Annual road casualty statistics for Great Britain show the number of people injured and killed using e-scooters for the first time.
The Department for Transport’s (DfT) figures show that there were 484 casualties involving e-scooters in 2020, of which one person was killed, 128 were seriously injured and 355 slightly injured.
E-scooter firms were given the go-ahead by the Government to start trials on UK roads in July 2020, with schemes being set up with local authorities across the country as people looked for alternatives to public transport, because of Covid-19.
However, road safety charity IAM RoadSmart says that the results of these pilot schemes have been repeatedly delayed, meaning a full review has yet to be conducted.
Neil Greig, director of policy and research at IAM RoadSmart, said: “By delaying yet again the results of the pilot schemes we have another Christmas looming where people will be buying and using a totally unregulated form of transport in the UK.
“The pilots were launched in July 2020 and are now not due to finish until March 2022, plus the time required after that for analysis and legislation – this has taken far too long in our opinion.”
In the meantime, Greig says the police should make it clear that anyone caught riding an e-scooter outside private land or a trial area will have their vehicle seized immediately.
“E-scooters may have a role to play in the future transport mix, but this can only happen once their legal status has been made completely clear and that cannot happen soon enough,” he added.
Road deaths and casualties during 2020
DfT figures from the Reported Road Casualties Great Britain 2020 report show that last year 1,460 people were killed on Britain’s roads, which is a fall of 17% compared with the figure in 2019.
In 2020, there were also 115,584 reported road casualties of all severities, which was a fall of 25% from the previous year.
However, during much of 2020, the UK was in lockdown and the RAC estimate that miles travelled in the country were 21% down on the previous year.
Data from the DfT also shows that in 2020, 141 cyclists were killed in road accidents. This was up 41% from 100 deaths in the previous year. The number of children killed on Britain’s roads also increased, from 49 in 2019 to 52 in 2020.
David Walker, head of road and leisure safety at RoSPA, said: “By any measure 2020 was an abnormal year. It is of no surprise that the overall number of road casualties fell. This is in no small part due to less traffic on the roads.
“With traffic levels returning to pre-pandemic levels and some understandable reluctance towards using public transport, we must today continue to focus on the harm to motorists and more significantly, from motorists.”
He continued: “We welcome the fact that more people have been getting out on their bikes and recognise the reduction in the rate of deaths per mile travelled. However, this should not distract from the shocking fact that more cyclists and more children died on our roads than in the previous year.
“At RoSPA we believe that having more cyclists and pedestrians should not result in an increased number of serious and fatal accidents involving vulnerable road users.
“We must continue to act decisively if we want to maintain the position of British roads being among the safest in the world.”
With travel restrictions in place throughout 2020, there was a huge increase in the number of people electing to use active travel such as walking and cycling.
According to the DfT‘s Road Traffic Estimates in Great Britain 2020, pedal cycle traffic was up by 45.7% from the previous year.
Edmund King, AA president, said: “It is clear that the lockdown travel restrictions during the pandemic helped the year-on-year fall in road deaths.
“Rather than simply accept this as a dip in the records, we should use this moment as the catalyst to reset ‘zero’ road deaths as the target for the end of the decade.” By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News
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The RAC has called on the Government to consider reinstating hard shoulders on motorways.
A recent RAC poll found six in 10 drivers think that all-lane-running smart motorway schemes should be scrapped entirely, and the hard shoulder should be reinstated, whist retaining the technology that manages traffic flows and detects breakdowns.
It is not disputed that the technology deployed on smart motorways has reduced the risk of an accident between two moving vehicles, because it allows speed limits to be varied and traffic flows managed by the series of cameras covering the smart motorway network.
However, where hard shoulders have been removed, recent evidence suggests that the risk of a major accident involving a moving and stationary vehicle has increased, with stationary vehicles often stranded in a live line with the occupants of the vehicle akin to ‘sitting ducks’, hoping that vehicles approaching from behind will spot the hazard that their vehicle is posing and take evasive action in time, before the lane can be closed and traffic diverted to other live lanes.
In response to a number of tragic accidents and concerns raised by coroners, the Government requested an ‘Evidence Stocktake’ last year which recommended an 18-point action plan which included many features to enhance safety measures, such as reducing the distance between refuge points from 1.6 miles to 1 mile and the introduction of radar systems to detect broken down vehicles.
