A31 crash: MP slams Highways Agency "bureaucracy" over 50mph speed limit (From Bournemouth Echo)

The highways agency work on evidence and measurement. They are right to resist purely political pressure. The council only see one tool in the toolbox, a hammer. Hence everything looking like a nail.

I suspect the Highways Agency are reducing contact with councillors who they see as being blinkered which gives the appearance of beaurocracy. But is in fact the councillors being 'managed'.

I wonder if a bandwagon can do more than 50?

It shouldn't be the case that we need a reduction as 70mph is the MAXIMUM speed for the road - if you are responsible enough and can see that there is traffic joining and changing lanes ahead of you as you travel over the flyover, you should be adjusting your speed accordingly - probably closer to 50 than 70 - so any reduction to 50, certainly from the flyover to Ashley Heath, is a no-brainer. That is unless you really can't survive with your journey being 15 seconds longer because of it (Mr Clarkson..).

My information indicates that the majority of accidents on this stretch of road occurrred at less than 50mph so reducing the speed from 70 to 50 would acheive nothing

grazzer wrote:
My information indicates that the majority of accidents on this stretch of road occurrred at less than 50mph so reducing the speed from 70 to 50 would acheive nothing

Strange reaction -
Your 'information' (whatever....) cannot indicate that a lower speed limit would achieve nothing; this is not a light hearted debate, but a necessary safeguard, in the short term at least, to help prevent tragic accidents as occurred earlier this week. To do nothing would be a crime.

I commute along the A31 every day. Today when passing Ringwood I deliberately kept to the outside lane and slowed to 50mph. The drivers on the inside lane did the same, they don't normally do that. Normally any driver doing less than 70 would have agressive drivers on their bumber flashing, hooting and giving offensive gestures. Today that didn't happen. We don't need to wait for some governing force to tell us to slow down. We can do it on our own. Most drivers are like sheep, they follow the leader. If the leader is some fool travelling at speed when it's not safe to do so, that's waht all the others do. Admit it we all do it, ask yourself why. Jade would be alive today if the drivers had been behaving as hapened today.

Designate the road as urban? YES definately! I once lived in Ringwood close to the A31 and the noise was intolerable, like living next to a 24 hour race track.

The stretch of road that is four lanes wide is very poorly designed. The road makings are almost invisible at the best of times. It poor light or wet conditions, the lane markings cannot be seen at all. The lines do not reflect headlights and there are no cats eyes. Correcting this flaw alone would improve safety a lot. Better signage would also help by reducing dangerous last minute lane changes. Whoever designed that stretch of road is partially responsible for the injuries and deaths that have occured.

grazzer wrote:
My information indicates that the majority of accidents on this stretch of road occurrred at less than 50mph so reducing the speed from 70 to 50 would acheive nothing

What a stupid thing to say. You don't by any chance drive a Volvo XC 90 do you?

Yet again it appears that every road driver has to be penalised due to others poor driving. It's bad enough that the Canford Way has been reduced to 50mph. These new 50mph speed limits to me just appear to be a profit making scheme to catch out people speeding. 70mph is perfectly safe and if you can't be safe doing 70mph, then either you should hand back your drivers license or use the back roads

As much as we would all prefer otherwise, wherever there are roads, there will be casualties. Just look at this interactive online casualty map: http://map.itoworld.
com/
Any road safety policy that thinks that “something has to be done” as a result of any accident is acting on emotion after the event, and if we allow emotion to determine policies, we will end up with more road deaths than if we use science, data, evidence, balance and consistency. Before we kneejerk with “there’s been a death so the limit has to go down” we should at the very least be asking for an understanding of the circumstances. Was speed a significant factor? What are the typical speeds there so would a reduction make much difference? Would it result in further erosion of speed limit respect and therefore increase speeds and danger? Could such a limit on such a length of dual carriageway be sensibly enforced? Would normal safe drivers be brought into conflict with the law? Would a driver bored to tears sitting on a deserted dual carriageway for miles in the middle of the night put his foot down to try to make up for lost time and annoyance when he gets into the country and cause more danger elsewhere?
These (and many others) are very good reasons why speed limits should be right, not simply reduced until we have no deaths – we’ve already gone too far with that and it hasn’t worked and it won’t work.
We must start doing more to target appalling driving standards, that will certainly have an effect on accident reduction. Simple driver error is by far the biggest factor in all serious accidents – 65%.
Road safety is a complex issue, and we can only do a small amount of what we would like to do. So, again, we should not call for one solution unless we are sure that we would not achieve better safety efficiency with another. Where is the evidence that all potential solutions have been considered, and it has determined that the most cost effective of all is a speed limit reduction?
Perhaps Councillors and MPs should leave road safety planning to the experts. It would be a disaster if 2 lives were saved here, if if meant that 4 lives were not saved somewhere else for the same cost.

RichardCoughlan wrote:

grazzer wrote:
My information indicates that the majority of accidents on this stretch of road occurrred at less than 50mph so reducing the speed from 70 to 50 would acheive nothing

What a stupid thing to say. You don't by any chance drive a Volvo XC 90 do you?

Why stupid?

If this is true then it is quite an informed, non knee-jerk response.

I would argue that blindly blaming something only to be proved wrong is more of an indication of stupidity.

And a smart arse question suggesting someone might have been guilty of leaving the scene of accident and may have been criminal for simply pointing out a potentially important factor is not something to to admired or considered an intellectual contribution.

scrumpyjack wrote:

RichardCoughlan wrote:

grazzer wrote:
My information indicates that the majority of accidents on this stretch of road occurrred at less than 50mph so reducing the speed from 70 to 50 would acheive nothing

What a stupid thing to say. You don't by any chance drive a Volvo XC 90 do you?

Why stupid?

If this is true then it is quite an informed, non knee-jerk response.

