jlsmith wrote:Risk compensation is a fact of life, and even assuming there is a direct correlation between downward marginal increments in mph and safety (something think has only been assumed on this thread as a truism rather than argued cogently) it is in play as much as when you choose to drive at the speed limit of 70mph instead of 60mph as when our appalling friends in their Audis drive 80mph instead of 70mph.
I also think you are wearing your rose tinted spectacles in respect of how roads used to be. I am reading a social history of England at the moment, and during many periods of history the main social interaction when on English roads outside of towns came from the highwayman. In later times the level of road deaths was the same, if not higher, than now, despite far fewer journeys.
Arguments relating to social cohesion and lack of exercise may have their place (though not, I respectfully suggest, here) as they have nothing to do with evaluating the 70mph speed limit.
Of course risk compensation is a fact of life, but the driver who is experiencing less subjective risk and who feels safe to drive faster, is putting those outside his car at increased risk. The faster one drives, the less time there is to process information, it really is as simple as that.
I never said I was talking (only) about out of town roads. Our cities and villages are made subjectively dangerous by the behaviour of car drivers http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-li ... e-29372078 and it is subjective danger which frightens people away( as illustrated in that article), thus achieving 'road safety'. Motor vehicles kill far more people every year than highwaymen ever did (except perhaps in their guise as 'Traffic Engineers').
Slink_Pink wrote:Depends how you define "safety" - it's a relative term. Without medical training, I am not in a position to judge whether it's safer to have a hip broken or a leg broken + free air miles... I know which I'd prefer though.Ancient wrote:...Breaking someone's leg and throwing them into the air instead of breaking their hip is not improved safety, it is mitigated damage...
Safety would be improved by them not being hit, damage is mitigated by reducing the effect of their being hit. Safety and danger are not only relative terms, they have both transitive and intransitive meanings; it pays to consider which applies to whom.
jcochrane wrote:Ancient wrote:The attitude of most drivers (and some here) is that improvements in vehicle control, protection and collision mitigation should mean that cars are allowed to go faster (that the speed limits are outdated because of these improvements)
Maybe I have misunderstood you, and apologies if I have, but your experience appears to differ from mine. What I have constantly come across here and elsewhere is that driving at a posted speed limit does not make that speed safe. Which is something completely different.
Whilst thinking driver do make that connection, most drivers do not. I regularly see driving which simply assumes the road ahead is clear, I have been the victim of such driving and see enough reports of court cases to realise that our society generally does not understand the responsibility required to be in conrol of a motor vehicle (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6XrQbqgO6Y&feature=youtu.be)