These recommendations appear to support the consensus amongst most drivers that more can be done to protect the safety of road users on smart motorways.
In addition to the recent actions of the RAC, the campaign group Smart Motorways Kill (SMK) suggested earlier this year that they would be seeking judicial review of the decision to implement smart motorways.
If such a review is sought, pending the outcome, the consequences could have a significant impact as reinstating hard shoulders would amount to 204 miles, or as Grant Shapps referenced, the land acquisition required would be the equivalent of 700 Wembley Stadiums.
Shapps has also previously commented that smart motorways are too expensive to scrap with the Government favouring taking steps to increase safety measures rather than reverting to the traditional hard shoulder.
Highways England have previously announced their intention to add a further 300 miles of smart motorway by 2025.
Based on the statistics, whilst this could lead to a lower incident rate overall, as traffic flow is more appropriately managed, the risk of a serious incident with a stationary vehicle is increased, with the risk of serious injury or unfortunately the risk of fatality, to the occupants.
There has been mounting pressure on insurers for many years to lower motor insurance premiums and the potential increase in the cost of claims from such accidents on smart motorways is unfortunately likely to ultimately be felt by the consumer as the costs of these claims are passed on by way of increased premiums.
The true cost of smart motorways may still yet to be seen. By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News
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Ford and a UK Government-funded consortium have developed technology to predict traffic incident locations based on data from connected vehicles, roadside sensors and accident reports.
The new ‘RoadSafe’ technology uses a smart algorithm to crunch anonymised data from sources including connected vehicles, roadside sensors and accident reports to pinpoint where there is a higher chance of traffic incidents occurring.
This information can then be displayed on a map that identifies the level of risk and could also be used to warn drivers of hotspots.
Jon Scott, City Insights project lead for Ford Mobility Europe, explained: “There are areas in every city where the chance of an incident is higher, whether it’s due to a poorly placed sign, an unrepaired pothole or junctions built to accommodate far less traffic than we have today.
“Ford can pinpoint the areas of concern, so drivers could be made more aware of them and authorities can address them.”
RoadSafe is the culmination of four years of research by Ford, including most recently a 20-month Government-funded project conducted together with Oxfordshire County Council, Loughborough University and AI sensor specialists Vivacity Labs, with support from Transport for London (TfL) and backing from Innovate UK.
Road safety hotspots identified
The research began with an analysis of Greater London to highlight road safety hotspots and to identify the potential causes and safety mitigations.
In the past 15 months, the research expanded to Oxfordshire, with more than 200 passenger and commercial vehicles voluntarily connected in London and Oxfordshire.
The data enabled the team to develop a ‘Road Segment Risk Rating Heat Map’, which identifies stretches of road that are of particular concern.
It includes various layers of data, including historic accident data and a ‘Risk Prediction’ rating algorithm for each road segment based on a range of data inputs, calculated using advanced data analytics techniques.
The Road Segment Risk Prediction rating uses colours to show where incidents are more likely to happen, with red having the highest risk level and yellow the lowest.
To gather the data, the connected vehicles record driving events, including braking, steering and accelerating, while Vivacity’s road-side sensors track the movements of different modes of transport.
The sensors employ machine-learning algorithms to detect near-miss incidents and analyse movement patterns of vulnerable road-users such as cyclists and pedestrians, as well as non-connected vehicles.
All data shared by the sensors is anonymised with video feeds discarded at source, enabling safer roads without intruding on privacy.
Combining vehicle and sensor data can help identify a wide variety of hazards such as places where vehicles pass too close to cyclists; a poorly located bus stop causing traffic to become congested; and badly designed infrastructure such as a roundabouts and junctions causing confusion and near-misses.
For businesses and fleets, the RoadSafe algorithm could be used to optimise driver routing to detour away from particular problem areas, or warn drivers when they are in riskier areas, reducing potential down time resulting from incidents, says Ford.
In the future, such technology could also benefit passengers riding in autonomous vehicles. Combining the on-board sensors of the vehicle with a digital tool could help them anticipate hazardous situations even earlier and therefore adapt their operation accordingly By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News
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Michelin has launched its all-season tyre, the new Michelin CrossClimate 2.
