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Creation of Road Safety Investigation Branch

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Bletchleyite

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Precisely. And of course, much more subsidy for local bus fares and a little more for metro and local rail to bring them down to a competitive rate with driving and parking would result in people of all ages and occupations driving less, and thus fewer collisions and injuries. Combined with the other benefits this would so clearly have a net benefit. But of course it's not really something that the current government has ever been interested in.

Really safety of transport as a whole should be considered when making spending decisions. For instance, the railway now spends a packet on "de minimis" safety improvements (e.g. unnecessary new rolling stock, removing level crossings, red paint and shouty security guards at Manc Picc) when in reality more lives and life changing injuries would be saved if the money went on cheaper fares and longer trains, meaning fewer people choosing to drive.

As to them being interested, the proposed £2 bus fare cap is an example of exactly that, though there needs to be something for local rail too.
 
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Starmill

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As to them being interested, the proposed £2 bus fare cap is an example of exactly that, though there needs to be something for local rail too.
The £2 single cap is exactly what is needed. However in the long run its success will probably require a little bit more in terms of public subsidy to get it going than the Conservatives want to provide.
 

Cloud Strife

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The idea of using fines to fund enforcement is excellent, but for reasons I've never really understood, let alone agreed with, it's never done.

I remember when speed cameras (Gatso) were first introduced, most local authorities desperately wanted them but they simply couldn't afford them. So Gatso offered that all local authorities could have as many as they wanted for free, so long as Gatso could keep just 10% of all the money collected in fines. You might think this would solve problems of speeding at a stroke, which it may well have done, but it was simply dismissed. Okay, that idea might have been too draconian, but with an accompanying review of our (often unrealistic and highly frustrating) speed limit system, maybe a lot less so, and perhaps worth thinking about.

Moving forward, yes police enforcement on motorways could be highly effective and extremely useful, and easily affordable too if the fines were used to fund it, but the idea would also go straight into the "too difficult" box. But why? For precious little reason other than that those in charge can't (or won't) get their act together to consider how it might be beneficial ie by saving countless lives, saving NHS pressure from all the accidents, saving massive economic costs of congestion caused by those accidents etc etc. All people can focus on is imagining things like the police being unfairly selective about their enforcement. So why not think about proper training and ways of actually achieving something useful?

Okay, all too difficult and impractical? So do the opponents of such ideas prefer the alternative of horrific numbers of accidents, congestion, economic costs? Do they think it's acceptable for millions of drivers to not even know that driving too close etc is actually a hazard?

These are just "off the top of my head" comments, nothing given much thought. I'm up for developing them and a couple of comments above from others have shown interest, but alas, the vast majority of people remain either dismissive or disinterested, which is why, sadly, the chances of meaningful progress remain virtually non existent.

One thing I would point out that is that overenforcement is a vote-loser. If you allow the use of fines to fund enforcement, what happens is that management will constantly push for more and more fines in order to expand their remit further, and in turn, they can profit by getting increased salaries due to the increased levels of responsibility. That in turn angers the electorate, who will punish the political bosses at the next election.

What I'd say is needed is more focus on getting rid of dangerous behaviour while allowing for reasonable rule breaking. Breaking the speed limit on a nonsense 40 limit between towns is not a major crime, but tailgating is. So, take motorways: let's severely punish people who drive within a second of the car in front, but at the same time, let's stop worrying about speeding on empty motorways. If someone is doing 90mph on a totally empty motorway at night, are they really committing a crime?
 

Shrop

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Precisely. And of course, much more subsidy for local bus fares and a little more for metro and local rail to bring them down to a competitive rate with driving and parking would result in people of all ages and occupations driving less, and thus fewer collisions and injuries. Combined with the other benefits this would so clearly have a net benefit. But of course it's not really something that the current government has ever been interested in.
What on earth makes you think it's just about costs? Convenience will trump costs most of the time, because people's perception is all over the place. People can get into their car from right outside their house, and it's there waiting whenever they want it. A lot of people don't want the hassle of walking to a bus stop or a railway station, then having to wait for a bus or train which might be late, or overcrowded, or have people in it that they consider to be antisocial. They would rather pay more and take the car. But even then, to them the car is free because they already own it so it costs nothing in deprecation, tax or insurance, and they often don't even perceive the fuel it will cost for that journey because it's already in the car. They then see that the cost of parking is less than the train or bus fare, and they won't have the hassle of carrying their purchases on the bus or train, worrying about having to keep their eyes on them for security etc.

