Fleet Risk Consultants

There are various speed limits in force in the UK, they vary by road type and vehicle type and are not always obvious, at least to the lay person. It is the legal responsibility of the driver to ensure that he or she obeys the relevant speed limit for that vehicle. I have no sympathy for anyone who is caught speeding as they should know the limit and obey it, whether they agree with it or not. We cannot choose which laws we like or don’t. Now I am not a member of the ’speed kills’ lobby, but I do however firmly believe that the inappropriate use of speed is a major cause of accidents.

I will clarify my opinion, speed quite clearly does not kill people. Formula One racing drivers prove this point, but they cannot drive at 200mph throughout the whole lap, they have to use the speed in a sensible manner to achieve a fast, safe lap. The same applies to road users, it may be perfectly safe to drive at 100mph along an empty motorway in dry conditions (THIS IS ILLEGAL, BUT MAY BE SAFE), equally the same stretch of motorway may require you to drive at 50mph or less in wet, congested conditions.

The same applies to urban roads. The road may be subject to a speed limit of 30 mph, but at 3pm in the afternoon near the schools I would be unsure about travelling in excess of 10 mph. This is because I view children as an unpredictable hazard that I need to manage, because the councils will not spend the money to fence in the pavements around the schools, instead they choose to put a single piece of fence at the exit/entrance to stop the children running straight onto the road.

The big problem is that most drivers are incapable of understanding what is and isn’t an appropriate speed. This is because there is no emphasis on this in the current driving test and education system, only drivers who have taken further training with the likes of the IAM can begin to understand the idea of appropriate speed. Even then it takes continuous practice and concentration to drive in a manner that reduces risk.

If we adopt the process of requiring drivers to re-qualify for their driving licence every 5 years and refocus the test onto driving and risk awareness, we may reduce the number of injuries and deaths on the roads. The problem we need to overcome is the misconception that driving is easy. Driving requires your total focus and concentration in the same way that heavy machinery requires the operative to focus on the job in hand.

The issue is that whilst speeding is illegal, and for the sake of clarity I will repeat the breaking of laws is reprehensible, it may not be as dangerous as driving at the speed limit for the road. It is now getting to the point where we should not be prosecuting people for speeding, but issuing the prosecutions for Careless or Dangerous Driving. These charges have considerably less kudos in the bars and pubs as speeding and will enable better penalties to be levied against those guilty of driving in a manner that is unacceptable.

At this point it is worth mentioning that if a business does not have measures to prevent and manage its drivers who choose to disobey the rules then it may fall foul of legislation and that may include the Corporate Manslaughter Legislation.

Nigel Grainger
Senior Consultant

Fleet Risk Consultants