TISPOL video on road safety

This new video from Pan-European police body TISPOL details the effects of a series of tragic road crashes in the UK. TISPOL's UK council member Suzette Davenport gives a personal account of her experience as attending officer at recent road crashes in the UK.

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What is missing from the Fatal Four is probably the largest causation of incidents, RTA.s collisions and its a circumstance that is seen every day and unfortunately taken for granted.
The RAC and GEM Motoring surveyed their memberships and in one 27% thought it one of the most annoying and dangerous of circumstances and the other found that some
47% of the respondents considered it to be the second biggest danger. The first being mobile phones which always gets an awful lot of publicity whereas this cause gets none at all.
Many years ago before speedometers were invented for the automobile this was understood as the most important consideration that one could give to oneself and other road users to keep everyone safer on our roads.
But what is it?
Quite simply it is 'Assured Stopping Distance'
Its the distance that one should be away from the rear of other vehicles and giving Safe Following On Space or Safe Stopping Distances.
There are a number of charts that recognise this and attempt to give us this Safe Space. The two second rule and indeed that becomes the over the 2 second rule ie the 3 second rule at higher speeds over 40 mph and then there is the length of a car in distances and the one yard/metre per one mph.
All these measurements create confusion but basically as it says in many a road safety training manual its the distance that one can guarantee stopping in. In the event of an EMERGENCY and on ones own side of the road.
In many circumstances and in many drivers minds they believe that being close to another vehicle they are driving safely as if the vehicle in front slows for whatever reason they have given enough distance to slow themselves in accord with it.
That is not what the Safe Distance is about at all. Its necessary in the event of an EMERGENCY STOP or when a vehicle in front come to a SUDDEN STOP without showing brakes ie in the event of a collision. Under those circumstances then the distance needed is the Full Stopping Distance and not the close to position that many drivers adopt and adhere to.
We just have to look at motorway incidents and there is a clear need for greater space between vehicles otherwise we have pile ups where many vehicles drive far to close together. If they were giving Safe Following On Distance then the speed becomes less relevant and stopping could be completed without the collisions that occur..
A further issue is regards to Project Edwards.
To some degree the police whether here or abroad have inadvertently contributed to speeding offences when in 2012 they gave an allowance or tolerance above the speed limit before any action is taken.. As an example over here its speed as per speedometer plus 10% plus 2 mph. allowing speeds of 35/46/57/68/ and 79 mph respectively before the speeding becomes actionable and this is following EEC recommendations.
So In the Uk we are giving and allowing something like a 15% [ approx] increase in road speed above the NSL.
Other countries give more and some give less.
Bear this in mind and compare it with a survey done Drive mag in 2014 who tested some 60 modern vehicles and found that in the main most vehicles speeds at 100 kph [ 62 mph approx] registered on average 96% plus [ varying between the best at 100% accuracy and the worst at 94% accuracy ] so basically that means that if the vehicle speedometer is showing 30 mph then its likely that the actual speed would be only 28 and a half mph. It must be born in mind that all the speedometers tested showed a higher speed than was correlated by GPS so they showed a higher speed than was actually done and that's an understood practise amongst manufacturers. No speedometer will show a lower than actual speed.
In fact some of the faster more expensive cars BMW and Porsche etc. registered a 100% or 99% accuracy so taking that into account if the driver of one of these cars were to adopt the allowance given and actually drove at 67 mph by his speedometer he would in fact be doing 67 mph and so inadvertently speeding. Maybe that is
why BMW drivers seem to be going faster than others . They are actually showing the correct speed but whilst the BMW driver is doing 67 mph others whilst showing 67 are in fact doing a little less. Maybe 62 to 64.
All this assisted by some measure by the Police here and throughout Europe.
I hope that the Police are reading this and perhaps may wish to re consider their position relative to this tolerance and to give consideration to perhaps an all round allowance of just 2 mph at all speeds as that would be better and possibly safer than the present speeds that they are encouraging at this moment in time and have been encouraging all be it inadvertently
Otherwise give no allowances at all. I and I am sure many others who drive to speedometers like myself would not be at all bothered if they were actually doing less speed than shown.
Further as the actual speed becomes lower with less tyre tread it would be safer for cars with nearly bald tyres to actually do less speed. Wouldn't it.