So no, providing a little more subsidy for public transport provides just a small carrot which often fails to get people out of their cars, and in turn does virtually nothing to reduce collisions and injuries on the roads. It needs the stick approach too, ie repeatedly drawing attention to things that drivers do badly, by whatever means necessary (to be developed as needed although I remain highly sceptical about the national desire to do this) until their habits improve.

Things should only be done if they pass a cost-benefit analysis.
This is an economist's idealism which works for some things, but for road safety, no chance, because people would never agree on the costs and benefits. What costs would you put on a human life, loss of a limb, NHS costs of treating injuries, economic congestion costs caused by delays with roads blocked, police and fire service costs in attending accidents (including their subsequent reports) etc etc. Then you might say there are huge resource implications for repeat driving tests and enforcement against unsafe driving practices, when in fact you could see this as a huge and beneficial job creation opportunity. So how would you do a cba on this?
One thing I would point out that is that overenforcement is a vote-loser. If you allow the use of fines to fund enforcement, what happens is that management will constantly push for more and more fines in order to expand their remit further, and in turn, they can profit by getting increased salaries due to the increased levels of responsibility. That in turn angers the electorate, who will punish the political bosses at the next election.
This is down to bad presentation. Of course over-enforcement is a vote loser, so don't over enforce! Just enforce the necessary amount and sell it as a "life saver"!
What I'd say is needed is more focus on getting rid of dangerous behaviour while allowing for reasonable rule breaking. Breaking the speed limit on a nonsense 40 limit between towns is not a major crime, but tailgating is. So, take motorways: let's severely punish people who drive within a second of the car in front, but at the same time, let's stop worrying about speeding on empty motorways. If someone is doing 90mph on a totally empty motorway at night, are they really committing a crime?
Exactly, but once again the point is being missed. A review of speed limits should be a major part of this campaign, because the whole speed limit system is poor and outdated. At the same time the enforcement of speed limits is selective, highly inconsistent and unfair, which understandably generates concern about it being used to fund Government coffers, rather than being about improving safety. A speed limit of 30mph outside schools at their opening or closing times with many children around is far too high, whereas on that same road at 3am, it's likely to be unnecessarily low, and yet you can still be fined for exceeding it when the road is completely quiet. So speeds limits need to be variable, just as parking restrictions are. It doesn't need to be complicated, it just needs thinking about, developing, advertising properly, and getting into our psyche.
 

Starmill

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What on earth makes you think it's just about costs?
Because prices are the most important single signal, surely that's obvious? Convenience means totally different things to different people. Some people have exactly opposite ideas of what's convenient to them. However, everyone understands price signals. Prices being competitive is necccesary but not sufficient for mode shift however.

This is an economist's idealism which works for some things, but for road safety, no chance, because people would never agree on the costs and benefits.
It doesn't matter if people agree or disagree. Appraisals include the benefits of reducing injuries or deathsas cash values all the time. These values are set for transport in England by WebTAG and come ultimately from the Treasury Green Book.

What costs would you put on a human life, loss of a limb, NHS costs of treating injuries, economic congestion costs caused by delays with roads blocked, police and fire service costs in attending accidents (including their subsequent reports) etc etc.
£60k per person per statistical year of life. It's a standard value.

So no, providing a little more subsidy for public transport provides just a small carrot which often fails to get people out of their cars, and in turn does virtually nothing to reduce collisions and injuries on the roads. It needs the stick approach too, ie repeatedly drawing attention to things that drivers do badly, by whatever means necessary (to be developed as needed although I remain highly sceptical about the national desire to do this) until their habits improve.
It's overwhelmingly better not to think of things in terms of carrots or sticks. People are rational actors who respond to complex incentives, but luckily we can manage with relative ease nearly all of those incentives. Small relative changes in the prices of marginal driving and public transport journeys produce changes in use.
 
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Shrop

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Because prices are the most important single signal, surely that's obvious? Convenience means totally different things to different people. Some people have exactly opposite ideas of what's convenient to them. However, everyone understands price signals. Prices being competitive is necccesary but not sufficient for mode shift however.


