Safer Roads UK

Summary The current legislation against using a phone while driving is wholly unfit for purpose. Police should no longer have to prove that a driver was using the phone for an interactive communication function. Mobile phone legislation should be amended so that merely holding the phone or any other kind of distracting device attracts the same Fixed Penalty of £200 and 6 points. The exact use to which the phone or device was being put should no longer be a point to prove for the police and should not result in a differentiation of penalty. This will open the door to more efficient and robust enforcement by the police and upcoming automated static camera detection systems to root out the highly dangerous smartphone epidemic many a British driver seems to be affected by. A High Court judgement on this legislation has confirmed that the law is indeed inadequate, where a driver was prosecuted for using his phone to photograph the scene of a collision while driving was acquitted (DPP v B...

Summary The Government and the Department for Transport should completely overhaul the legislation surrounding speeding offences. A framework similar to the one I set out in Table 2 (image below) should be adopted. Different severities of speeding should attract different types of (fixed) penalties, with differing ranges of penalty points, disqualification and maximum fines. Minor speeding offences should not be penalised as harshly as they are now. The more serious speeding offences should carry higher maximum penalties and obligatory disqualification terms. It should be made it clear in law when speeding becomes dangerous driving. Police should be given on-the-spot powers to seize vehicles for the more serious speeding offences to provide a highly effective, immediate deterrent, similar to insurance and driving licence offences. Table 2: Introduction Following up on my post about National Speed Limits being unfit for purpose , this post examines the current speeding ...

This is the first actual content-filled post! If you missed the introduction, catch up on it here. In this post, I'll be examining one of the most touched on aspects of road safety: speed limits. With excessive or inappropriate speed being a factor in 15% of road traffic collisions resulting in death as well as the unavoidable laws of physics, it goes without speaking that controlling the speed of traffic plays a huge part in improving road safety. National Speed Limits and why they are no longer fit for purpose Ever since the various national speed limits were set in the 1960s, there has been plenty of debate about them being too high or too low. Perhaps unsurprisingly, too - the offence of speeding was the first time middle and upper-class people got into trouble with the police at the time. The scepticism they showed towards the effectiveness of speed limits seems to have transferred over to the next generations. In case you need reminding, the current national speed limit...

Why hello there! Welcome to my new blog on road safety in the United Kingdom. I'm Albo1125, known as a YouTuber focussing on roleplaying the emergency services and avid GTA5 modder. I've always been particularly interested in the many aspects of road safety and roads policing, as well as the UK justice system and Department for Transport. In this blog, I'll be highlighting some of my perceived problems and shortcomings and offer solutions and improvements I myself see as being particularly favourable. This will be based on statistical evidence, experiences from other countries as well as a touch of personal opinion. While the Department for Transport (DfT) love claiming the UK has some of the safest roads in the world in just about every press release they put out, that's just about the only good news they've been able to offer in recent years. Road deaths and serious injuries in the UK are on the rise and the Government are among those heavily criticized for thi...