I have children who are now approaching, or have approached large independence milestones. By the time I was my eldest's age (no just in high school [11-13 years old]) I knew of at least one kid from my school (a school of 55) who had died in a road accident.
By the time I had left sixth form (18), two other people from my high school had died in RTAs and two others had life changing injuries.
Granted this was rural east of england, so the roads were/are more dangerous.
However those last crashes triggered changes to the layout of the roads where they happened. This wasn't some line painting thing either, complete junction change from a y junction to a roundabout with re-grade of the road to improve visibility.
Much as it pisses me off, speed cameras, bumps and "low" speed limits are almost always a reaction to road deaths.
All of this means that my kids, who go to a much bigger school (500 and 1500 respectively) have not lost people they know to road crashes.
objectively kids are much much safer outside than any 80s kids. Yet, for whatever reason we don't think thats the case.
graemep · 2h ago
> By the time I had left sixth form (18), two other people from my high school had died in RTAs and two others had life changing injuries.
I think your experience is extremely unlucky. I went to a school in London (in the 80s) with around a 1,000 kids from 8 to 18 and there was one road death, and two injuries, all in the same accident, in all the time i was there. I did not know the buy who died personally, although i knew
one of the others who was in the car.
I agree with you about the improvements in general. I do think the 20mph limits where I now live (and in some other places) seem a bit random, and there are some difficult A road junctions that I think the really could do with lower limits or other improvements that do not have them.
Absolutely true that kids are objectively much safer, but people have grown fearful. I wonder whether being safer has made people less tolerant of risk more than risks have diminished. Its common to hear arguments that anything that might save even one life is worth doing.
KaiserPro · 2h ago
> I think your experience is extremely unlucky
You're probably right on that.
I'm in a london suburb now as well, which may also has something to do with it. I think the big difference is that there isn't anywhere where you can drive on to a 70mph road in the dark without a long merging lane.
> I do think the 20mph limits where I now live (and in some other places) seem a bit random,
I don't mind them being random so much, but what I hate is that they dont (or didn't) put repeater speed limit signs in 20mph zones. They normally put the signs on the road at junctions, where I'm looking for other dangers (pedestrians/cyclists and other cars)
So its fairly easy to either be dawdling in 30 or doing point/fine incurring speeds in a 20
orwin · 2h ago
Rural and metro areas, especially before traffic calming mesures of the last 20 years, were very different. I'm not from the UK, but in Brittany, everybody know of a schoolmate who died from traffic (especially since you have one high-school for like 15 towns, so in a way, you're schoolmate with half the kids in your area)
CalRobert · 3h ago
Similarly, Ireland has seen a massive drop in road deaths, but one problem is that a lot of that improvement came from removing vulnerable road users - the kids biking and walking to school, etc are now much more likely to be in a car. (The US is similar - biking or walking to primary school was once the norm). Similarly you’d have zero drownings if you threw sharks in every pool. I do wish we could acknowledge that a lot of the improvement in road “safety” was a result of people just removing themselves from places where cars are.
closewith · 2h ago
No, that’s not true. Walking and cycling did decline, but risk per kilometre for has also fallen sharply (by approximately 50%) over the same period. Vulnerable road users are safer now than they ever were, despite similar actual numbers using the road network due to population growth and profile.
So the “sharks in the pool” analogy is absurd. Everyone is safer, including the most vulnerable road users, so a better analogy is the road network has changed from shark-infested seas to a managed watercourse with swimmers, surfers, and boaters are seeing vastly fewer deaths or injuries.
DaiPlusPlus · 3h ago
From the footer:
> Our World in Data is a project of Global Change Data Lab, a nonprofit based in the UK (Reg. Charity No. 1186433).
I'm a Brit too, but this article felt a bit too self-congratulatory given I've read other recent reports about other places (cites, regions, and entire countries) with overall safer roads; kinda like how we love to tell everyone how chuffed we are with how safe our AC plugs are.
JimDabell · 3h ago
The article starts off with a graph showing the UK has 2 deaths per 100k people, with Norway, Malta, Singapore, and Sweden at 1.9. It then finishes by saying:
> If every country could lower its rates to those of the UK, Sweden, or Norway, this number would be just under 200,000. We’d save one million lives every year.
