Gov't/Police crappy road safety strategies

[d21demon]

When I used to live in Alice Springs they had the open speed limit on the Stuart Highway. Now that has been changed to 130kmh speed limit, although it is still pretty fast, we are talking about a road that spans 1200ks from the border to the top, in Australias harshest of environments ,in a straight, flat line and you can see oncoming vehicles for miles a majority of the way.
When your travelling at these speeds, you are forced to stay alert. The majority of accidents that happen on this highway are due to unroadworthy cars and drunken idiots. Speed was never really an issue and the only reason that the limit was changed, was due to pressure from the other states and government. Stupid thing is the death toll is now rising.
As a younger lad it was nothing to jump in the car at 5am and arrive in Adelaide before the shops shut, it made for a great weekend getaway, now it simply just couldnt be done.

 

[SOLID D22]

Krafty is right that our road standards are not up to scratch to have high speed done on them, in fact its impossible. Australia has such a harsh hot climate that cooks everything so our roads need to be built tougher to withstand the heat, hence meaning less grip on the roads with the cars driving on them.

Although i still stick with my thought that i would be better on the road for spending less time on it than hours driving, thats just for long freeways or interstate freeways/highways, not local freeways. But also in saying that i couldnt do it in my nav, now, before yes probably at least from what i remember sit on 140 150, check out some you tube vids, some navs seem to hold speed ok.

 

[Old.Tony]

If you think a 15-year old Toyota Corolla or even a 10-year old Commodore has what it takes to sit at 260-280km/h in a stable fashion like they do on the Autobahn then you're delusional, even if the road was created by a team of German roadworkers shipped out for the purpose.

It's a combination of roads, cars and people. Our roads, built for our environment and really not built quite as well as they could be and sometimes very poorly maintained, are not ready for such high speed. Our cars, suitable for a maximum speed of (usually) 110km/h, are definitely not ready - just consider what soft suspension does at high speeds with slight steering movements. Our people have no experience driving that fast unless they're drunk and then you see the results in the form of new decorations for trees and telegraph poles.

I am in absolute agreement with the "more police presence" notion. Cameras are good for catching the average idiot and in my experience they do slow down the traffic, sometimes annoyingly so as people clamber over their brake pedals to do 45 in a 60 so they can't get pipped, then accelerate to 75 once they're well clear.

If there were a satellite speed monitoring or better yet, self-reporting and speed-inhibiting system built into the vehicle, we'd have a much better time. That would put an end to the idiots - and if that improves my safety level, I'm happy for it.

I don't have to speed, I don't want to speed. Yes, there might be little difference between an impact at 99km/h and at 109km/h, but there's a great difference in braking distances between 40km/h and 50km/h. Enough so that at 40km/h, the child you nearly hit remains *nearly* hit, is shocked and scared and won't run out on the road again, but at least they'll have that opportunity. At 50km/h, the next trip they make is in a box.

Speeding isn't just on a freeway. It's in a suburban street where children - unpredictable as they are - live. And die, thanks to the morons that think they can do 65 in a 50 zone and it'll be alright, better than being a minute late for work ... now, because of the accident, they're late for their deadline, and their victim is dead.

I will never advocate for higher speeds/limits. If you have to get somewhere at a certain time, then bloody well make the time available and do it carefully. If you have to travel long distances, then take breaks when you feel even the slightest lethargy or lack of concentration.

Cars don't kill people unless they're poorly maintained and that's back on the person. Roads are a great influence in some circumstances and could easily be better signposted, lighted or indicated (eg blind curves over crests). But neither of these have any impact unless people are involved, and all too often it's just sheer stupidity that causes the problem.

I'm not a police officer, but I agree with and support everything about these campaigns. The shock value of those ads obviously isn't enough for some idiots and is forgotten by the brave morons that drink and think they're still capable of controlling over a tonne of metal at high speed.

[/rant]

 

[KraftyPg]

If only more people looked at it the same way Tony we'd be well on the way to better and safer conditions on the roads. In some ways I think we are all a little de-sensitized to the horror and carnage they show in tv ad campaigns and that does limit their effectiveness a bit but that doesn't mean they don't work.

They should spend more of our fines and our fuel tax dollars on improving roads and they should make it a national strategy rather than a state by state one and while cameras have to be a part of that strategy they shouldn't be the only part of it. I also think there should be more public input into where the money goes not just decided by some bureaucrat who's got his own office that overlooks the lake.

