A different kind of political blog.

KTM 950 Supermoto in a Cotswold sunset, originally uploaded by stevenjbaker.

The roads were superb: open, clear and well-surfaced. I can’t help thinking a blanket 50 mph national speed limit would be met with the same counterproductive contempt as the present motorway speed limit^[1]. Thankfully, it appears Theresa Villiers MP, the Shadow Transport Secretary, is of a similar view:

Shadow Transport Secretary Theresa Villiers said: ‘Labour’s approach to road safety focuses on a one-size fits all policy, be it the trebling of speed cameras in England, or their proposal to reduce the speed limits on all rural single carriage way roads to 50mph.

‘We need targeted plans aimed at specific problem groups or specific areas. So we won’t bulldoze through a 50mph blanket reduction in the speed limit.’

Certainly, let us be safe, but not through Labour’s repulsive means.

THE government is to cut the national speed limit from 60mph to 50mph on most of Britain’s roads, enforced by a new generation of average speed cameras.

The reduction , to be imposed as early as next year, will affect two thirds of the country’s road network. Drivers will still be able to reach 70mph on motorways and dual carriageways and 60mph on the safest A roads.

via Road speed limit cut to 50mph . But the safest speed for a road is the 85th percentile. More to follow…

Via BBC – Newsbeat – Technology – Air bag jacket ‘could save lives’:

Dozens of motorcyclists’ lives could be saved every year if air bag jackets were made compulsory, accident and emergency doctors have said.

The jackets are the equivalent of car air bags and inflate if the rider is thrown off during a crash.

In one version, the jacket is attached to the bike by a lead which detaches when the rider has come off suddenly.

The Department of Transport said it had no plans for a new law but said it welcomed anything to improve safety.

A video shows a stuntman dropping the bike in a slow (35 mph) lowside before commenting:

As soon as I hit the floor, I was lifted up and it felt like I was on the airbag.

and

It stops the bounce. I think it’s the bounce when you’re crashing at speed that hurts you.

Oh dear… the old “it’s the bounce that kills you” joke.
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Two road safety initiatives struck me today:

Drivers will have to declare every 10 years whether they are medically able to get behind the wheel, according to proposals to be set out early in the new year.

via Drivers to have 10-year health checks under driver licence reforms and:

Automatic speed control devices should be installed in cars to force motorists to stick to speed limits, an influential pressure group recommended today.

via ‘Speed control’ devices should be installed in cars, say campaigners. The Times fails to point out that the proponent “pressure group”, the Motorists’ Forum, is part of the Government quango The Comission for Integrated Transport. 

Both proposals diminish personal responsibility. Both will be costly for someone. Both have voluntary elements which don’t sound like they will be voluntary for long. Neither is very convincing.
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Driving to and from Cornwall for Easter reminded me that much of the congestion and inconvenience we see on dual carriageways and motorways is due to lorries passing one another. We saw one lorry pull out to pass another that had just pulled in front of it, after taking an age to go by…

What’s the problem? Perhaps speed limiters and perhaps allowing lorries to pass at all on busy roads.

I suppose speed limiters were introduced because drivers were perceived as using speed irresponsibly but we’re all paying the price now. If I recall correctly, large vans are next for limiting, so we’ll soon witness transits fighting past each other at a rate set by the tolerance of their limiters. And all the cars will have even more occasion to tailgate, change lanes, undertake and barge around trying to make progress…

What if cars were limited as some extension of road pricing? I expect we would see people try to maintain their limited speed through hazards, with all the extra risk that would entail.

We see mass civil disobedience every day, across the country, as people ignore the national speed limit and, increasingly, silly 50 and even 40 limits on country roads. Automatic speed enforcement does nothing to improve attitude and therefore behaviour: it probably makes matters worse.

This doesn’t seem a sensible way to go on. The current situation seems bad for the environment, safety, individual health, business and the credibility of the law, of which more in another post.

Here’s my set of wild policy ideas:

• Remove all vehicle speed limiters: they are counterproductive.
• Follow Germany’s example in using electronic signs to forbid overtaking by lorries completely during congested periods.
• Rebalance road safety towards education and engineering, reducing the emphasis on enforcement, particularly through automatic means.
• Restore the use of the 85th percentile rule in setting speed limits. This implies raising the national limits and removing many of the nannying 50′s recently introduced.
• Enforce the law differently: have trained policemen out there educating drivers and collecting good evidence for more serious prosecutions, such as careless, dangerous and reckless driving. Have support staff in the office, preparing cases from video evidence and voice recordings on behalf of traffic officers.
• Increase the penalties for offences arising from bad attitude and offer coaching to offenders at their expense as an alternative to heavy fines.

We should probably also ask whether mollycoddling driver aids are really a good idea if they enable people to pay less attention for greater perceived safety. I refer to radar anti-collision devices, active cruise control and lane departure warning systems. Wouldn’t it be better if people paid attention and took responsibility? Radar cruise control seems particularly egregious: sooner or later people will use it to speed in thick fog and get away with it, for a time.