speeding cars kill.

[RAINBOWRUSSELL]

Firstly I will say I was a white woman driver for many years..well pink & white actually & I always drove watching the verges constantly!I once hit a bird blackbird with worms in its beak,obviously feeding young,she was in the road so I stopped at my own risk went & picked her up,moved her to the side of the road & then she flew off,but left in the road would have been killed.
Sadly late one night I hit a badger.Still crying as I type this even after nearly a year.It came running out of the hedge straight under the wheel,didn't even see it but heard a thud,stopped & went back,but sadly it was breathing its last,stayed with it saying sorry,and then gently moved it onto the verge opposite.I was driving at 50 on the A35 at 3 in the morning,I couldn't have prevented it because I will swerve to avoid anything.
We live down a very small lane,and did in our last property,but we too often see dead badgers & rabbits in places where they must have been running down the lane so the person must have been able to see them,breaks my heart,we stop & move them into a field rather than leave them on the road.I also try to avoid hitting a dead creature on the road if I can!I also sadly saw a collie lying on the verge,turned the van round and went back,the owners had just turned up,they had been out looking for her all night,elderly couple & they said she was the last pet they would even own due to thier age,that really broke my heart!I never had children so animals are special to me if I can care for them in some way,but saying all that,please remember that not all road deaths are the drivers faults,but I wish there was a 20mph restriction on our lane & a penalty for anyone seen to hit something on purpose!Reminds me of that chap who was putting bricks in the skins of hedgehogs.....good on him,as they were in the gutters & people still tried to hit them!!

[Dutchess]

So very sorry to hear of your losses, adamh and Caaatt I can totally empathise, having lost two cats this way myself. The last one was knocked down two years ago at 6am on a bright, spring Monday morning, just outside my house, on what should be (at that hour) a quiet residential route. Yes, it's a rat-run at busy times, and so traffic calming measures have been put into place. Unfortunately, the road is half a mile long and they only put these to half way up the hill! I live near the top, on a bend, and it is here where the motorists have time to speed up (after negotiating the obstacles further down) and step on the gas to reach the top! It's my guess this is how my cat met his death, he was bright ginger and would have been clearly visible and I do wonder what the outcome would have been, if that car had been travelling more slowly...

We were once, as residents, asked if we wanted the speed humps to continue all the way up, I of course answered "yes" to this, but nothing ever came of it. It seems ridiculous that the lower part is straight and traffic can clearly be seen, yet nearer the top there is this blind bend and no measures taken to slow cars down Sometimes I wonder what the heck the planners are thinking when they decide where to put these so-called traffic calmers...

Btw Mike, I also live in Hastings.

D.

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by Dutchess

We were once, as residents, asked if we wanted the speed humps to continue all the way up, I of course answered "yes" to this, but nothing ever came of it.

As I mentioned earlier, speed humps are coming under criticism for giving major problems to ambulance drivers. The last thing you'd want if you were smashed up in a road accident, it to be bounced around in the back of an ambulance! They are of particular concern when transporting spinal injuries.

Jim

[nightshade]

There is another side to this coin, the very very slow politically correct drivers
that drive seriously under the speed limit and slow normal temperate drivers
down to a frustrating crawl. They creep away from traffic lights that are timed to allow 12 cars through before changing so that only 5 get through,other people with things to do and places to go in the real world then try tomake up time and that is where the "speeding motorist" comes from, it is just the mild mannered clerk or gentle young girl pushed to speed up by the frustration of being forced to a speed limit of the "PC drivers"choosing not the one set by law
These PC drivers create a knock on effect in all our towns and cities

[Dutchess]

Agreed, Nightshade. These drivers make even "normal" ones take unnecessary risks at times, it can be very frustating!

D,

[SheffieldLass]

It is sad for pet owners if they do lose their animals on the roads, and also distressing for those who inadvertently hit any animal. But pet owners should know they are putting their animals lives at risk if they let them roam free. They should also be aware that they risking causing accidents and death to people if they let their animals stray onto roads, as many people will swerve instinctively to avoid them and may lose control, hit oncoming vehicles, trees, walls etc. And these people may be driving sensibly within speed limits. We can't do much about wild animals (except provide under-road passageways etc). And sheep are notorious for finding the smallest gaps and getting onto roads.