Also like Tony I don't need to or want to speed but apart from the obvious reasons outlined in this thread one of the biggest reasons I found for not speeding is purely money based. I'm not trying to re-open a different discussion in this thread but based on figures in another thread about fuel economy I worked out the difference between someone else quoted figures for doing the same Nullarbor crossing as I did last month and mine was over $280 in four days of traveling.

While I agree there is many factors to take into account that such a brief summary doesn't show I still travelled the Nullarbor at just less than 100ks per hour in 4 days, stopping each night and driving casually not speeding (despite the lack of coppers out there) and I got there nearly $300 better off than someone who was using a similar vehicle but not as watchful on economy as I was. I'm not suggesting my way was the right way but I'm happy for the $300 each way I didn't give the fuel companies, it nearly pays for the next trip across.

 

[the_bluester]

To my mind the TAC ads have very much run their course. Along with movies of similar violence you need to just keep on making them more and more and more violent and bloody to get an impact. Goes back to my "No new ideas in 20 years" comment.

A distinctly unhelpful side effect of the TAC ads that I have seen is the sheer bum clenching terror that they induce in some people when it comes to actually driving. What I mean by that is that more than one person I know (Having been asked and said that the ads were the reason why) was basically untrainable to drive. Both were utterly terrified of the brake pedal and the steering wheel "Cause if you use them violently you will loose control, slide for fifteen miles and die in a fireball that engulfs Australia". Not quite that bad but you know what I mean. One of them thankfully went on to give up and never get a license, but I worry about the others who are very likely to tentatively and fearfully dab the brake pedal and gently wriggle the steering wheel right up to where they crash into the object they could easily have avoided.

I was recently reading about "Emergency brake assist" systems, technically interesting but the reason for development is a worry in itself. To see justification for development and now pretty widespread implementation of an electronic system that decides that you should really be making a panic stop and then proceeds to do it for you as too many people are just too scared to stomp on that pedal is a worrying trend. Whats next, a system that scans the area around you and reefs the steering over so you don't just drive into the back of the truck in front of you with your eyes shut?

Many pollies and supposed motoring "Advocate" groups such as the RACV decry more extensive training and advanced driving courses as they reckon young drivers will come out feeling teen feet tall and bulletproof. I reckon they have got entirely the wrong end of the stick. If that is what the training courses are sometimes doing then they need tweaking for more hammering home of personal responsibility. They also should concentrate more on a bit of a disguised physics lesson. Too many people I know have no idea what is going on underneath them and don't care either.

While motorists have as much responsibility as possible taken from them I think that the road toll is about as good as it is going to get (Speed cameras to monitor your speeds, ABS to mean that you can just stomp on the pedal, traction control that means you don't have to worry about what you do with your right foot, stability control so that if you throw it sideways out of carelessness or lack of competence the electronic nanny will gather it all up for you again and then hand it back, brake assist so you do not have to know how hard to hit the pedal, the list just goes on and gets longer by the year as the boffins come up with new tricks, like RADAR assisted cruise control so you do not have to adjust your speed to avoid cruising up into the back of the next car.

 

[KraftyPg]

I agree with the training courses and defensive driving courses. I also agree that some people will come out of over confident but the amount of people it will help would make it worthwhile.

My brothers insurance company wouldn't give him full comprehensive insurance as a P plater until he did a defensive driving course and when I got my licence my parents insisted that I do a week long driving course where my licence was gained at the end of the week.

I wouldn't dare suggest that I'm a better driver than others because I have done the course but at the same time it taught me a shitload more about driving and driving conditions than any one learn to drive school or my parents could have taught me. The training was done both on the road and on a controlled track and skid pan where normal learn to drive school didn;t have access but above and beyond anything else the biggest thing it taught was respect for the car, the road and other road users, something very few driving school worried about at the time.

I've since used the same company to get all my licences (up to MC) because of this one course. There are many other places that do similar courses and they aren't overly expensive but the training they offer young drivers is worth ever cent in my opinion.