The article wasn’t making the case that the UK is the absolute best, it was discussing what the UK did to change from being unsafe to much safer.
louthy · 1h ago
> kinda like how we love to tell everyone how chuffed we are with how safe our AC plugs are.
I never see Brits saying this. Only people from other nations.
Our AC plugs are, however, the safest design on the planet.
I think if these guys are honest about their numbers - and the main number they're calling out is a 22-fold decline in road deaths per mile driven in the last 75 years, which is remarkable - and shows those other safer regions in their comparisons, what is the problem?
zik · 3h ago
> Our AC plugs are, however, the safest design on the planet.
Not if you step on them with bare feet - those things are worse than LEGO. They could punch through a horse's hoof.
PaulRobinson · 3h ago
Don't leave them unplugged. The standard requires all modern sockets to have switches, so there is no reason to have the plugs lying around on the floor.
chrismustcode · 3h ago
I’ve never had an experience in any house or office where there’s been enough sockets to leave everything plugged.
goopypoop · 3h ago
they are also really tough to swallow
marliechiller · 3h ago
why are you stepping on them?
robertlagrant · 3h ago
Sometimes you've just got to put your foot down.
throwaway290 · 3h ago
because sometimes you unplug it and leave it around. unless you live like a king sometimes there is 2 sockets and you have 5 devices to plug at different times. european and other ones will be on the side so stepping on it is no problem but uk ones will be the pointy end up
That’s a nice reminder that they should be respected. Not left lying around.
rgblambda · 2h ago
>kinda like how we love to tell everyone how chuffed we are with how safe our AC plugs are.
I would actually love to see some data that compares total deaths and injuries per capita from electrocution from plugs across different countries. I have a feeling the total worldwide figures are tiny in comparison to injuries from stepping barefoot/putting your knee on UK plugs.
Also, UK plugs tend to have the wire coming out the bottom and then curving upwards as the electrical device is usually above the socket, over time resulting in an exposed wire, while most other plugs have the wire coming out the centre.
zelos · 3h ago
It would be more interesting to compare the rates of serious injury (including death), I think. That would remove the effect of improvements in medical treatement over time.
rich_sasha · 1h ago
UK is extremely risk-averse. In the case of road safety, it shows: a lot of time and cash goes into minimising deaths.
This is not only road users: roadworks have restrictive speed limits, which are not taken down when there is no workforce out, to minimise risk to workers setting and unsetting limits, traffic cones etc. Things that in other countries would close a lane often close the whole road, again because of risks to road users and maintenance people.
This is of course great, but also very expensive - and I cannot shake the feeling that the UK loses so much money on this risk aversion that is actually causes more hazard due to underinvestment elsewhere. NHS is crumbling, the very safe roads take forever to navigate, introducing inefficiencies and starving the central budget of cash. GDP per capita has barely grown since 2008. Even a small annual boost would unlock a lot of cash for investment, in particular into NHS and saving lives.
It's like putting all your pension investments into bonds, because they are safer. But you swap market risk for the risk of not having enough cash when you retire.
But maybe it's easy to have this perspective because I have a desk job and commute by public transport.
louthy · 54m ago
Seems a rather tenuous link to the state of the NHS. The UK has a lower tax regime than most equivalent nations. If we wanted a better NHS we could just collect similar tax rates to that of Germany or other western nations.
One of the issues is we’re trapped with a media ecosystem that won’t even allow progressive parties to say “we’ll take a bit more in tax and in return you’ll get a functioning health service”, instead they feel they have to promise to run the economy like the Tories (which is mind numbing).
It’s not just the recent Labour election I’m referring to. The first time Blair got in it was the same.
As somebody who has driven in a few places around the World, I would say that overall the standard of driving and safety is remarkably high in the UK given that the road layouts are often quite confusing (we have roads in use today from Roman, Saxon, Norman, Medieval, Tudor and more modern phases of development, so it can get confusing), and the level of signage around some confusing layouts is much lower than, say, California.