The CrossClimate 2 builds on the success of the CrossClimate+, Michelin said, and combines the benefits of a summer tyre in terms of wet and dry braking performance, with the traction and braking benefits of a winter tyre in terms of wet weather grip and driving on snow or in low temperature conditions, it said.
Scott Clark, executive vice-president, automotive, motorsport and member of the Michelin Group executive committee, said: “Since its launch, the original Michelin CrossClimate has had a radical effect on the European all-season tyre market, which has since enjoyed annual growth more than 19%, in addition to being the only segment to have kept growing during lockdown.
“Over the next five years, it is expected to expand at a rate of more than 16% per year. Safer, longer-lasting and more economical, the Michelin CrossClimate 2 is a further illustration of the Group’s All-Sustainable strategy.”
The 3PMSF (3-Peak-Mountain with Snow Flake) logo on the tyres sidewalls confirms that it can be used in winter in countries where winter tyres are mandatory.
Michelin said this means that for drivers who take their vehicles to mainland Europe during the winter months, there will be no need to swap onto winter tyres, and back again, each year.
The CrossClimate2 is available in 105 sizes – a 40% increase compared to its processor – for vehicles with 15- to 20-inches wheels.
Michelin said its technologies ensures high performance through the whole life of a tyre, down to its tread depth marker and its low rolling resistance helps save on fuel, energy and materials.
Michelin said its CrossClimate 2 – both new and worn – came out on top in six out of nine tests (chiefly braking and traction performance tests) in 2020 and 2021. By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News
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Seven road deaths were reported on National Safe Speeds Day, which took place on September 15, as part of Project Edward, the nationwide road safety campaign.
All 43 police forces in England and Wales, as well as Police Scotland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, took part in the 24-hour operation to encourage compliance with speed limits.
“On average, five people a day lose their lives on the UK’s roads,” says James Luckhurst of Project Edward. “Speeding is a major cause of crashes, and speeding is a choice. The fact that we already know of seven deaths during the 24 hours of our National Safe Speeds Day operation – with results still due from some forces – shows how far we are as a society from getting on top of road danger.
“It is a disappointing outcome, but it confirms that we must continue our efforts to remind everyone who uses the road that we are all more vulnerable than we think.”
Chief Constable Jo Shiner of Sussex Police added: “I am fully supportive of this first National Safe Speeds Day and I welcome the efforts by members of the Project Edward team to highlight the benefits for all road users of understanding and choosing speeds that are legal and safe because we know lower speeds mean fewer road deaths.”
Positioned around ‘Every Day Without a Road Death’, the Project Edward campaign included a week of road safety activity, including three electric vehicles (EVs) taking part in a challenge to cover the country using the smallest charge.
The drivers showcased examples of safe road planning, post-crash response, design and engineering, while visiting sites involved in the campaign along the way; including stops at South Queensferry traffic control operations room, Devon Air Ambulance, the New Forest and Sussex.
The team also engaged with community speed watch groups and visited depots of large transport fleets including Waitrose and Royal Mail.
Other stop-off points included local authorities that have adopted the ‘Safe System’ approach to tackling road risk.
This year, Project Edward was managed by RoadSafe in partnership with Driving for Better Business (DfBB).
For more information visit the Project Edward website. By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News
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Skoda has launched a new connected car service that provides drivers with detailed information about current road conditions.
The Local Hazard Information Service uses swarm data intelligence, by collecting data from all ‘connected’ vehicles on the road. More than three million vehicles set to provide data by the end of 2022
The system will be available for the Enyaq iV, Fabia, Kamiq, Kodiaq, Octavia, Scala and Superb in the UK as part of ŠKODA Connect services
By collecting and evaluating anonymous vehicle data, the system is able to warn of approaching hazards such as slippery or damaged road surfaces via the infotainment system, actively increasing safety in the process.
Sebastian Lasek, head of product line connectivity at Skoda, said: “The system uses the car’s sensors to detect challenging road conditions in advance. To this end, the ‘Local Hazard Information Service’ increases active safety for drivers and passengers. We are continuously developing our connectivity services to offer our customers extra safety features and even more convenience.”
Accelerometers and ABS sensors – that measure the acceleration and braking of the car – allow the required data to be captured continuously during each journey. Meanwhile, virtual sensors estimate the friction between the tyres and the road surface based on wheel slip.
