Shropshire Star

Star comment: 'Attitude on speeding has to change'

There is an argument for saying that speed is not the principal factor in road accidents, but the only factor.

Published

It is based on the logic that a car that is not moving is no danger, but as soon as motion begins, it is a hazard.

Very rapidly there comes a velocity point which moves into the odds-on lethal range.

If safety were truly paramount, then traffic would grind to a standstill. In the real world, there has to be a trade-off between safety and the need to get about. Speed limits mark the dividing line between acceptable risk, and unacceptable greater risk.

Last year, seven people died in road accidents in the West Mercia Police area which were attributed to people breaking the speed limit. So breaking the law caused somebody to die.

Those responsible, who will have these deaths on their consciences for the rest of their lives, are more likely to be reckless and irresponsible than evil.

Over the past six years, nearly 800 people have been injured on the region's roads in high-speed crashes.

Unlike the fatalities, this army of the injured is largely anonymous, as police do not release their names, although there was a time that they did.

So the stories of people like John McSherry and his wife Michelle, whose lives were devastated by a crash on the Bridgnorth to Wolverhampton road involving a driver over the drink limit – who died – only occasionally come into the public domain.

The problem goes deeper than people disobeying the speed limit. There is also an ingrained culture which invests speed with a veneer of glamour, and holds up the really fast cars as being superior, and more "fun" than the little runabouts which are cheaper and more practical.

Many popular cars of yesteryear started to wheeze when they approached the speed limits, but nevertheless were unsafe for other reasons, such as lousy drum brakes and the fact that wearing a safety belt was not compulsory.

Today's cars are immeasurably more safe by design, but once they get the speed up have the kinetic energy of a small bomb.

Speed cameras and other measures aim to encourage drivers to slow down. But driver attitude also needs to be addressed. As the saying goes, better late in this world than early in the next.

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