It could happen to anybody: why 20 mph speed limits matter
BMJ 2010; 340 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.c2813 (Published 26 May 2010) Cite this as: BMJ 2010;340:c2813
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Dr Foreman was lucky that the pedestrians he hit survived. Had one
of them not, he would have been charged and the victims’ family not so
understanding, perhaps, however carefully and attentive he was driving.
Dr Foreman says that he was not speeding; that his attention was not
engaged other than on his driving and all the players in this incident
have received the grace of opportunity of lessons learned.
In January 1998, my 16 year old daughter, Livia, left home at 6.55 pm
to walk to her ballet class. She never made it. At 7.05 pm she lay dying
on a pavement where she had been walking, having been mortally struck and
dragged by a car that mounted it and travelled along it.
The driver was charged with death by dangerous driving even though it
was established that he was not drunk or drugged, sleep could not be
proven, and he had not been speeding; in fact, that by the time he
impacted with Livia, he was doing no more than 17.5 mph, the speed having
been diminished by impacts with the high kerb, with a two metre metal post
that split the radiator, with the first pedestrian on the pavement [who
lived], by travel uphill and eventual mechanical failure, before the
fourth and final fatal impact. No emergency braking, here, at any point.
No mea culpa, either; only the kicking-in of self preservation, the right
to keep his silence, heavy mitigation by way of church and club that bent
justice and fashioned a fine for homicide.
Dr Foreman will have nightmares, on and off; his victims, too,
perhaps or they will grow, subconsciously. Yet, his public expiation and
appeal is constructive and he does not altogether displace responsibility
which, most often, is the shortcoming of drivers.
Driving is a risky and dangerous activity. Speeding is done with
intent and kills most frequently, especially young drivers, but more
concerted parliamentary time has been given to check knife and gun crime,
in the last couple of years, than to heed road safety campaigns and
voices, in over 15+ years, that have pleaded for consistent political and
judicial will to check careless and dangerous driver attitudes that kill
and maim and destroy families. Somewhere still lurks certain sympathy and
accommodation for driver errors of judgment .. “there but for the Grace
of..”etc
We do need to bring down speed to 20 mph in built areas, around homes
and schools. At 35 mph it takes 30 metres to stop. At 20 mph it takes
just 12 metres to stop; the hazard detection and hope of survival
dramatically increased. We do need to deliver consistent and constant
road safety education from the first day at school to the last, to instil
duty of care and the consequences of driving irresponsibly. We do need to
include road traffic law knowledge in driving tests and rescind driving
licences, permanently, when it is necessary, and more often than not, it
is. We do need to deglamourise speed without feeling that driving a car
slowly and carefully in built areas, especially, is anorak. We do need
more police presence on our roads and cameras. They may be annoying but
they are a deterrent whatever Gatzbos say.
Some may think that some circumstances create “one-offs”, tough luck,
as the judge did in our daughter’s case. While he readily relegated her
loss of life to an “oops” moment and acceptable collateral damage, over
the years, many more voices of other victims’ families have spoken out
against inertia, inaction and injustice. While zero road deaths and
injury may be a pipe dream, we can do better legislatively, enforcedly and
educationally. It is time to for the civilising process to include other
dimensions that are seen to conflict with civil rights. Whose rights?
Roadpeace and Brake are reputable organisations that have credible
and effective road safety education campaigns, as do Safe Drive Stay Alive
teams around the South of England and Learn and Live in the North –
education projects run by the emergency services, nationwide, fed up with
the car wrecks on the roads they are called to untangle in order to reach
the mangled bodies of the young who seem willing to forfeit their lives
for a moment with speed. I hope Dr Foreman will also extend his newly
found experience to any one of them, if he has not done so already.
Giulietta Galli-Atkinson
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Foreman's (1) experience was clearly unlucky. Nonetheless, the issue
of vehicle speed is a serious one that incidentally also bears on the
issue of obesity in the same issue of BMJ (2).
SPEED AND MORTALITY: We know well how speed affects mortality.
Empirical data show that the ratio of road fatality rates at two speeds of
traffic is determined by the fourth power of the speed difference. An
example concerns the estimated increase in mean speed from 28 mph to 33
mph in free-flowing GB suburban roads between the late 1970s and the early
1990s: putting aside other changes on the roads, such an increase would
have entailed an over-90% increase in fatalities (4).
DETECTING OWN SPEED: It has long been known that drivers can be
reluctant in relying on their speedometers: they appear to believe that
their unaided judgments are more reliable (5). The brief history of speed-
cameras demonstrates the unfortunate tenacity of such views (4). One
familiar and long-identified illusion - induced self-motion or vection -
demonstrates how poor our speed-judgments can be. The individual sat in a
static vehicle is likely to experience a sense of motion if an adjoining
vehicle moves: the illusory motion will be in the opposite direction to
that of the moving vehicle. The illusion is compelling in the context of
both rail and multi-lane roads. Research into vection suggests three
important contexts in which the driver's perception of speed is
particularly susceptible to serious underestimation: (a) in misty
conditions, (b) on featureless roads, and (c) following long distances at
steady speed (4,6).
How this inherent problem is to be ameliorated continues to be
unclear. The wider introduction of 20 mph zones could help: while drivers
are poor at comforming to statutory limits, they often nonetheless reduce
their speed a little (3). A more draconian measure would be to extend
tachometers to all motor vehicles, particularly as the cost of the
technology is dropping. Of course, those who hate speed-cameras would
squeal more than ever. However, perhaps it's time to allow less tolerance
to such individuals.
REFERENCES
1. Foreman N. It could happen to anybody: why 20 mph speed limits
matter. BMJ 2010;340: c2813
2. Weiler R, Stamatakis E, Blair S. Should health policy focus on
physical activity rather than obesity? BMJ 2010;340: c2603.
3. Finch DJ, Kompfner P, Lockwood CR, Maycock G. Speed, speed limits
and accidents. Project Report 58. Transport Research Laboratory,
Crowthorne UK: 1994.
4. Reinhardt-Rutland A H. Response to Department for Transport
document: Making Britain's road the safest in the World. Leicester:
British Psychological Society: 2009.
5. Denton GG. The use made of the speedometer as an aid to driving.
Ergonomics 1969;12: 447-454.
6. Denton GG. The influence of visual pattern on perceived speed.
Perception 1980;9: 393-402.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
A harrowing but thought provoking account. Thank you.
It is so easy to dismiss speed limits and drive at a speed that we believe
is safe rather than what actually is safe. The outcome could have been
very different at 30mph and how may people actually stick to that in built
up areas let alone 20mph. Personal experiences like this are so valuable
in communicating the potential dangers of the inappropriate use of speed.
Thank goodness that you were driving sensibly.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
A powerful example of why lower speed matters
A very powerful personal view and it should be challenging to those
who resist moves for widespread 20mph zones in residential areas.
I can imagine some people muttering about it being the child's fault
or even the parent's fault but surely part of childhood or even parenthood
is the occasional mistake. The real point is that the environment should
be reasonably tolerant of such human error. Widespread 20mph zones are
surely part of that environment.
The public health case for lower speeds and 20mph zones in
residential areas has been building for some years but progress on the
ground in this area is painfully slow and patchy and often provokes public
opposition. Large scale breaking of existing speed limits is widespread.
We need a reasonably safe environment for all on our streets. 20mph
zones are a proportionate measure. As doctors we should continue to add
our voices to the debate on this. I echo the comment of a colleague on
reading this piece - all drivers should read this.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests