Dutch Police Use GPS Data to Set Speed Traps

[cyprod]

@mman74,

Why are you singling out pedestrian accidents when those are by far the least common accidents?

Are you going to say that someboy going unreasonably slow around a blind corner and comebody comes around the corner, sees them and swerves into oncoming traffic to avoid the slow driver is acceptable because they were going slow?

What about a car doing 40 in a 75? The other drivers having to swirve out of the way of the slow person potentially causing accidents. Is that better?

And lets be honest, with pedestrian accidents, unless you're going less than 5, it's going to be bad. Hit them fast, they bounce off the car causing massive bodily injury and potentially dying. Hit them slowly, the get run over, causing massive bodily injury and potentially dying. I'd like to know the source of your fact, because it seems like the made up type of fact that somebody who didn't stop to think threw out as it only takes into account of impact and throw accidents, but doesn't consider going under the car.

Fact is, when dealing with auto/auto accidents, drive at the flow of traffic, it's the safest and most likely to avoid an accident in the first place. When dealing with auto/pedestrian accidents, don't get into them, because it's going to turn out bad no matter what, fast or slow. And this is coming from a guy whos dad was hit at 10 mph, you don't want to know the damage that caused.

Oh, and as a final point, I don't know where you live, but around here, speed limits are never below 30 anyway, so if you hit a pedestrian driving at the speed limit, you weren't speeding, and they still died anyway.

 

[x3style]

Speed limits are not there to make a impact with a pedestrian or another car safer they are there so that you can BREAK in time to avoid one such accident, if you wanna break at 55mph or at 10mph your travel time is NOT the same.
Speed limits are there so that you have a safe speed at which to break in time, also the chance that a car/car impact is fatal is far less, you are worried that you spend too much time driving to work? The go speed maybe you never get there in the first place and end up dead in the process.
I'm pretty sure everyone agrees that you are better off being 10 minutes late then dead. Speed limits where never designed to make impacts non-lethal but to give you a fighting chance at avoiding an accident.
There are too many idiots driving going slower can give you a chance to avoid them killing you.

 

[guardianangel42]

[citation][nom]archange[/nom]Apparently, so does boredom...Seriously, nice hight tech solution for increasing police income... Man, if something can turn for the worse, it will.[/citation]
Murphy's law my friend. It sucks @ss.

 

[palladin9479]

*cracks knuckles*
This is where the nannys get all flabbergasted.

When dealing with accidents you must take into account a few different things, namely the difference between quantity of accidents and severity of accidents. Driving faster actually results in ~less~ total accidents, its no coincidence that the majority of accidents happen at low speeds. This is due to statistics. The less time you spend in any one location, the less likely you are to have an accident in that location. A car that is stationary on any road is virtually guaranteed to be hit at some point in time. A car traveling at near the speed of light is virtually guaranteed to never be hit (never mind the physics involved with traveling so fast). This traveling faster between two locations has less likely hood of an accident happening at any point between those two locations.

On the other side of that coin, faster speed (actually its velocity but i'll get into that later) will result in a greater severity of accidents. The more kinetic energy involved the greater damage done. A small car impacting at 40mph will result in less damage then a giant SUV impacting at 40mph. Larger SUV's are a pretty big danger accident wise, they tend to cause lots of damage when they impact another vehicle due to their greater mass and higher center of mass. If we move that stationary care a little (since we can't do the math with 0) and it gets into that guaranteed accident, it'll be nothing more then a scratch. We take that car speeding at near light speeds, ~if~ it hits something it could cause a nuclear explosion.

Next lets talk about speed, when dealing with kinetic impacts speed is irrelevant. Whats important is velocity and the delta between the two objects (difference in velocity). Angle of impact is also important but that gets complicated and is too long for this forum. Two cars traveling on the same road going in the same direction have an impact. The first car is traveling at 60mph while the second one is traveling at 100mph, the resulting impact will have the same kinetic force as a stationary impact with a 40mph vehicle. On the reverse side to cars going in opposite directions towards each other, one traveling at 100mph the other at 60mph, will have a kinetic impact of a stationary impact at 160mph (nearly guaranteed kill for all involved). So when dealing with severity of impact the difference between the two is whats important not their absolute speeds. This is why drivers driving significantly below the flow of travel are just as dangerous then those traveling above the flow of traffic. The slower driver is both more likely to get into an accident and will have greater severity due to the greater velocity delta.