The combined data is anonymised and transmitted to the cloud, where aggregated information from all connected vehicles is paired with metadata, such as weather information or previous measurements.
Using the data collected, the road network can be displayed as a precise three-dimensional model, which is used to send alerts to vehicles when they find themselves approaching or within an area with bad road surfaces.
If a connected vehicle encounters icy conditions, for example, the driver will be alerted via the vehicle’s infotainment system based on information acquired by the car itself.
This information is then anonymously transmitted via the Car-to-Cloud application, alerting nearby drivers – the more connected cars that encounter the affected road, the more ‘swarm’ data is produced and the more accurate the maps, information and driver alerts will become.
This swarm intelligence enables precise analysis, helping to build the self-learning system. Over the course of 2021, more than 1.7 million Volkswagen Group vehicles in Europe will supply data, a figure set to rise to more than three million by the end of 2022. By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News
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The Government has announced changes to the HGV driver test in order to free up capacity for 50,000 additional tests per year.
A new streamlined test means drivers will only need to take one test to drive both a rigid and articulated lorry, rather than having to take two separate tests (spaced three weeks apart). This, according to the Government, will make around 20,000 more HGV driving tests available every year and mean drivers can gain their licence and enter the industry more quickly.
Tests will also be made shorter by removing the ‘reversing exercise’ element – and for vehicles with trailers, the ‘uncoupling and recoupling’ exercise – and having it tested separately by a third party. This part of the test is carried out off the road on a manoeuvring area and takes a significant amount of time. Testing such manoeuvres separately will free up examiner time, meaning they can carry out another full test every day.
Car drivers will no longer need to take another test to tow a trailer or caravan, allowing roughly 30,000 more HGV driving tests to be conducted every year.
Car and trailer driving tests will no longer be available after September 20, 2021. The DVLA will update driving licence records automatically. The category B+E will be added to photocard driving licences when they are renewed.
This new legislation is changing previous EU regulations which the UK is no longer obliged to use.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “From Inverness to St Ives, HGV drivers are helping to keep the country running, and have been throughout the pandemic. The shortage of drivers is a global problem, but we’ve been taking action here in the UK to help industry leaders attract drivers and build a more resilient sector.
“We’ve already delivered 50% more tests than were available before the pandemic, but today’s additional measures will deliver up to 50,000 more a year, helping more and more people to kickstart their career as a well-paid HGV driver.”
The changes follow a public consultation over the summer, which saw thousands of respondents, including industry leaders, support the move as a positive step to help the sector tackle the lorry driver shortage currently affecting countries around the world.
The Government says the standard of driving required to drive an HGV will not be affected and any driver who does not demonstrate utmost competence will not be granted a licence.
Ahead of the announcement, RED Driver Risk Management said it believes the move to make it easier for drivers to be allowed to drive specialised vehicles not only smacks of desperation, but undermines the relentless work the driver training industry has put in to make the UK’s roads safer over the years.
Ian McIntosh, CEO of RED Driver Training, explained: “No doubt stung by negative media coverage of empty supermarket shelves, and with driver shortages impacting upon freight distribution in the UK, the Government is seemingly panicked into being seen to do something, rather than actually thinking through the issues these proposals raise.
“For example, removing the need for an additional test for B+E entitlement for drivers to be able to drive car and van trailer combinations is a dangerous step backwards. It will expose more businesses, their employees and other road users to increased risk.”
Figures from the DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency) show that the national pass rate for B+E driving tests was 69.6% in 2019/20 and only 58% for 2020/21. In other words, between 30-42% of people taking this test are unable to demonstrate the minimum standard of driving and competence to tow loaded trailers on the road on at least their first attempt.
Matt Hammond, head of fleet at M Group Services, said: “Whilst the overhaul will increase the capacity for HGV tests it doesn’t answer the underlying issue surrounding how HGV drivers are perceived and treated. The issue might be associated with Brexit and Covid but in reality, the issue of drivers leaving the profession has been one that supersedes both of these events.
“Why would anyone want a career that takes them away from home for up to 5 nights each week, expected to park in lay-bys or at best, poor service stations with limited facilities and having to pay top dollar for the privilege. We as an industry need to rethink how we treat our drivers and the expectations we put in them.