 

[SOLID D22]

Your braking theory is all wrong, saying it takes longer to stop from 50km/h than 40km/h, ok prove it, il get my misses skyline with the turbo upgrade brakes twin piston, still stock nissan brakes for a skyline and you can choose whatever standard commodore/falcon you want.
I can guarantee my car will stop quicker than the standard car even doing 10km/h quicker, why, because it has better brakes, and the same then goes for the holden or ford or any modified by factory car out there, im pretty sure a hsv or fpv can stop a shitload quicker than a stock car. Really it is up to the driver but when i see stupid take off 5km/h adds it makes me think why, firstly im not over the limit and secondly in the case of my wifes car i can stop quicker than most of the cars im driving next too, and that theory was proven when i did a course on the skidpan. If a child or person runs out from in between 2 cars (god forbid) and gets struck by a car thats really just bad luck, unless your speeding and seen the person from a distance but couldnt stop because of speed, thats wrong.
Once again the comment will be the government needs to cater for all because not all people who drive have better brakes, then maybe the government can put some money into the local car makers and make them fit big brakes as standard instead of just making adds.

 

[the_bluester]

KraftyPg, seeing you are in Vic. would I be wrong in guessing you did the L and P plate course with DECA?

I have done some training with them over the years going back before I was even an L plater. The last of which was a 4WD course run for my work at the time.

 

[Aido]

Your braking theory is all wrong, saying it takes longer to stop from 50km/h than 40km/h, ok prove it, il get my misses skyline with the turbo upgrade brakes twin piston, still stock nissan brakes for a skyline and you can choose whatever standard commodore/falcon you want.
I can guarantee my car will stop quicker than the standard car even doing 10km/h quicker, why, because it has better brakes, and the same then goes for the holden or ford or any modified by factory car out there, im pretty sure a hsv or fpv can stop a shitload quicker than a stock car. Really it is up to the driver but when i see stupid take off 5km/h adds it makes me think why, firstly im not over the limit and secondly in the case of my wifes car i can stop quicker than most of the cars im driving next too, and that theory was proven when i did a course on the skidpan. If a child or person runs out from in between 2 cars (god forbid) and gets struck by a car thats really just bad luck, unless your speeding and seen the person from a distance but couldnt stop because of speed, thats wrong.
Once again the comment will be the government needs to cater for all because not all people who drive have better brakes, then maybe the government can put some money into the local car makers and make them fit big brakes as standard instead of just making adds.

Mate your argument is flawed.
Reaction time is where it is at. As a proponent of drag racing and muscle cars you surely understand that.
I had a Kawasaki capable of a legitimate 290kmh and it saw the speedo off the clock at 300 which with adjustment meant I was really only doing about 280. Yes I did this on the road just to see that it could but the distance traveled in .9 sec ( average reaction time ) is huge and to cover several hundred metres before being able to grab a handful of brake scared me shitless. The bike has a power to weight more than envious of any street car and a reduction of braking ability vs weight beyond any 4 wheeled cage but it is reaction time that soaks up the greater amount of stoping distance. Don't fool yourself. Get the biggest, most powerful brakes available and they will still do f all when the shit hits the fan.

 

[WIR35]

I think a few people may be slightly taking my point the wrong way. I don't condone speeding. I'm not a lead foot, and I certainly never drive dangerously. When I'm driving, the road has my full attention. I am constantly looking in my mirrors and scan the road ahead from the car in front of me, right up to a few hundred metres ahead. I have never had an accident, but avoided quite a few - and I believe this is due to me focusing on the task and giving it my full attention, as well as driving to the conditions and my ability. I think that everybody should take the same approach when driving and the advertising campaigns should be focusing on making people aware of this. At present, all they do is tell us not to speed and shows mangled car wrecks, which makes people think that as long as they are driving under the speed limit, they are driving "safely". This could not be further from the truth, and in my opinion is actually increasing the danger because it's lulling people into a false sense of security.

Tony, you mention my "99 vs 109" comment. You're 100% spot on about the reaction time, which actually helps to make my point that speeding is only one aspect of safe driving. A driver doing 109kmh but focusing his full attention on driving will have an amazingly faster reaction time than someone who's in a dream sitting on 99 thinking about what to cook for dinner or whatever. If you're scanning the road ahead, you'll probably not have to react in a hurry at all - you will most likely be able to slow down or change lanes. I'm sure you know all of this so I actually feel a little patronising bringing it up - but just trying to make my point clear - that's all.

Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear summed it up pretty well in a recent episode. "If you drive a rubbish car, you don't really care about cars. If you don't really care about cars, then you don't really care about driving. If you don't care about something, then you're probably not going to be any good at it." I don't totally agree with the first half of that statement, but definately agree with the second half. If someone doesn't really care about driving or has no interest in it, then they're probably not going to be any good at it.