This is because the rules are more complex, but actually get a license is, too. There are plenty of bad drivers, there are still idiots who drink/take drugs/use their mobile phones while driving, but it's way, way less than in some other parts of the World. And the rules of the road are broadly followed in terms of lane discipline and right of way in a way that they aren't in much of Europe or elsewhere.
I sometimes wish that we had clearer lane signage in some parts of the road network, like that seen in the US, but overall, once you get it, it's all very straightforward.
rkomorn · 3h ago
Getting my driver's license in France required 20 hours of instruction by an accredited driving school.
Getting my license in the US (CA and NJ) required... showing up with my own car.
And in New Jersey, they even forgot to make me take the actual driving test.
baud147258 · 2h ago
20 hours? You were a quick one, that took me close to 40. Though I never was a very good driver, the car I crashed can attest to that (and thankfully with no corporal damage other than a bruised ego).
rkomorn · 2h ago
20 hours was the mandatory (minimum) amount. I think I did around 25.
CalRobert · 3h ago
Confusing roads are safer though, it forces drivers to pay more attention
piker · 3h ago
More importantly, it selects against a lot of nervous, disabled, young, drunk and other bad drivers.
CalRobert · 3h ago
Yeah, better to be confused and drive in to a ditch at 20 mph than confident and t-bone a family at 50.
Not sure what you mean about disabled?
If nothing else a confusing road will get drivers to put the goddamn phone down.
piker · 2h ago
By disabled I mean, for example, my father has polio and has driven his entire life in the US but would be unable to do so physically in the UK because of the demands the civil engineering would impose on him here.
closewith · 2h ago
To be honest, that sounds like he's not safe to drive in the US either.
piker · 2h ago
He had one accident in almost 60 years of driving, so I think he'd be on the safe end of human statistics. But then again, what human is safe to drive?
[Edit: I should note that he's stopped driving over the last couple of years.]
piker · 2h ago
As an American who drove for 20 years before obtaining a license in the UK, I can offer some observations.
First, driving in the UK is much more a privilege than a right as in the US. You can live a complete life in the UK without a license because of the wide availability of public transit. In the US however, if you want to maintain a steady job outside of NYC, Chicago, DC, Boston or perhaps a few others, you'll have to drive. Revoking a driver's license in the US can be life-altering in a way that it just won't in the UK. Fewer people bother getting the license and fewer still drive.
Second, driving is much more physically and mentally demanding in the UK. Perhaps that serves to reduce traffic deaths by forcing focus, but it also imposes a limit on the types of people who can drive here. This selects against too young, too old, too small, disabled, etc. in a way that would not be tolerated in the US for the above reasons.
Third, annual vehicle inspections are much more stringent in the UK which takes a lot of older vehicles off the road and again selects against those of lower socio-economic status in a way that would be unconscionable in the US.
robk · 2h ago
I don't know I'm the same and find being in the valley more stressful than the drive to wembley from central London. More taxing mentally to have insane people passing you at 100mph. The licensing is harder but still was a one shot 5 hour prep thing for me.
hazzamanic · 3h ago
I wonder if there will be a reversal in pedestrian deaths with the rise in larger cars. I live in a large UK city and it is mad the number of SUVs you see driving around.
iainmerrick · 2h ago
Yes, I really have a hard time understanding that trend.
More than just the overall sizes of the cars (and they are big) it's those very high, flat fronts. That surely must be bad for visibility and bad for fuel efficiency at speed. I can only imagine people like that style because it looks more like a car and less like a minivan, which is what those enormous SUVs really are.
CalRobert · 3h ago
Do you have Individual Vehicle Approval? It’s shocking how many gigantic Dodge Rams (which do not meet EU safety rules) are driving around the Netherlands. One killed a 23 year old cyclist a few weeks ago.
rusk · 3h ago
There is a compensating rise in small EV also so hopefully that will cancel things out
Delphiza · 3h ago
Putting in roundabouts as a default so many years ago (as described in the article) makes a huge difference the the road infrastructure in the UK. They take up a lot more space, but the lack of stop-start traffic light intersections makes a completely changes how people move around. Bigger, more complex roundabouts do have traffic lights, but straight-up road intersections with traffic lights are the exception.
philjohn · 2h ago
Our driving test standards are also high, having spoken with US colleagues, much higher than state-side (although I imagine that varies from state to state).