In short driving with the flow of traffic is almost always the best course of action as it minimizes both the likely hood of an accident and the severity of that accident. Speed limits were not setup for "optimal breaking distance", the date back to the early 20th century problems with people driving. Road ways weren't in good conditions and the vehicles didn't have good handling, going too fast and a pothole would throw your car off the road. Speed limits were setup to tell people the maximum safe driving speed through an area, and later to force drivers to slow down when driving through populated areas. Lately they've become a stick that people use to hit each other with.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]sykozis[/nom]Speed does not kill...at least not the speeds cars travel at. What kills is idiots that think they have to text and drive....eat and drive....drink and drive....put on makeup while driving...browse the internet on their smartphone while driving....I think you get the picture. Sudden stops also kill.....but speed itself, does not.Nope....fewer accidents doesn't mean the speed limit needs to be increased. The idea behind speed limits is to limit the number of speed related accidents.[/citation]

+1

 

[thearm]

The OP has it right. Just don't speed. Issue resolved.

 

[adobejesus]

[citation][nom]sykozis[/nom]Speed does not kill...at least not the speeds cars travel at. What kills is idiots that think they have to text and drive....eat and drive....drink and drive....put on makeup while driving...browse the internet on their smartphone while driving....I think you get the picture. Sudden stops also kill.....but speed itself, does not.Nope....fewer accidents doesn't mean the speed limit needs to be increased. The idea behind speed limits is to limit the number of speed related accidents.[/citation]
Makes me think of what my biology teacher use to say in high school, "It's not the fall that hurts, it's the sudden stop at the end".

 

[torque79]

great post palladin9479, when one actually takes the time to think about the issue you can see that the speed travelled has nothing to do with accident frequency or severity.

The skill, attention and reaction of drivers is what causes/prevents accidents. I'm 31 and I've never been in a car accident, but I often travel 10-25km/hr over the posted speed limit on highways in Canada simply because the majority of other vehicles do. I personally know several drivers who are obviously not comfortable on the road and make sudden, unpredictable actions. If it were up to me they would not be driving, because their skill is simply not up to par.

My wife drives a transit bus for a living, so she witnesses far more accidents than the average person. The majority of these are not on highways at high speeds but on city streets, because there are far more rules to follow and potential mistakes to happen. There are a number of assumptions every driver makes regularly as they drive, such as the assumption that a car that is slowing approaching a red light is actually planning to stop, or that a car travelling without a turn signal in a lane will not suddenly swerve into your lane, or that a car making a left turn will not stop in the middle of the turn in your path.

These kinds of absent-minded, ridiculous mistakes are the most common causes of accidents because nobody expects them and they are often impossible to predict/avoid. This also applies to ANY activity that distracts the driver such as texting, conversation, music, or even just thinking about something else other than driving. SPEED does not kill, MISTAKES kill. Many many accidents are avoided all the time by a person being alert and having enough time/space to react, but it's not always possible. Yes you need more space to stop at a higher rate of speed, but a good driver WILL have more space in front of them as their speed increases. It's just common sense.

I know it's cliche to bring up, but I've driven on the autobahn myself with no speed limit. The driving discipline of drivers there is AMAZING. Absolutely GREAT lane discipline, smooth traffic flow, safe lane changes, because people are always watching their mirrors for someone who wants to drive faster than you, and are being curteous and intelligent. The driving skill of drivers in both Germany and England that I experienced was FAR higher than Canada. Traffic circles in London are FANTASTIC for keeping traffic moving constantly and smoothly, people just need to think and cooperate.

There are other areas of the world where drivers are TERRIBLE in my experience because they commonly learn that way, such as in Beijing, Italy, Egypt. They don't cooperate, follow rules, behave predictably, nothing that makes driving safer.

Since people are the cause, and (usually) not the vehicles or speed or other factors, the only real solution is to remove people from the equation. Until then, we have to accept there are flawed people on the road, and try to educate people on how to drive with ATTENTION and COMPETENCE.

 

[molo9000]

[citation][nom]bsbsbsbs[/nom]Why don't people just slow down. Speed Kills.[/citation]

Speed doesn't kill.
Not driving the right speed in the right situation kills.

Doing 150km/h or even 200km/h on a motorway can be perfectly safe and yet it's illegal in all European countries except Germany.
Doing 30km/h in a narrow city street on the other hand can be very dangerous, even if it is legal.


What police should do is enforce speed limits near accident hotspots and not ask TomTom where they can extort the most money out of motorists.

 

[rosen380]

"On the reverse side to cars going in opposite directions towards each other, one traveling at 100mph the other at 60mph, will have a kinetic impact of a stationary impact at 160mph (nearly guaranteed kill for all involved). So when dealing with severity of impact the difference between the two is whats important not their absolute speeds."

Not according to the Mythbusters experiment...

 

[hang-the-9]

On a road near me, 146, goes from MA to RI. The MA part limit is 65, the same road when you pass into RI is 55. Either MA does not feel it's residents should be safe, or RI likes ticket revenue.

