Dangerous Roads
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I was just reading the news story on the home page, regarding so called “Dangerous Roads”. It is not the roads that are dangerous or the way in which they have been built, or indeed the speed limit that has been given to any particular road/section of road. It is the nature in which some individuals decide to drive/ride along that road, which can sometimes be classed as dangerous.
If for arguments sake, a particular road is given a maximum speed limit of 60mph, that speed limit is calculated in dry conditions with excellent visibility. If an individual chooses to travel along that road at 60mph in wet conditions with poor visibility than it seems pretty obvious that the risk factor of having an incident is going to increase. Factor into the scenario the individuals skill/experiance level and that risk factor could become increased.
When the “authorities” label a road as “Dangerous” they very seldom if ever make any attempt to consider the experiance/skill of the driver/rider. Sometimes they may report the individual as a “new driver/rider” or “in experianced”, this does not make “the road” dangerous, just the way some individuals use it.
Regardless of age or experience too many drivers treat the signs as Speed Targets rather than Speed Limits.
From Wrexham.com
“On many ‘A’ roads, the margin for human error is often small. The largest single cause of death is running off the road, where poor roadside protection can see brutal impacts take place. Junctions remain the largest source of serious injury as vehicle side impact protection is at its most limited. We can expect improvements in vehicle collision detection systems at junctions, but the road infrastructure and new vehicle systems need to be developed hand in hand if we want to see a real increase in road safety.”Reducing brutal impacts caused by running off the road is something that could be attempted regarding accident blackspots – safety barriers in front of trees, changing lamppost construction and placement but ultimately human error is mostly to blame on somebody’s part. Driving too fast or plodding along daydreaming ?
Classifying a dangerous road suggests Sebastian Vettel / Valentino Rossi wannabees flying along balancing on the limit of adhesion until they hit the limit of their skill or hit something else, thus you take your life in your hands venturing along them.
Noting that junctions remain the largest source of serious injury it begs the question just who is more routinely culpable, the drivers that may not obey speed limits rigidly but do at least look where they are going and are prepared to stop or the inattentive numbnuts that pull out of junctions without looking properly ?
If we are not careful we will end up with 40mph speed limits everywhere along A and B roads so that journey times will regress to those of granny in her Morris Minor.What winds me up is the people who do 40 in a 60 zone and when it changes to a 30, they keep doing 40!
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