The theory test you must pass before taking your practical also now includes a hazard perception test - you are shown multiple videos and must click when you first perceive a hazard - the earlier you click after the hazard presents the higher your score - but if you just click randomly you get a zero.
Some of them are tricky - for instance, one I remember is a van coming from a side road at too fast a speed, but you can only first see this hazard forming in a reflection of a shop window.
lordnacho · 2h ago
But why is it that countries that are culturally close to Britain (eg colonies) have much higher fatality rates? You'd expect them to have implemented some of the same policies. Singapore and Malta have similar rates, but the others are much higher.
Regarding roundabouts, it makes sense when explained like in the article. But I've always felt like they were dangerous, especially the ones they have in Britain where you have multiple lanes with lights and connecting roundabouts. Perhaps that sense of fear is what actually makes them safe.
aswegs8 · 2h ago
Finally something positive about the UK. Usually the crowd will come in with pitchforks swinging everytime there is something about UK housing or politics going wrong.
petesergeant · 3h ago
My least favourite part of driving in the UK is that a road like this[1] (chosen at random from rural roads) has a speed-limit of 60mph/95kmh
The national speed limit for a single carriageway is 60mph, and for two or more carriageways is 70mph.
That's the default. These were introduced in the 1950s - before then, there was no national speed limit.
Councils and highway agencies can then decide due to a number of factors to reduce that number to what they deem appropriate. Most councils pull that down to 40mph in unpopulated areas, 30mph in built-up areas. Some councils - and the whole of Wales - pulled the built-up limit down to 20mph.
The Highways Agency has deemed some parts of the motorway network aren't safe at 70mph, so will drop the speed appropriately. Sometimes permanently (50mph on junctions is common), sometimes dynamically (overhead gantrys). It's all fine.
This is how the UK works - you set a default, and then let councils figure out things for themselves.
What you seem to be missing is that this is not a speed target. In most of the UK (notable exceptions include Greater Manchester and Hull, in my experience), drivers do not aim to get to that speed, they use their judgement.
On that road, there is no way much over 30mph is safe, as you don't have line of sight to oncoming traffic within a stopping distance. Do you know how I know that? The driving lessons and tests I took are far, far better than most in the World, even those my parents took.
Nobody is driving that road at 60mph without a death wish, but it doesn't mean we need to spend thousands of pounds per mile dropping the limit and then struggling to actually enforce it.
closewith · 2h ago
> The national speed limit for a single carriageway is 60mph, and for two or more carriageways is 70mph.
> That's the default. These were introduced in the 1950s - before then, there was no national speed limit.
There's no reason the default can't be changed. Ireland recently dropped the default speed limit on rural roads from 80km/h to 60km/h and regional from 100km/h to 80km/h. Councils can and do override the limits where appropriate, but in practice it requires an engineer's report which often doesn't, as the roads genuinely aren't suitable.
That would place the road above at a 37mi/h speed limit, which while still too fast for the conditions (it should be a 10 km/h or 6 mi/h road to support vulnerable road users) sends a much more reasonable message.
reorder9695 · 2h ago
I like the 60mph limit. I'm coming from a rural background where it's unlikely anyone would set the speed limit for each individual road correctly. National speed limit is saying "you can go up to 60mph, this isn't necessarily the correct speed for the road"
There are quite a few rural roads where it is a perfectly reasonable speed (straight, wide, 2 lane), and plenty of roads where you physically couldn't get your car past 40mph without fecking it into a hedge. It's a limit, not a maximum, and it's that way so we can trust people's judgement based on the current conditions of a road, which is (at least in a rural context) almost certainly more accurate than what a council would set.
seszett · 3h ago
You don't have to drive 60 mph there though. You can use your judgement.