“Only then will new drivers want to come into the profession.” By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News
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A guide to everything you need to know about speeding, from fines to the cameras the police use.
There was a time when fixed and average speed cameras didn’t exist, and the most likely way of accruing endorsements (now better known as penalty points) on your licence was to miss seeing the local policeman pointing a ‘speed gun’ at your car as you edged above the posted limit. Those days have long since passed, and the rise in digital technology now means that drivers are faced with a plethora of different roadside devices.
How can I be caught speeding?
There are a variety of different speed-detecting technologies on British roads today. Here are the most common.
Truvelo
All speed cameras have to be coloured bright yellow by law and the Truvelo is no exception. Most commonly mounted on a pole at the side of a single or dual carriageway, the Truvelo uses a front-facing camera to record your speed, backed up by a matrix of small squares painted on the road. (Secondary evidence of speed is required with all fixed-position cameras.)
While images of motorcycle numberplates can be tricky to capture, due to their lack of front registrations, the Truvelo can identify drivers of other vehicles, adding a further layer of evidence if a prosecution is disputed. More recently, a Truvelo D-Cam has been launched for motorway applications, with front- and rear-facing capabilities.
Gatso
The name that most of us are familiar with, the Gatso first graced our road scene in 1991 and is a rear-facing camera, meaning that it records your vehicle after it’s passed the camera unit, with two images taken in quick succession. Like the Travelo, the images are supported by secondary evidence of speed provided by painted ‘dashes’ on the road surface. These dashes may be found on both sides of the road next to the camera, but the Gatso will only record your speed in the direction in which it is facing.
SPECS
SPECS (average speed check cameras and speed enforcement) units measure your speed over a set distance, via two banks of cameras. Most commonly found through roadworks, or where there is a lower than normal speed limit, they use automatic numberplate recognition (ANPR) to identify vehicles. As you pass the first set of cameras, your vehicle’s details are recorded, and if your average speed before reaching the second cameras is above a set threshold, a notice of intended prosecution (NIP) will be automatically generated. (See below.)
HADECS 3
The catchily named Highways Agency Digital Enforcement Camera System 3, or HADECS 3 for short, is most commonly found on smart motorways, mounted on the overhead gantries that carry variable speed limit alerts. The camera’s limited use of yellow cladding and the fact that it is a fraction of a Gatso/Travelo’s size mean that it can be easily missed, especially if you’re travelling at 70mph. HADECS 3 is rear facing, and once again it uses painted dashes on the road as secondary evidence of a vehicle’s speed. It also adapts to posted, mandatory speed limits that can vary depending on road conditions.
Mobile speed camera units
It’s not uncommon for the police to monitor vehicle speeds at known accident hotspots using mobile units – quite literally, vehicles with miniature Gatso cameras pointing through their rear windows. These are often found parked in laybys or above dual-carriageway or motorway bridges and have a range of up to one mile. The police also have access to handheld radar- and laser-controlled devices that can be used at a variety of locations.
How will I know if I’ve been caught speeding?
If you’ve been caught speeding with a hand-held device, or one installed in a moving police car, you could be asked to stop there and then. In this case, the police have two options: they can either give you a verbal warning and send you on your way, or they can issue you with a fixed penalty notice (FPN). But if you’ve been caught speeding by a remote device, the registered keeper of the vehicle will receive a notice of intended prosecution (NIP) and section 172 notice by post within 14 days of the offence. The section 172 notice then has to be returned within 28 days, providing details of the driver who committed the offence. A fixed penalty notice (FPN) will then be issued to the driver, or if the offence is deemed serious enough, a court summons.
What kind of penalty can I expect?
If you receive an FPN, you can either plead guilty or not guilty to the offence, with each decision triggering its own process. A guilty plea will generally carry a fixed £100 fine and three points added to your licence. Depending upon where you were caught speeding, there will be different ways to pay the fine, which can be found here.
However, you may be offered the option of paying instead for a speed awareness course (typically costing a similar amount to the fine itself), which will avoid the addition of points to your licence. Certain caveats exist, though. The police will decide if it’s appropriate to your offence (so it tends to be offered for more minor transgressions).
And it will only be offered if you’ve not been on such a course in the past three years. It’s also worth noting that not all police authorities run speed awareness courses, so this option is by no means a given.