Originally Posted by nightshade

There is another side to this coin, the very very slow politically correct drivers
that drive seriously under the speed limit and slow normal temperate drivers
down to a frustrating crawl.

I wonder if you'd class me as one of them ... I'm a stickler for speed limits. I certainly don't crawl along, but I don't speed either. And I do drive according to the road conditions, something that many do not do, they seem to think that the speed limit is the required minimum speed whatever the conditions ... And I do try to keep the safe braking distance between me and the car in front. I love the section of the M1 where it is marked on the roads, to check your distance ... suddenly the cars get much more spaced apart as people think about it. Then bit by bit they close up again as they forget, and switch to their old patterns.

It is amazing how many frustrated drivers you get behind yourself if you are doing 39mph in a 40mph limit area ... or 30mph in a 30 mph area. Or, in rural areas if you drop down to the required speed through villages ... you can see certain drivers getting quite red in the face because you are in front and doing what you are legally required to do. And I refuse to get intimidated by them when they drive aggressively right up your backside to try to force you to do the illegal speed they want to do. If you do 70 mph on the motorway, just watch how many cars are overtaking you, and just how many are doing more than 60mph on the likes of the non-dual carriageway parts of the A1. I suspect there are many 1000s of drivers regularly and deliberately breaking the speed limit to every 'politically correct' driver. In fact I can't remember when I last came across a 'politically correct' driver ... an elderly person doing a local trip to the shops, yes, who drives according to their limitations ... quite a few tractors ... a few lorry drivers who drive appropriately on winding lanes. And yes, quite a few who do diligently adjust their speeds to keep within the speed limit.

It is also interesting how people want speed curb measures on the road outside their homes, but hate them on other roads, where they see them as a nuisance ..

Melanie

[Paul mabbott]

Why 'politically correct'? This is about safety and about the law. We expect this sort of rubbish use of words from the Daily Mail but I don't see why it should be tolerated here. [In Daily Mailspeak 'politically correct' apparently means 'anything I don't agree with'! ]

Originally Posted by nightshade

There is another side to this coin, the very very slow politically correct drivers
that drive seriously under the speed limit and slow normal temperate drivers
down to a frustrating crawl. They creep away from traffic lights that are timed to allow 12 cars through before changing so that only 5 get through,other people with things to do and places to go in the real world then try tomake up time and that is where the "speeding motorist" comes from, it is just the mild mannered clerk or gentle young girl pushed to speed up by the frustration of being forced to a speed limit of the "PC drivers"choosing not the one set by law
These PC drivers create a knock on effect in all our towns and cities

[Paul mabbott]

The problem is that a lot of motorists think they have a right to drive quickly (and dangerously in other ways) and have little concern for animals (including pedestrian and cycling humans).
The only way to stop these people is to remove the opportunity - all vehicles should be fitted with speed reduction devices so that cars &c are automatically slowed to 20 mph in built up areas and whatever is locally appropriate elsewhere (thus allowing for ad hoc speed restrictions in wet, foggy conditions or because of crashes &c). It goes without saying that no car should be allowed to exceed the national speed limit.
Not only would this save a lot of lives but would reduce carbon dioxide production massively.
This will only happen if people like you press for it at all levels of politics ...
this might be the time to do it with the car industry in a sorry state!

Originally Posted by adamh

i hope this is the right forum for help:
I want to know how i can make a difference to a problem of cars speeding, i know its apparent everywhere in the u.k. to be specific i live in herstmonceux, a village in east sussex. I've not always been in the country, i was brought up in a north london suburb, village life is a little more better than living in the city, less noise, less anger, less people keeping you up until 6am!. i guess we all get older and less tolerable, lucky for some to get old?.

The small estate we now live on, in the tiniest of 2 bedroom flats , is probably about a quarter mile square, its an average type housing estate with a main road running right through it. The A271.

The reason for me writing today....

