A woman was run over while crossing the road near a speed camera. According to the coroner, John Pollard, this may have been partly because the driver was looking at his speedometer and not the road.
Mr Pollard said that cameras were sometimes responsible for “distracting drivers, even momentarily, who look at them and their speed rather than the road”.
His view was supported by the police accident investigator called to the scene. Pc Michael Jeffrey told the inquest: “They do tend to divert drivers’ attention away from other areas and they concentrate solely on their speed.”
I found Mr Pollard’s next comment somewhat poignant:
“We are becoming such a protecting society that unless individuals feel they are protected by state or legislation, they don’t seem to bother to protect themselves.”
Thanks for that, ah, all excellent points. Everyone is responsible for his own safety.
I disagree. Putting signs on pedestrians is not the answer. We should get rid of the signs altogether. The corner said it himself: ‘He went on to criticise what he regards as the “plethora of unnecessary road signs and markings”.’
People are smart enough themselves to figure out that its dumb to go 60mph on a residential street. And those that don’t will be eliminated from the gene pool. Same thing with the pedestrians. If you are too stupid to look both ways you don’t deserve to live.
Where I come from, 50% of the time the sky is black. Your site seems to be abused by sicko-porn merchants. Don’t you check the posts coming in?
binaryFAB: just goes to show how hard it is to come up with a question whose answer is obvious to everyone. Regarding the porn merchants – I know. The infestation is recent; it’s a lot of work to clear it out; and I have a full time job and a social life getting in the way. I’m working on it!
If you think the UK is full of brain-dead pedestrians, you should see what we have to put up with in Japan. Road congestion that makes UK roads look half-empty. Mum pedestrian, with kid on the traffic side. Literally everyone steps off the kerb without looking behind them. Cyclists on the wrong side at night without lights. Scooters that habitually overtake on the inside. Signalling is poor, drivers more often than not forget to switch on headlights at night or in a tunnel. People park literally anywhere. Recently we have a number of cases where a vehicle slams into a bunch of walkers on the wrong side at night, dark clothes naturally, often with fatal results. Add to this a road network that falls short of third-world standards, and the miracle is there are so few accidents. Drivers usually have the reaction time of a dead rat, and everyone honks when you stop on the amber. In this culture, you accelerate when the lights go to amber. I occasionally cross on amber, thinking, “Wow, that was closeâ€. Look in the mirror, and three more cars behind have come over too. Rail level crossings have the road running parallel and very close to the tracks, so if other traffic does not give way, you can be forced to stop on the tracks. Intersections with traffic lights controlling only one direction. In short a mind-numbing nightmare. You have to drive so defensively, and need racing driver reactions. I say this from the perspective of many years of motor sport experience. My trick is to cross on a pedestrian pushing a scrap bike. Ten-to-one the clowns are too slow-witted to stop, so you jump clear letting them go over the bike. Nice little earner, They stump up compensation before they notice the oil pouring out. Have to admit, whenever I see a traffic accident I think, “Good. One less clown for me to run in toâ€. The government have done the only thing possible faced with this situation: Imposed low speed limits, and rightly so. Darwinism: Non-survival of the thickest is all very well, but people here are really
kind, especially to me as an “English gentleman”. Just don’t let them on the road in any capacity. Regrettably they are not the sharpest knives in the drawer.