Cars are a potentially lethal weapon. Whether you're exceeding the speed limit or whether you're otherwise innocently driving along doing the speed limit, but not paying attention to what you're doing - the danger is the same. Currently the government is doing very little to try and change that way of thinking. That in itself is very, very dangerous. I'm not saying that speed limits shouldn't be enforced, that would be ridiculous, but I think the focus needs to be spread evenly around all of the road rules, and I think that by primarily targetting speeding, the government is doing a gross injustice to road users by not having a thorough road safety campaign.

They need to thoroughly and continually educate people on driving etiquette, merging, changing lanes, not driving in the right hand lane unless overtaking (not sure about other states but it's a fine + demerit points here in QLD), scanning ahead, overtaking on single carriageways, driving on country roads, not tailgating etc etc. I'll say it again - speeding is only one part of a multi-pronged, thorough, fair dinkum road safety campaign. The government's weak-as-piss effort at the moment is nothing more than a pathetic attempt at making people think they are doing something. I feel sorry for the men and women of our police forces who have to be a part of it, I'm sure if they had their way then we would be seeing more patrol cars booking people for various breaches of the rules, and more advertising and education on the road rules and safe driving so that they don't have to book as many people, and so they don't have to scrape so many people off the bitumen.

 

[WIR35]

As for the defensive driving courses, I did one when i was on my L's, we did it as a school-based program and about 15 or 20 of us blokes did it. The course was quite good and taught me the limits of a vehicle, and also some valuable "rules-of-thumb" in regards to driving safely and avoiding crashes. I still remember some of them to this day, and they have probably helped to save my life. I do think that it maybe could have been a little bit better if we did it without our mates - perhaps as a group of people who do the course as part of their licence requirements - because you all know what happens when 15-20 teenage males get together with cars - it turns into a pissing contest on who can do the biggest skid and all of that. As far as P-platers driving stupidly goes, sadly I don't think we will ever stop that. Teenage males will always think of themselves as bulletproof, it's just a chemical reaction in the brain. I did, all of my mates did, and I look back at some of the idiotic things we did (especially in cars and bikes) and wonder how the hell we all made it through alive. But we did, and we are now responsible adults with that experience up our sleeves. I am still young enough to have not lost touch with my teenage self, and the points I have raised above are partially from things I learned from experience in my teenage years, and things I have witnessed and learned in my more "sensible" experiences in the years following.

 

[SOLID D22]

Mate your argument is flawed.
Reaction time is where it is at. As a proponent of drag racing and muscle cars you surely understand that.
I had a Kawasaki capable of a legitimate 290kmh and it saw the speedo off the clock at 300 which with adjustment meant I was really only doing about 280. Yes I did this on the road just to see that it could but the distance traveled in .9 sec ( average reaction time ) is huge and to cover several hundred metres before being able to grab a handful of brake scared me shitless. The bike has a power to weight more than envious of any street car and a reduction of braking ability vs weight beyond any 4 wheeled cage but it is reaction time that soaks up the greater amount of stoping distance. Don't fool yourself. Get the biggest, most powerful brakes available and they will still do f all when the shit hits the fan.

Im talking about doing the speed limit or even if your speeding 10km/h over the limit, not doing top speed of your car, even if the reaction time is different a car with better brakes stops first. Period.

 

[Aido]

Solid. Point is if you are travelling at 60kmh in a 50 zone and given the best possible reaction time with the best co-efficient of braking inclusive of pad to disc plus tyre to surface plus the weight of the vehicle you will still pull up 5m further than if you were travelling at the slower speed ( guesstimate, its late and I cant be arsed with maths ) and since deceleration is exponential then the speed at which you are travelling in that final 5 meters is at least 1/4 of your original speed then you have gone along way towards being involved in an incident when if travelling slower you could have avoided it alltogether. Even under the best circumstances and the vehicle fitted with carbon - carbon brakes you cannot account for the greatest loss in de-celaration .....reaction time.
It's a fallacy to think that you can drive a vehicle faster because it is capable of stopping faster.

 

[SOLID D22]

Yes your point is right, driving faster will take more ground to pull up, but when a car can stop quicker than the next car even though it was going at a faster rate, dont you think we should look into that to be a standard factor on all cars.

 

[WIR35]

Honestly, i don't think worrying about a nanosecond difference in reaction time or carbon brakes is going to stop people getting killed on our roads - it's all much less technical than that.

- Concentrate fully on the task at hand
- Drive to the conditions
- Don't drink and drive
- Don't drive tired
- Wear a seatbelt
- Be aware of what's going on around you
- Be courteous of other drivers
- Keep your car well maintained
- Know the road rules, and follow them

If everyone did this, we'd all be fine and have no problems. In fact, we probably wouldn't need a hundred airbags, stability control, ABS, EDB and all that other shit

 

[Aido]

Nah f#$% that.
I'm not sure whether it was the Infamous John Rooth or the Nefarious Mr Smith 20 years ago in Two Wheels magazine that within they're monthly column suggested that all four wheeled vehicles sold in Australia should be a Trambant with a 10" spike mounted in the centre of the steering column. Watch how carefully they drive then!

 

[SOLID D22]

Thats true. I suppose im expressing a point from a race track view, iv been on a race circuit with my charger and in other chargers with modded brakes and its unbelievable at how much difference there is in stopping between the 2 cars. Thats my point i was trying to put out.

 

[Aido]

Yes your point is right, driving faster will take more ground to pull up, but when a car can stop quicker than the next car even though it was going at a faster rate, dont you think we should look into that to be a standard factor on all cars.

How complacent have people become with quasi safety though? ABS, Stability control, traction control,ipod and blutooth. Agree with Wires some people forget they are piloting a heavy piece of metal and consider driving akin to watching the world go past them in high def

 

[Old.Tony]

Yes your point is right, driving faster will take more ground to pull up

That was my whole point. And as you pointed out, the government caters for the masses, not for people with better brakes fitted. Absolutely right.

I also support the idea of mandatory better brakes installed by manufacturers. It's a great idea. Too much time is spend polishing the gear lever and not enough working on the single most important feature on the whole thing: the brakes.

I posted somewhere that the greater majority of the population don't have the skills that a select few have. That's the norm. The government caters for the norm. There are people with even more skill and there are people with even less.

Those with more skill get racing cars or off-road prowess or do big adventures in perfect safety. Those with less keep buying cornflakes packets in the hope of getting their license in one.

But the majority just go with the flow. They don't do extreme stuff, they don't have extreme cars, because they're usually not interested and mostly not capable.

Reaction time is the bees' knees. Good brakes stop the vehicle, but there's little point in those if your head is over your shoulder checking out the chicky babe on the footpath.

 

[the_bluester]

I really want to point out a hole in braking theory that bugs me every time I hear it.

It is bandied about, supported by much the same notion of exponential braking as you mentioned Aido that you drop around a quarter of your speed in the last five meters. That just does not stand up to any thought.

Scenario A, panic stop from 60KMH, in the last 5 meters you are carrying and stopping from around 15kmh.

Scenario B, same car, panic stop from 100KMH, now using the logic bounced around about the last 5 meters you will apparently be able to stop from 25kmh. Why can't the car stop that hard from 60?

It just does not stand up to any scrutiny at all. I also do not agree that braking is exponential, it is nearly linear. That is backed up by data logging from my own race car. The longditudinal G force produced in hard braking is pretty consistant from start to end, that means your retardation is prety consistant from start to end, in my case it fell off slightly towards the end of the stop as the car actually does produce some downforce at speed so some grip is lost as you slow down and if you get it perfectly right you will actually loose LESS speed in the last 5M than the first 5M of effective braking. It is as simple as time multiplied by braking effort. I also loath the reaction times they quote when producing stopping distances. I think the typical time they quote from seeing an obstacle to applying the brakes is 2 seconds! Anyone who takes that long to brake needs to concentrate more, and if that really is a typical reaction time then they need to be doing something about it.

While I do agree that for any given scenario, a lower starting speed means a shorter stopping distance and more chance of not hitting any obstacle, the advertising is also pretty misleading and selective. Yes in the TAC scenario from 50KMH you will bump the girl who walked out in front of you and bruise her knee rather than cleaning her up at 55kmh. You can carry that on ad infinitum justifying a lower and lower speed until the dopey bugger bruises her knee when she walks without looking into the side of your stationary car!

I think that is just another aspect of what has been mentioned above and I have drawn this out of people I know in discussion. After 20 years of TAC ads all some folks I know think you need to be safe is to drive within the speed limit, not drink and drive, wear a seatbelt and at a stretch they might admit that not driving while fatigued could be a good idea.

I am ex Air Force and a safety poster aimed at pilots (I was not one, I was a techo) said it all about the current TAC and govenrment thinking, they could really learn from this.

"Spread your attention, dont focus on detail"

Applies to driving a car and my thoughts on the current Government approach to road safety equally well and is equally poorly adhered to in both cases.