Today my young cat passed on. She was just gone a year and everything a normal person could want that makes life beautiful, i mean we were blessed to have her, really, we are as a race lucky that animals like cats and dogs do not run off from our sometimes thoughtless nature.

every single animal i come across in the house or at work i let it crawl on me, then i let it outside to be free and have a life, flys/bees/wasps/spiders/ants, cricket , roach anything. Directly I will help all I can, I have taken a pigeon to the vets before now which was sick, most would just walk on by. I have stopped many times before now to pick up dead animals off the road, last memorable experience was in the bucketing rain by the lamb Inn in wartling, some one had run over a badger, not much left of it, a bloody mess, and obviously just drove off, left it in the middle of the road dead. It was bucketing down, i mean visibility was almost zero. why did the person not have the guts to just stop, pick it up and at least put it to the side of the road to rest in peace, i mean.. just leave it there?.


Upon turning the car around I then stopped in the middle of the road, took out a blanket from the boot, put it over the dead badger, rolled it in the blanket, lifted it up. it weighed an absolute ton, then i climbed the steep embankment and put it to rest by a log on the verge on the other side of the very small embankments / road. and made sure it was covered with the white sheet, i envisaged while moving it, if it has a spirit it may be happy to have gotten to the log on the verge on the other side, some compensation hardly.. but a simple gesture what i could do with what i had to hand

The animal deserved the respect at the very very least i say, to be frank they deserve alot more than we give them.

Today someone else picked up my own beloved animal from the roadside and took it in to a lady close by to help, by that time she was allready passed on, apparently, the vauxhall zafira people carrier , 56 reg, didnt even stop, funny, he must have been a deaf driver to not hear a thud and look in the mirror to see a cat flying through the air. A guy from a local car dealership witnessed the accident while showing a car to a customer. He kindly went and picked up my cat, took it to a lovely local lady who called in a vet, this all happened at 10 a.m she was said to have been killed on impact. I found out after a 5 o clock finish at work.


The person that handed my cat in said the vehicle that she collided with was tearing down the small estate road (fiennes road) heading for the main road, breaking the speed limit or not, there was a distinct ring to the way the person said "the car was absolutely tearing down the road".

Do people forget that not only animals , but children and people live on these estates.. why do they seem to forget what danger they put everything else in, apart from one thing...... 'themselves'. mr/mrs zafira driver i am glad that the airbag didnt pop out and mark your face, or cost you some money to fix, please do send me the bill, I will pay.

i'm even more angry than I was before now, heartbroken and mortified of my bereavement of course, but I guess bieng a car driver myself i am half to blame for my poor animals trajic accident.

I do try to drive with my eyes on the verges to look our for rabbits/foxes, anything! having said that i dont feel any better!,
i am just looking for a way to get my local council to enforce speed on the housing estate, can anyone help me? do i constrcut some kind of petetion?

it just cannot go on like this!,
people tearing through estates in vehicles, where animals which look to us for protection have no chance at-all when a callous motorist decides he or she has the right to drive fast enough to endanger all but themselves. i mean, we do not get to teach animals the green cross code or warn them of the people that use the road, not the road or the cars, but the people that use them.

so how can i make a difference, how do i get sleeping policeman put it to the estate roads?, what do i ask for at the council? im not very political im afraid, i dont read the newspapers, dont vote, im not perfect by far'! but am keen now to try and help reduce road accidents, even if just on the land with which animals are enticed to share with us.

thanks for reading, and thanks for helping if you can.

[Dutchess]

Melanie and Paul, fair points - and I agree with you both.

But I for one thought Nightshade was referring to the motorists who travel significantly under the speed limit, even when conditions allow the maximum to be safely reached, thus frustrating other road users?

(Sorry if I got this wrong! )

Cheers,

D.

[Paul mabbott]

What is 'significantly ...' though? People should be driving at the speed at which they feel comfortable and safe; and if that's 10mph below the limit then why not? Clearly, if someone likea to travel at 5mph then they might consider walking, or getting a bike!

I'm afraid that some motorists have a very arrogant attitude to other road users: "I would be driving at 45mph [or whatever] so why shouldn't everyone else!". Cyclists note this more than motorists: some drivers will simply not wait for a safe area to overtake but do all sorts of dangerous things. The road was made for them apparently and if others drive differently they should get out of the way!

Originally Posted by Dutchess

.......But I for one thought Nightshade was referring to the motorists who travel significantly under the speed limit, even when conditions allow the maximum to be safely reached, thus frustrating other road users?

(Sorry if I got this wrong! )

Cheers,

D.