The sort of response I'd expect from a self-opinionated bigot.
If everyone drove within their capabilities there would be no problem, probably wouldn't need speed limits.
But there are an unbelievable amount of cretins out there behind the wheel that we need lower speed controls, so when these morons crash (and crash they will), there will be less carnage,
40 years ago at the onset of the world-wide oil crisis, the US government was forced to do something to reduce the country's massive fuel consumption. one of the answers they came up with was to enforce a speed limit across the US of 55mph.
One of the by-products of this was The Transportation Research Board issued a special report pointing out that this reduction in maximum speed had, as a side effect, saved over 9,000 lives.
In 1985 when they relaxed the speed limit up to 65mph because of public opinion,the death toll went up by 30%!
My case rests!
The vast majority DO drive within their capabilities (even if that means crawling about being a rolling road-block because your 'capabilities' are near off the bottom of the scale). The biggest issues when people have accidents can probably be distilled largely to 2 areas: those people are either
a) not paying enough attention, or
b)not knowing or grossly over-estimating just what their capability is
(you might add a third category for those who DO know they are crap and should pack it in, but don't due to the convenience and reliance on the car. I've seen many clearly super-nervous rolling heart-attacks-in-waiting and desperately infirm oldies creeping about hunched over the wheel, clearly scared half-to-death who run the gauntlet when they need to hang up the licence before they get hurt and hurt others. A few years back an 82-year old in my main town lost control of his clutch and steering through infirmity, shot across a busy street and crushed the leg of a youngster on the pavement - I believe they had to amputate. Would a Scamera have removed this chap from the road before he mutilated somebody? No.)
(a 4th category would be well titled "those with a ****, stroppy attitude". Its amazing how many people drive dangerously simply because they are quite frankly a total b*stard. Young women drivers these days are more likely to be horribly aggressive ****-attitude, up-yours drivers than young males in my experience btw. Beware! Whatever, if you're a psycho you should not hold a licence. What do Scamera's do about these then? Nothing)
Just like any activity, some people have a natural affinity and then there are those less capable on a sliding scale. However, invariably those at the lower end always assume that as their limit is X, then any more than X is dangerous lunacy and on the edge of loss of control. I'm **** at tennis, but that doesn't mean I want to limit every player to under-arm serves and lobbing the ball gently over the net, but every shite driver thinks everyone else must toddle about like they do.
YES - we DO have an unbelievable amount of awful drivers on our roads... so instead of just slowing them all down, they need to be weeded out and where possible educated and improved, and where necessary get their ticket pulled. Just sticking up Scamera's achieves nothing since the vast majority of people they catch aren't actually the worst drivers by a long stretch.
I understand that 'excessive speed as a contributory factor' in all accidents in the UK is actually a surprisingly small percentage of the total (although it is to be expected that where it is a factor you can expect bad injuries and fatalities to be more than average). Something like only 7% of all serious accidents happen on Motorways is a figure I recall - the fastest roads with the highest number of fast moving vehicles on them. As the speed RELATIVE to one another is small, and they are all heading in the same direction, Motorways are the safest places statistically to drive. It is only when some nugget goes way too fast in the wrong place (or indeed way too SLOW) that Speed becomes at all relevant.
The vast majority of accidents are in 30 & 40mph areas. Fact.
And people driving at high speed in such areas is restricted to Joyriders (who can taunt Scamera's all day) and the odd idiot. The rest fit into one of the above categories and are all BAD DRIVERS.
Beating a 'Speed Kills' drum is idiotic, unless you work for 'Brake' or one of the Road Safety Scamera partnerships which means youre protecting your income. You're not Richard Brunstrom are you? That man was certifiable (even his own thought so) and he was a raging apostle of the anti-speed crusade.
Whatever happened to common sense?
BTW. 'Saved 9,000 lives'. Tell me, just how many millions of motorists were there in the USA at the time? How many tens of millions of journeys did those motorists make? As a percentage that 'statistic' becomes a tiny speck. Not to mention that the standard of driving in the US makes us look like paragons of competence.