 

[thearm]

I think you guys latched on to that 'speed kills' phrase. The issue is getting a speeding ticket at a speed trap. The fact here is, if you don't speed, you won't get a speeding ticket.

 

[Guest]

Speed does not kill, suddenly becoming stationary does.

 

[ubercake]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]i hate cops, mainly because i never saw one do its job of protecting people, but instead harassing innocent people. they even at one point moved a speed limit sign 300yards down a road, told no one, and had 4 officers stationed there for 4 weeks to get everyone who was "speeding". the road that was 55mph for 20+ years got 1000 feet of road taken away and made slower, all in all there wasnt a period of more than 5 minutes there wasnt lights flashing. and here is the sick part. they waited till you got to around where the sign use to be before pulling you over, as to not spook more potential money coming into town. where i live cops are a joke. and EVERYONE here knows it, and despises them for it.[/citation]
They complain about not getting their regularly scheduled raises and getting their pensions taxed while the rest of the world has no regularly scheduled raises or pensions.

I don't hate cops, but if cops can sit in a car all day waiting to hand out traffic tickets, it means we still have too many and are misallocating resources. Why aren't they investigating unsolved crimes (murder, rape, theft, etc...)?

They are no longer protecting the public paying for them if the primary focus of their job is to hand out traffic tickets.

A lot of public sector employees seem to feel a strong sense of entitlement these days. They need to remember who it is that pays their salaries.

 

[shanky887614]

why are people talking about this?

speed has never killed anyone its the failure to stop in time that kills

 

[mman74]

[citation][nom]cyprod[/nom]@mman74, What about a car doing 40 in a 75? The other drivers having to swirve out of the way of the slow person potentially causing accidents. Is that better?.[/citation]
You speedsters are a pedantic lot aren't you. I agree with you going excessively slowly on a high speed highway is DANGEROUSLY stupid. Once again, I don't agree with texting, wheel sex, and slowing down as to cause a hazard as well as excessive speeding (I am not talking 5-10% above the limit). They are equally dangerous and let's imagine that the person was travelling at 40 because his engine failed or wheel blew out or there's tailback. Are you travelling at a safe enough speed so you can slow down without causing an accident? Now is someone going to invent some other crazy scenario and put words in my mouth to say I must agree with it?
[citation][nom]cyprod[/nom]
And lets be honest, with pedestrian accidents, unless you're going less than 5, it's going to be bad. Hit them fast, they bounce off the car causing massive bodily injury and potentially dying. Hit them slowly, the get run over, causing massive bodily injury and potentially dying. I'd like to know the source of your fact, because it seems like the made up type of fact that somebody who didn't stop to think threw out as it only takes into account of impact and throw accidents, but doesn't consider going under the car..[/citation]
Are you a flat Earther? There have been countless studies that have shown that in vehicular collisions against pedestrians above 30 mph, more die than survive. At 20 mph most survive but for every mph above that, there is an exponential decay in the survivability rate.
But guess what, most people didn't need a scientist to tell them that! Any kid knows that F=m*v, and there is a limit to the "F" that most human bodies can take. Your dad didn't die at 10mph, don't try and compare the damage to a 50mph collision, it's not the SAME!
I live in the UK, most roads in towns are 30 mph, and most roads in residential areas go down to 20 and have speed bumps to try and ensure they keep to it. I would rather not have the bumps but hey - scientists say they save lives!
And as for accidents in cars, I know I would rather be in a 70 mph collision than in a 100mph one. But someone is going to make a case why my 70 is going to cause more accidents aren't they?

 

[cobra5000]

Wow, who knew that Big Brother is Dutch?

 

[Guest]

Personally i consistently drive 10 % over the speed limit where I live. I have never been in an accident; not to say that I have not come close. While I do not agree with the amount of time and man power the police force here spends on solely checking for speeding. I do think it needs to exist. I have come close to completely cutting off idiots going 100+ mph in a 70 mostly due to the unpredictability of the situation. The same could be said of those driving over 20% under the speed limit and solidifies the importance of predictability on the road.

My .02 cents in summary; cops need to spend more time checking for tailgating and other extremely dangerous driving maneuvers. These maneuvers are in part due to driving not being the priority of motorist; laws correlating to testing, cell phone use, and even eating in a car need to be much much stricter and harsher. Especially since I feel that the people in the huge cars tend to do it more and they present a much larger threat in my eyes. Another point is if you want to speed, take it to the track.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Would it be fair to say that modern technology in the form of GPS is being used as a substitute for personal observation?

 

[Guest]

There is a simple solution to this problem. Acquire the same data from various GPS corporations, find the average speed in various areas and change the speed limit.