It doesn't matter if people agree or disagree. Appraisals include the benefits of reducing injuries or deathsas cash values all the time. These values are set for transport in England by WebTAG and come ultimately from the Treasury Green Book.


£60k per person per statistical year of life. It's a standard value.


It's overwhelmingly better not to think of things in terms of carrots or sticks. People are rational actors who respond to complex incentives, but luckily we can manage with relative ease nearly all of those incentives. Small relative changes in the prices of marginal driving and public transport journeys produce changes in use.
It sounds like you have figures available, in which case perhaps you might provide a CBA to justify why it isn't worth doing anything?
 
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Starmill

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It sounds like you have figures available, in which case perhaps you might provide a CBA to justify why it isn't worth doing anything?
I'm afraid that it would need £10 - 15k for a very basic study. But a wholesale review of road safety policy would be anything but basic and could easily come in at ten times that.

The general values are freely available to anyone to look up in the Green Book https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...appraisal-and-evaluation-in-central-governent
 

Bletchleyite

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This is an economist's idealism which works for some things, but for road safety, no chance, because people would never agree on the costs and benefits. What costs would you put on a human life, loss of a limb, NHS costs of treating injuries, economic congestion costs caused by delays with roads blocked, police and fire service costs in attending accidents (including their subsequent reports) etc etc.

The emotive "you can't put a value on a life" phrase is often trotted out. But in fact you can, and indeed such a value does exist and is used to determine things like which road safety projects (e.g. junction improvements) should proceed and which not. I believe it is somewhere around £1.5 million. The other items are easily quantifiable.

The more difficult thing would be to see how many lives it would save. I reckon very few because most people are capable of modifying their behaviour to pass a test.

Then you might say there are huge resource implications for repeat driving tests and enforcement against unsafe driving practices, when in fact you could see this as a huge and beneficial job creation opportunity. So how would you do a cba on this?

Exactly the same way as it IS done for any road safety improvement project.

Exactly, but once again the point is being missed. A review of speed limits should be a major part of this campaign, because the whole speed limit system is poor and outdated. At the same time the enforcement of speed limits is selective, highly inconsistent and unfair, which understandably generates concern about it being used to fund Government coffers, rather than being about improving safety. A speed limit of 30mph outside schools at their opening or closing times with many children around is far too high, whereas on that same road at 3am, it's likely to be unnecessarily low, and yet you can still be fined for exceeding it when the road is completely quiet. So speeds limits need to be variable, just as parking restrictions are. It doesn't need to be complicated, it just needs thinking about, developing, advertising properly, and getting into our psyche.

You do indeed get variable speed limits (usually 30/40 down to 20) outside schools. No reason we couldn't have more.

It sounds like you have figures available, in which case perhaps you might provide a CBA to justify why it isn't worth doing anything?

Normally if one posits a hypothesis one does so with evidence backing it up, rather than positing one and expecting everyone else to disprove it.
 

Cloud Strife

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The emotive "you can't put a value on a life" phrase is often trotted out. But in fact you can, and indeed such a value does exist and is used to determine things like which road safety projects (e.g. junction improvements) should proceed and which not. I believe it is somewhere around £1.5 million.

Thanks for that, it's an incredibly useful bit of information for me!

You do indeed get variable speed limits (usually 30/40 down to 20) outside schools. No reason we couldn't have more.

We absolutely should. There's no reason why we can't use speed limits that are actually appropriate for a given situation, as opposed to one-speed-limit-for-all.
 

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I'm afraid that it would need £10 - 15k for a very basic study. But a wholesale review of road safety policy would be anything but basic and could easily come in at ten times that.

The general values are freely available to anyone to look up in the Green Book https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...appraisal-and-evaluation-in-central-governent
Ha ha, you've commented on costs for a study, but if you look at post #43 above I'm expected to provide ideas for nothing. I'd be delighted to carry out a study, especially if we're talking about £100-150k, but who would pay for that? Government would if they were genuinely interested in improving road safety, but I don't believe they are.
 

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Ha ha, you've commented on costs for a study, but if you look at post #43 above I'm expected to provide ideas for nothing. I'd be delighted to carry out a study, especially if we're talking about £100-150k, but who would pay for that? Government would if they were genuinely interested in improving road safety, but I don't believe they are.
In general the government is the only funder in town for any such work.
 