The situation becomes more complex if you plead not guilty, though. Of course, if you’re convinced of your innocence, then it’s the right and proper course of action and it will probably involve a trip to court. But if you lose your case, you could be fined more and receive more penalty points.
Excess speed bands and your weekly income make up the fine
In 2017, the speeding penalty system was overhauled, with larger fines for drivers charged with excessive speed. If you are prosecuted in court, the amount you are fined and number of points you receive (or the disqualification period) will firstly be determined by the speed you were travelling over the posted limit, as shown here.
But as you can see from the last line, the actual fine is ‘personalised’ depending on your average gross weekly income.
For example, based on a driver earning the UK average income (2020-21) of £29,600:
Speeding at 81-90mph in a 60mph zone = £428-£713 fine plus 4-6 penalty points
Speeding at 66mph+ in a 40mph zone = £713-£998 fine plus 6 penalty points
There are a further three bands (D, E and F) that deal with more extreme transgressions, which may include excessive speed where the driver is: on bail; has existing convictions; in charge of a large vehicle; heavy load; towing; carrying passengers; driving through a heavily pedestrianised area.
It’s also worth noting that if you’ve only held a full driving licence for less than two years, it will be revoked if you reach six or more penalty points.
On the upside, mitigating factors, such as it being a first offence, or being of ‘good character’, may help reduce the fine and penalty. The court may even take into account speeding for a genuine emergency.
Either way, under any circumstances, there is a £1000 fine cap for all speeding offences, apart from those committed on motorways, where it increases to £2500.
How many points do I need before I lose my licence?
Even less serious speeding offences can cause you to lose your licence. If you accrue 12 or more penalty points in a three year period – potentially four minimum-fine/points offences – you could end up with a six-month ban. And this could have further repercussions. If you’re disqualified for 56 days or more (see also the more serious single-offence bans, above) you’ll need to apply for a new licence, and this may even entail retaking your driving test.
How will speeding penalties affect my car insurance?
Insurers will generally regard drivers who’ve accrued penalty points for any offence – including speeding – as a higher risk and will likely impose a higher premium as a result. While penalty points for speeding are generally only valid for three years as far as totting up endorsements and a potential ban goes, they remain visible on your licence for four years. Most insurance companies will ask you to declare any motoring offences in the past five years, and if you withhold information, it could affect a future claim, so it’s important to be honest when searching for new quotes.
Top 10 speeding trivia
Would you be surprised if we told you that the world’s first speeding fine was issued in the UK? Well, it was. Driving his new Benz, Walter Arnold was nabbed at four times the national speed limit in Paddock Wood, Kent.
That the limit was just 2mph and the year, 1896, explains a lot. To make matters worse for Arnold, he was reprimanded for not having a red flag waver walking in front of him, too.
And from one extreme to another… The UK’s fastest speeder was caught in 2015 travelling at 192mph in a Nissan GTR. A 28-month custodial sentence followed and Northamptonshire police banned him from driving for 10 years.
But you don’t need anything exotic to get your collar felt. In 2003, an off-duty policeman was caught driving his unmarked Vauxhall Vectra at 159mph on the M54.
It wouldn’t have been as much as the hapless Swiss driver had to shell out, though, after he hit 85mph in a 50mph zone driving his Ferrari Testarossa. Swiss authorities base fines on your financial worth, and with £14.1 million in the bank, this driver ended up with a £180,000 ticket.
But that was nothing compared with another Swiss millionaire who managed 180mph on local roads in his Mercedes-AMG SLS and set a new speeding fine world record at $1,001,400 (£727,166).
Both the above would have got away with it if they’d come to the Isle of Man, where no speed limits apply (although dangerous/careless driving is still an offence, as is breaching local speed limits through built-up areas). Other speed-limit-free havens are Germany’s autobahns (for now) and Australia’s Northern Territories.
But not Dubai. Driving a rented Lamborghini Huracán, a British tourist managed to trigger 33 speed cameras while joyriding through its downtown area, generating $48,000 (£34,847) in speeding fines, before fleeing the country and leaving the rental company to sort out the mess.
If you live near Bristol, though, it takes only one speed camera to extract mega-sums in fines. A camera positioned on the city’s M32 motorway captures on average 50 speeding drivers each day, and over a three-year period relieved them of £5.7m.