I would argue that blindly blaming something only to be proved wrong is more of an indication of stupidity.

And a smart arse question suggesting someone might have been guilty of leaving the scene of accident and may have been criminal for simply pointing out a potentially important factor is not something to to admired or considered an intellectual contribution.

Ok, ok - two options:
1. Produce / show/ link to 'my information' that shows "majority of accidents on this stretch of road occurrred (sic) at less than 50mph"; and discuss........
2. Do not show 'my information' and assume that cars driving at slower speeds 'on this stretch of road' may indeed increase the level of safety required.

Eddie's dog wrote:

scrumpyjack wrote:

RichardCoughlan wrote:

grazzer wrote:
My information indicates that the majority of accidents on this stretch of road occurrred at less than 50mph so reducing the speed from 70 to 50 would acheive nothing

What a stupid thing to say. You don't by any chance drive a Volvo XC 90 do you?

Why stupid?

If this is true then it is quite an informed, non knee-jerk response.

I would argue that blindly blaming something only to be proved wrong is more of an indication of stupidity.

And a smart arse question suggesting someone might have been guilty of leaving the scene of accident and may have been criminal for simply pointing out a potentially important factor is not something to to admired or considered an intellectual contribution.

Ok, ok - two options:
1. Produce / show/ link to 'my information' that shows "majority of accidents on this stretch of road occurrred (sic) at less than 50mph"; and discuss........
2. Do not show 'my information' and assume that cars driving at slower speeds 'on this stretch of road' may indeed increase the level of safety required.

Why don't you direct this at the person who wrote 'my information'?

RichardCoughlan wrote:
I commute along the A31 every day. Today when passing Ringwood I deliberately kept to the outside lane and slowed to 50mph. The drivers on the inside lane did the same, they don't normally do that. Normally any driver doing less than 70 would have agressive drivers on their bumber flashing, hooting and giving offensive gestures. Today that didn't happen. We don't need to wait for some governing force to tell us to slow down. We can do it on our own. Most drivers are like sheep, they follow the leader. If the leader is some fool travelling at speed when it's not safe to do so, that's waht all the others do. Admit it we all do it, ask yourself why. Jade would be alive today if the drivers had been behaving as hapened today.

That's why you need big brother to intervene.

Drivers may have this terrible accident in mind this week, but in a fortnights time, it will be the same old mad rush to gain 15 seconds to do nothing once they get there.

l'anglais wrote:

RichardCoughlan wrote:
I commute along the A31 every day. Today when passing Ringwood I deliberately kept to the outside lane and slowed to 50mph. The drivers on the inside lane did the same, they don't normally do that. Normally any driver doing less than 70 would have agressive drivers on their bumber flashing, hooting and giving offensive gestures. Today that didn't happen. We don't need to wait for some governing force to tell us to slow down. We can do it on our own. Most drivers are like sheep, they follow the leader. If the leader is some fool travelling at speed when it's not safe to do so, that's waht all the others do. Admit it we all do it, ask yourself why. Jade would be alive today if the drivers had been behaving as hapened today.

That's why you need big brother to intervene.

Drivers may have this terrible accident in mind this week, but in a fortnights time, it will be the same old mad rush to gain 15 seconds to do nothing once they get there.

Ok, let's assume we do need an effective intervention. A speed limit sign isn't it.
A police traffic unit pulling drivers for failure to indicate and driving too close would be. And evidence suggests on the spot eyesight tests would greatly help. There is a suitable roadside testing centre just up the road and a road layout suitable for frequent looping patrols. This is what "no excuses" should be doing. This is what the politicians should be calling for. Why isn't this obvious to them?!

It could well be the case to have minimum speed limits on these type of roads. The scooters teenagers have access to are limited & a 16 year old is limited to ones that can only do 30mph which for any dual carriageway or even single track national speed limit roads makes them vunerable to any traffic & epecially when trying to change lanes which is made worse at Ringwood as there are 4 on that section, more than a motorway where these scooters are not allowed. A re-design of the junction would be best to filter this type of transport safely.
I always thought that it was a County thing as the 4 lanes are in Dorset & were put in when the underpass on the A31 was put in & the Fish Inn slip etc is in Hampshire who did nothing to their side even though the traffic flow would improve as there use to be a queue before Ringwood for the old roundabout.
These comments take nothing away from the fact that we are all responsible to be aware of all users of the road regardless of there speed & drive with awareness that not everyone is or can keep up with you within the speed limit.

apriliadaz wrote:
Yet again it appears that every road driver has to be penalised due to others poor driving. It's bad enough that the Canford Way has been reduced to 50mph. These new 50mph speed limits to me just appear to be a profit making scheme to catch out people speeding. 70mph is perfectly safe and if you can't be safe doing 70mph, then either you should hand back your drivers license or use the back roads

If there was a chance that a 50 mph limit could save just ONE life or serious injury every 5 years, is taking another 10-15 seconds on your journey REALLY penalising every road driver? No, 70 mph is a MAXIMUM speed, and isn't necessarily perfectly safe going over Ringwood flyover when traffic ahead is slowing/changing lanes back and forth to accommodate traffic joining from the 2 junctions and petrol station. And yes, conversely, the long straight stretch below Tower Park speed limit is absurd at 50mph.

grazzer wrote:
My information indicates that the majority of accidents on this stretch of road occurrred at less than 50mph so reducing the speed from 70 to 50 would acheive nothing

Edited from earlier comment, to assist..............

Two options:
1. Produce / show/ link to 'my information' that shows "majority of accidents on this stretch of road occurrred (sic) at less than 50mph"; and discuss........
2. Do not show 'my information' and assume that cars driving at slower speeds 'on this stretch of road' may indeed increase the level of safety required.
- and agree with last comment from gileto.