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We absolutely should. There's no reason why we can't use speed limits that are actually appropriate for a given situation, as opposed to one-speed-limit-for-all.
Yes, and it really would be straightforward in most situations. There's no way the safety of a road is exactly the same at all times of day and night, in all weathers, irrespective of numbers of pedestrians, numbers of other vehicles etc etc.
50mph maximum on motorways in fog would be an anxious starting point, and 10mph above the stated limit on all roads between midnight and 6am, although there would be local conditions which could vary this. The main caveat would be that if a speed limit variant is to be exercised by the driver, then only go to the maximum permitted speed if you're certain of that variant, otherwise just stick to the lower limit. All worthy of development.
 

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I used to see an argument for upsigning some motorways to 80. But I think the pollution argument kills this.
The pollution argument is a flimsy one for keeping speed limits down. It's done by camera enforcement with associated information signing on some motorways, but it's very limited. But more importantly, people sit in their cars in supermarket car parks for ages with their engines running unnecessarily and nobody cares. Motor sports burning huge amounts of fuel exist in abundance. Very little is done to tackle boy racers anywhere, and people drive all over the place for leisure just because they can etc etc. All of these use (or arguably waste) fuel with impunity. Meanwhile you're saying I shouldn't be permitted to do 80mph in my electric car on a motorway at night, while thousands of people in some of the less frugal gas guzzling 4x4 cars can do under 30mpg all the time and nobody tackles them.

So no, I don't support this pollution argument, unless there are exemptions for cars which are more economical on their fuel consumption.
 

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I suppose what you could do, to encourage further adoption, is allow upsigning to 80mph on smart motorways for EVs only. It could only apply when Lane 3 was largely quiet so as to avoid aggressive tailgating of ICE cars overtaking using it, and when, if no hard shoulder, Lane 1 could be red Xed as a safe refuge.
 

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I suppose what you could do, to encourage further adoption, is allow upsigning to 80mph on smart motorways for EVs only. It could only apply when Lane 3 was largely quiet so as to avoid aggressive tailgating of ICE cars overtaking using it, and when, if no hard shoulder, Lane 1 could be red Xed as a safe refuge.
Don't forget, if you adopt my ideas upthread then aggressive tailgating would largely become a thing of the past!

As for upsigning to 80mph, I don't see why this shouldn't apply to all vehicles which have average consumption figures of 50mpg. Of course there would be disputes about consumption, but it wouldn't be hard to provide certification for applicable vehicles, which would be examined at the point of enforcement, to then be used as a valid exemption from a fine upon the production of the certificate. In turn this would also provide excellent encouragement to own more economical vehicles.

I'd much prefer this to a blanket prohibition of faster speeds purely to save fuel.
 

Bletchleyite

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Though to be fair the best is that people own a more efficient vehicle AND drive it more slowly.

My Kuga gets about 50 to the gallon at 70 and about 60 to the gallon at 60. It is surprisingly marked. Not tried 80, I don't generally speed.
 

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Though to be fair the best is that people own a more efficient vehicle AND drive it more slowly.

My Kuga gets about 50 to the gallon at 70 and about 60 to the gallon at 60. It is surprisingly marked. Not tried 80, I don't generally speed.
My car is highly variable. I can drive on a tank trying to be efficient on a long motorway journey and it'll sometimes be as low as 53-54mpg. Meanwhile, when I went on my GBRF railtour spotting trip last year, I averaged 60mpg over 3 tanks (about 1300 miles*), during which economy was not a priority (basically the entire trip consisted of "sporting" shortish runs around fairly rural, hilly windy roads, and (ahem) 70.9mph mid-distance motorway journeys). With the caveat that this is all based on how much goes in the tank when I fill it up; I don't have fancy computer readouts!

*Fuel was about 2/3 of the total cost of the trip, which was under £200 including two nights in hotels! Suffice to say, it would be a bit more at current prices...
 

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Though to be fair the best is that people own a more efficient vehicle AND drive it more slowly.

My Kuga gets about 50 to the gallon at 70 and about 60 to the gallon at 60. It is surprisingly marked. Not tried 80, I don't generally speed.
You're absolutely right, the difference in fuel economy is marked at higher speeds. It never ceases to amaze me how many drivers will complain about the price of fuel and then sit at 80mph on the motorway, when doing 70mph instead produces an effective cut of around 20p per litre. And 60mph would save another 20p every litre in comparison with 80mph. And most of the time all that 80mph will achieve is to catch up the next queue more quickly, it saves very little time, yet most drivers still do it. I say most, because I've studied it and if you do 70mph on a fairly clear motorway around 10 cars will overtake you (illegally) for every one that you overtake.
 

