Policing by sarcasm :(

Originally Posted by neio79

If you read some of my other threads you will see I am not one for the pink and fluffy brigade around here, infact I hate it. But I do take the safty of kids and traffic serious. I agree more needs to be done to educate kids on road safty , I for one go off my head at my daughter for not looking when crossing the road , and once even told her to stand still while I drove into her at 5 mph just so she could see how much it would hurt ( did not actually do it) But it got the point across that cars would give her one hell of a headache. Don’t get me wrong if a driver knocked her over through speeding then a whole world of pain would be upon them before their eventual death!!

My point was with the cameras is that a lot of schools are on main roads with 30 sometimes 40 limits and people only pay attention to speed limits when they are on SPECS or variavble speed cameras. Don’t get me wrong I would get rid off all cameras apart from 30 limits or around schools.

You missed the point. I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if more kids were hit by cars not speeding away from schools than speeding cars outside of schools. So like I said, why get into a panic thinking 'omg something must be done about X' without thinking it through?

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by Supervox

I remember the Green Cross Code ads from when I was a kid - & although we (those of us of a certain age) all took the mickey out of them I'll lay money that the message sunk in !!

Well when Darth Vader and R2D2 tell you how to cross the road you listen !!!!

See it HERE

Originally Posted by SoulKiss

Well when Darth Vader and R2D2 tell you how to cross the road you listen !!!!

See it HERE

Excellent!

Does anyone remember the Super Ted ones? They were made in Cardiff and a mate's sister used to work for them. Quite funny as the bus in it is clearly a Cardiff bus company one, probably helped it sink in all the more for us as kids.

Originally Posted by Flamin_Squirrel

Modern ABS equiped cars can stop extremely quickly so the speed you're going (within reason obviously, less than 40 say) isn't that important.

Not all cars are modern.
Not all modern cars have ABS.
ABS doesn't necessarily do anything to reduce braking distance.
There is the distance covered in the time it takes you to react, which increases as your speed increases.
The distance covered whilst you react reducing the distance you'd have to actually slow down.
The energy of the car increases in proportion of the square of the speed.

So the speed you're doing IS important. A car doing say 40 as opposed to a 30 in a high risk area (built up, cars parked down side of roads) does present a much greater risk.

I don't wish to detract from other arguments. I'm not in favour of the fluffy pink bunny brigade, I'm not a fan of speed cameras except where they do actually improve safety and I'm certainly not a fan of what this government has done to this country. I am however a fan of maths, mechanics and physics.

Edit: I'm not all that fond of kids either - but I have seen someone hit by a car and it was sickening.

Originally Posted by 2mths

Not all cars are modern.
Not all modern cars have ABS.

All modern mass produced cars are ABS equipped. Since 99% of cars are both modern and mass produced, the remainder aren't worth worrying about.

Originally Posted by 2mths

ABS doesn't necessarily do anything to reduce braking distance.

To a racing driver on a track perhaps not. To the general public in a panic situation, of course it does.

Originally Posted by 2mths

There is the distance covered in the time it takes you to react, which increases as your speed increases.
The distance covered whilst you react reducing the distance you'd have to actually slow down.

Which means precisely nothing if someone steps directly in front of you giving you zero time to react or stop.

Originally Posted by 2mths

The energy of the car increases in proportion of the square of the speed.

See above.

Originally Posted by 2mths

So the speed you're doing IS important. A car doing say 40 as opposed to a 30 in a high risk area (built up, cars parked down side of roads) does present a much greater risk.

I'd argue the speed the car hits the person is more important, and I'd argue that's far more likely to be dictated by the hapless pedestrian than the driver.

Just accept that if you are hammering past a school at 50 in a 30 etc and hit a kid and kill it, you deserve all you get no f**king excuses about ABS, distance to impact etc.

Sorry if you were a driver being a knob and hit my girl and it was down to excessive speeed, be afraid be very f**king afraid, not of death but the maner in which the torture i dish out to you gets you there!!!!!

Originally Posted by Flamin_Squirrel

All modern mass produced cars are ABS equipped. Since 99% of cars are both modern and mass produced, the remainder aren't worth worrying about.

I understand the first reaction many drivers have when they feel ABS working unexpectedly, is to take their foot off the brake....

I don't think I like the tone of that reply.

Constructively...

What do you consider modern? And the 99% is I take it your way of say 'a lot' I think it's highly unlikely that 99% of cars on the road have ABS. Lots of cheaper cars still don't have it and cars don't dissapear to be replaced by new ones every three years.

The best ABS it's going to do is get near the best of braking from the car. It can't do better than that. In the wet the distance with ABS will still be greater than if conditions were dry. The fast you go the longer you'll take to stop and that distance will still be proportional to the square of your speed.

If someone steps out in front of you then at 40 you'll be hitting them a lot harder than at 30. Your modern car with ABS will count for nothing here.

You conceed that "the speed a car hits the person is more important" yet you still believe that that is "more likely to be dictated by the pedestrian" I simply don't see how the person driving is not responsible for their speed.

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by neio79

Just accept that if you are hammering past a school at 50 in a 30 etc and hit a kid and kill it, you deserve all you get no f**king excuses about ABS, distance to impact etc.

Sorry if you were a driver being a knob and hit my girl and it was down to excessive speeed, be afraid be very f**king afraid, not of death but the maner in which the torture i dish out to you gets you there!!!!!

So by your logic, if I am driving at 20 mph past the school in a car and your kid runs out in front of me due to not paying attention to the road, forcing me into oncoming traffic and I hit someone head on coming the other way who is doing 20 mph and take serious injury (40mph collision), once healed I can hunt your child down and inflict injury up to the level I sustained ?

Your child's reckless running ino the road is the same as a driver choosing to drive at higher than the speed limit, I used 20 mph in the example above as that would still be legal even with the 20mph limits that some schools have.

The main path this thread was heading down seemed to point, quite rightly, that pedestrians, cyclists and other people who do not require some kind of licensing to be on/near the roads are not recieving the training that they once did - Cycling Proficiency, Green Cross Code Man or Tuffty Club.

Believe me, I think that if I did kill a child, I would torture myself far worse and for longer than you could, no matter if I was totally blameless or not.

Originally Posted by neio79

if a kid steps out and is hit by a bike at 40, chances are they will survive, less weight to cause dammage, where as a kid steps out at 30 on the same road on a 40 ton arctic or a transit van etc or big 4x4 then they are toast regardless. just like getting hit by a big f**k off train at 15 mph would probably kill you!!!

I've heard this theory before, but frankly, it's nonsense - it assumes that all the kinetic energy/momentum of the vehicle will be tranferred to the victim, which is obviously incorrect. above a certain weight - maybe 5x the weight of the impactee - the weight of the vehicle won't be substantially affected by the impact. therefore - even assuming a heavyish 50kg kid - *anything* over 1/4 a ton is going to have a similar impact force. 1/4 of a ton is a bike & rider

it's the impact speed that does the damage. ironically, the pointy nature of bikes (even curvies) is probably going to do more damage that somethign flatter to spread the impact, maybe something with some shock-absorbing bumpers. I know which I'd rather be hit by out of a 40mph bike & a 15mph train, so long as as I could guarantee not going under the wheels afterwards