of injury and death.
Rod King, 20’s Plenty for Us
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What’s the difference between ‘speeding’ and ‘driving too fast for the circumstances’? Speeding is against the law and driving too fast for the circumstances isn’t. Driving too fast for the circumstances will often end in tears whereas speeding rarely does. You don’t know whether you’re driving too fast for the circumstances until something goes wrong, but you do know when you’re speeding if the little dial in the car indicates a higher figure than the little sign at the side of the road.
If as Mr Daniels says that due to a lack of experience judging hazards can be difficult then would it stand to reason that selecting an appropriate speed would be equally as difficult? -NVT-
Duncan MacKillop, Stratford on Avon
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This is actually a campaign about the consequences of poor judgement and inadequate concentration (both due to immaturity and inexperience). Speed is a consequence of those factors.
To improve road safety, it is necessary to address root cause rather than a symptom.
What a shame it is assumed that telling young drivers to slow down will have any effect when so much more could be achieved with those resources. I seem to remember making a similar comment about the TT Races campaign last month.
Eric Bridgstock, Independent Road Safety Research, St Albans
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