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Though to be fair the best is that people own a more efficient vehicle AND drive it more slowly.

My Kuga gets about 50 to the gallon at 70 and about 60 to the gallon at 60. It is surprisingly marked. Not tried 80, I don't generally speed.
I've definitely been wondering how much overlap is between the group of people complaining vociferously about the price of fuel, and the group of people driving at over 60, and indeed, over 70, on the motorway. Probably a lot more than there should be.
 

DelayRepay

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Moving forward, yes police enforcement on motorways could be highly effective and extremely useful, and easily affordable too if the fines were used to fund it, but the idea would also go straight into the "too difficult" box. But why? For precious little reason other than that those in charge can't (or won't) get their act together to consider how it might be beneficial ie by saving countless lives, saving NHS pressure from all the accidents, saving massive economic costs of congestion caused by those accidents etc etc. All people can focus on is imagining things like the police being unfairly selective about their enforcement. So why not think about proper training and ways of actually achieving something useful?

I think the problem is that there aren't enough police, full stop. So the police we do have spend their time responding to emergencies rather than patrolling. If the Police tried to ring-fence officers for motorway duties, that wouldn't go down well. 'Police refused to attend break-in as they were collecting fines on the motorway' is how it would be seen. Better use of cameras and related technology would be worth considering though.

Personally I don't find motorways too much of an issue. It's speeding on local roads, and bad driving (e.g. overtaking on bends) on rural roads that worry me more. Of course the chance of a police car or camera picking up an idiot overtaking a cyclist on a blind bend in the countryside is close to zero.
 

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Exactly, but once again the point is being missed. A review of speed limits should be a major part of this campaign, because the whole speed limit system is poor and outdated. At the same time the enforcement of speed limits is selective, highly inconsistent and unfair, which understandably generates concern about it being used to fund Government coffers, rather than being about improving safety. A speed limit of 30mph outside schools at their opening or closing times with many children around is far too high, whereas on that same road at 3am, it's likely to be unnecessarily low, and yet you can still be fined for exceeding it when the road is completely quiet. So speeds limits need to be variable, just as parking restrictions are. It doesn't need to be complicated, it just needs thinking about, developing, advertising properly, and getting into our psyche.

There's a displayed speed limit which applies to everyone and everyone needs to stick to it, what's unfair about that?

Many schools already have a reduced speed limit outside the entrance during school starting and finishing hours, reducing the limit to 20mph for that period.

As for it being unfair that the same speed limits apply at night when roads are quiet, the quietness doesn't make the driver any better, they still have the same response times, the same braking distances, indeed at night, particularly late night most drivers will be tired and their performance degraded to some degree making their driving worse so they shouldn't be driving at higher speeds.
 

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I think the problem is that there aren't enough police, full stop. So the police we do have spend their time responding to emergencies rather than patrolling. If the Police tried to ring-fence officers for motorway duties, that wouldn't go down well. 'Police refused to attend break-in as they were collecting fines on the motorway' is how it would be seen. Better use of cameras and related technology would be worth considering though.
I must apologise for not making this clearer. Traffic enforcement duties would be "policed", but this would not to be by the same police who deal with lawbreaking generally. You would need (newly employed) enforcement teams in a similar way that enforcement teams are used to deal with speeding already, and parking offences. These new teams would have the use of existing cameras and related (and new) technology as part of their remit.
Personally I don't find motorways too much of an issue. It's speeding on local roads, and bad driving (e.g. overtaking on bends) on rural roads that worry me more. Of course the chance of a police car or camera picking up an idiot overtaking a cyclist on a blind bend in the countryside is close to zero.
Safety on rural roads will always be harder to enforce simply because they are more remote, but that doesn't mean they should or would be ignored. With widespread enforcement on all major roads, it would become more culturally normal to drive safely elsewhere, but techniques for rural areas would need development.

But there is a great deal that needs doing on motorways and A roads already. Almost all vehicles follow too close to the vehicle in front, lane hogging is rife, as is aggressive driving in many forms, yet many of these practices are already detectable with existing cameras.