Showing slightly more lenience, Poland has the highest speed limits in Europe, at 140km/h (87mph), and in the US, Texas’s Highway 130 allows 85mph before fines are imposed. But the world’s highest speed limit is 160km/h, or, tantalisingly, 99.4mph, in the UAE.
But like it or not, speed cameras in the UK are now part of our motoring life, and with 7000 of them positioned around the country, only Russia, Italy and Brazil have more on their roads. By Graham Hill thanks to Autocar
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The Office of Road and Rail (ORR) has published a new report that backs up claims by National Highways that smart motorways are the safest roads in the country in terms of fatalities.
‘Smart’ or ‘all-lane running’ (ALR) motorways have been under the microscope since 2019, when it was revealed that National Highways (formerly Highways England) had not fully investigated the dangers of removing the hard shoulder.
Following a BBC Panorama investigation in 2020, which found 38 people had been killed in collisions due to stranded vehicles in live lanes during a five-year period, the Government outlined a series of measures to improve ALR motorway safety costing £500 million.
A year on, Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State for Transport, commissioned a Progress Report from National Highways to set out progress on those actions, and to develop proposals about how several of them can be accelerated, going above and beyond what was originally committed to.
The Progress Report, published in April 2021, showed that fatal casualties are less likely on all lane running motorways than on conventional ones.
Shapps made a request to the ORR to undertake quality assurance of the data and evidence underpinning the conclusions arrived at regarding all lane running (ALR) motorways.
The ORR report found no errors in underlying calculations and says the comparisons about the relative safety of ALR motorways were “made in an appropriate way”.
It did highlight some issues in the tools used to underpin risk modelling that National Highways should address and made some some further recommendations to deepen the use of comparisons and enhance the understanding of risk exposure.
Shapps said: “The ORR’s report contains several recommendations for improvement that will strengthen our understanding of road safety. National Highways have agreed to all its recommendations and developed an action plan in response which is already underway.
“My commission for assurance into smart motorway safety data by the ORR is another step towards improving road safety and instilling public confidence in the safety of our roads, which make a crucial contribution to economic and social development in this country.”
Edmund King, AA president, added: “We are pleased that this further analysis of the performance of ‘smart’ motorways has been made public.
“The ORR report shows that there was a ‘limited amount of data available’, so it is perhaps difficult to fully evaluate the performance of ‘smart’ motorways, hence it will be essential to have continuous monitoring and evaluation.
“We believe that controlled motorways with a hard-shoulder are the safest option and for other stretches, installing more emergency laybys on the existing network, in our view, will help improve both safety and driver confidence.
“Analysis shows that the forecast benefits have not been realised in some places, resulting in slower journey times, lower speeds and lower levels of economic benefit compared to assumptions.”
One in 10 drivers think it’s perfectly acceptable to answer a video call while they are driving, new research has found.
And worryingly, almost half think it’s fine to use their mobile phone while behind the wheel while seven percent admit to catching up with their favourite shows on long journeys, new research from dash cam company Nextbase has found.
Last year, a survey conducted by leasing company Venson Automotive Solutions highlighted a fall in driving standards as an increasing number of drivers headed back out on to the road.
On its latest findings, Nextbase head of road safety Bryn Booker said: “The continued use of technology while driving is worrisome, and the latest regulations are looking to crack down on these driving behaviours in order to further reduce the risk for road traffic incidents.”
The research of more than 1,000 drivers also found that 11% still believe it is fine to get behind the wheel after having a drink if ‘you feel fine to drive’.
Further research on bad driving habits picked up during lockdown revealed that 61% of UK drivers believe they are ‘Covid Drivers’, one in five (22%) said they now steer one-handed, 12% confessed to getting easily distracted when driving, while 15% said they drive far too quickly.
Company drivers should be made fully aware of new regulations that have come into force since the pandemic, the company says.
One of the new laws means it is illegal for anyone to pick up and use their mobile phone while driving, this also applies to scrolling through a playlist or using social media.
It also raises the question around using a mobile phone as a sat-nav, drivers must set the route before turning on their cars and turning on their engine. Setting a destination while driving could cost incur six penalty points and a £200 fine. By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News
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