There's a displayed speed limit which applies to everyone and everyone needs to stick to it, what's unfair about that?
Please re-read my earlier points to see this in context.
Many schools already have a reduced speed limit outside the entrance during school starting and finishing hours, reducing the limit to 20mph for that period.
This is a great starting point, but much more could be done, for many more roads.
As for it being unfair that the same speed limits apply at night when roads are quiet, the quietness doesn't make the driver any better, they still have the same response times, the same braking distances, indeed at night, particularly late night most drivers will be tired and their performance degraded to some degree making their driving worse so they shouldn't be driving at higher speeds.
I think you're missing the point. Yes, the driver might not be better at night, but the conditions are certainly less hazardous when there are no pedestrians around, and virtually no other vehicles. Perhaps you've not driven regularly on roads which have vastly differing conditions depending on the time of day or night and given this thought at the time?
 
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The Ham

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I think the problem is that there aren't enough police, full stop. So the police we do have spend their time responding to emergencies rather than patrolling. If the Police tried to ring-fence officers for motorway duties, that wouldn't go down well. 'Police refused to attend break-in as they were collecting fines on the motorway' is how it would be seen. Better use of cameras and related technology would be worth considering though.

Personally I don't find motorways too much of an issue. It's speeding on local roads, and bad driving (e.g. overtaking on bends) on rural roads that worry me more. Of course the chance of a police car or camera picking up an idiot overtaking a cyclist on a blind bend in the countryside is close to zero.

One thing that could be done would be to encourage more people to fit dash cams (or handlebar cams) and submit the footage to the police. Many forces already allow this and there's some on social media who highlight just how many they've been responsible for getting fines.

My sister in law has seen people clock her dash cam and visibly change their behaviour (not often, but at least a few times).

Likewise lorry fleets that have had them installed have seen the number of claims made go down.
 

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I think you're missing the point. Yes, the driver might not be better at night, but the conditions are certainly less hazardous when there are no pedestrians around, and virtually no other vehicles.
Conditions are not 'certainly less hazardous' at night, because in addition to drivers being tired and potentially falling asleep, having reduced concentration and driving performance, there's also the major increase in risk from reduced visibility, owing to the lack of light what with it being night time, making it more difficult to see hazards like pedestrians, cyclists, e-scooter users, poorly parked cars, debris in road etc etc.

Perhaps you've not driven regularly on roads which have vastly differing conditions depending on the time of day or night and given this thought at the time?
I might suggest the same back to you, pop out for a drive at night and think about the light levels and visibility. How far can you see down the road? How easy can you pick out hazards in the darkness?
 

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Conditions are not 'certainly less hazardous' at night, because in addition to drivers being tired and potentially falling asleep, having reduced concentration and driving performance, there's also the major increase in risk from reduced visibility, owing to the lack of light what with it being night time, making it more difficult to see hazards like pedestrians, cyclists, e-scooter users, poorly parked cars, debris in road etc etc.


I might suggest the same back to you, pop out for a drive at night and think about the light levels and visibility. How far can you see down the road? How easy can you pick out hazards in the darkness?
It is, however, much easier to see other cars in the dark, in fact you can see where they are even if you can't actually see them!
 

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It is, however, much easier to see other cars in the dark, in fact you can see where they are even if you can't actually see them!
Only if they have their lights on, if they are obstructing the carriageway with their lights off (parked up, or broken down) or are side-ways on because they are driving across or turning out onto a road then probably still quite a lot less visible than in day light.
 

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Cars yes, but not pedestrians.

Only if they have their lights on, if they are obstructing the carriageway with their lights off (parked up, or broken down) or are side-ways on because they are driving across or turning out onto a road then probably still quite a lot less visible than in day light.
Both fair points, and to be honest I don't really agree with the idea of faster limits when it's dark (unless its's on high-quality roads, but then you might as well do it during daylight as well...)
 

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Both fair points, and to be honest I don't really agree with the idea of faster limits when it's dark (unless its's on high-quality roads, but then you might as well do it during daylight as well...)
You could be taking this too literally. Just because the idea might be to have higher limits between midnight and 6am for example, that doesn't immediately point to it being dark. The system would need development, but as a starter, there are plenty of mornings when it's broad daylight at 5am ...
 
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