I'm more used to France's 90 km/h countryside roads (now 80 km/h for most of them) but it's the same, sometimes you can only drive 70 or 50, but sometimes 90 is perfectly fine. But you should be able to see it for yourself, and in the specific places where you can't see the danger there are generally signs and a lower speed limit.
hdgvhicv · 3h ago
I drive 20 miles a day on single track roads. The widths vary from a few passing places which you have to reverse if you meet a horse or bike coming the other way, let alone a tractor or lorry, to places where you can just about pass a large vehicle without stopping, and easily pass a car. There’s even a handful of places you can overtake if the car in front stays to the left and nothing is coming.
Safe speeds vary from 15 to over 60 depending on the visibility.
If you get stuck behind an idiot it can add 10 minutes to the journey. On a clear road it takes under 15 minutes to do the 10 miles each way, but get stuck behind someone who hasn’t hit a clue, prevents you from overtaking in the places you can (one of which is about half a mile of 30mph where the idiots inevitably speed), refuses to pull in to let you past, spends forever trying to get into a passing place etc and it can take nearer 30. Get that in each direction and that’s an extra half hour a day — it’s very frustrating.
There should be a separate license for driving on country roads
robertlagrant · 3h ago
It's not country road driving. What you're calling an "idiot" is probably just someone who doesn't know the roads. You'd have the same problem elsewhere.
hdgvhicv · 2h ago
If you are causing a delay you are responsible for pulling over.
Most slow vehicles do - bikes, horses, tractors. Just the idiot townies who filled their sat nav rather than the diversion signs.
> You get people doing 15mph down a road like this
What speed do you think is appropriate on that road?
JdeBP · 1h ago
Given that it's the A836, it's worth constrasting this with the fact that in 2025 many of the people committing traffic offences on the coastal part of that road just to the north were locals, not "townies" unfamiliar with the area.
Yeah. I do think 15mi/h or 24km/h is appropriate speed for that road if you want it to be usable by vulnerable road users.
I just wondered what hdgvhicv considered appropriate.
philjohn · 2h ago
Correct - it's a LIMIT not a TARGET.
dazc · 3h ago
You don't have to do 60mph, this is true, but there are lots of people that will try to.
JetSetWilly · 2h ago
I think a national speed limit is a sensible system. In many countries, every random stretch of road has a different speed limit, as though driving speeds have been centrally planned - usually poorly.
Expecting the driver to be an educated and safe driver who is capable of judging the appropriate speed for the road is far superior. This also inculcates a better attitude in the driver - the speed limit is not a target.
rcxdude · 3h ago
I recently saw one with a 'national speed limit' (i.e. 60mph) sign, and right below it: 'not suitable for motor vehicles' (an advisory sign, so no legal weight behind it). It's the default for anything considered a road, and generally unless proven otherwise the government is reasonably happy to let people use their judgement on lower-traffic areas.
DarkFuture · 3h ago
If I was doing 60mph instead of ~50mph these motorbikers would be dead (me too probably):
I think this type of road combined with satnavs makes them more dangerous - number of times ill enter a destination on my satnav and its trying to send me on some lane
I notice it when cycling too - there is more traffic on these lane - and the drivers think they can drive along like some A-road
electroglyph · 3h ago
you're pullin my leg. is that a proper road or a bicycle path?
reorder9695 · 2h ago
Proper road, very common type of road in the countryside. You're lucky there it doesn't have grass up the middle. You'd realistically be doing about 20mph on it, although speeding up when you can see far ahead and it's straight, slowing down coming up to a bend where you cant see what's coming.
petesergeant · 1m ago
> You'd realistically be doing about 20mph on it
This is not my experience riding as a passenger with locals
unglaublich · 3h ago
It's a road. And it's also used for cycling, and walking. You just have to be extra careful.
elcritch · 3h ago
It's a road, and people will do 60 mph down these.
sien · 3h ago
There is data for Australia as well that shows a similar decline.
It's worth looking at the road deaths data in wikipedia at :
304 women were killed over the 12 months, while the report recorded 956 male deaths. 792 deaths occurred during weekdays and 474 victims were killed over a weekend."
The breakdown on where the crashes happened is interesting
"A total of 326 people died in major cities across Australia, with 581 deaths in regional Australia and 63 in remote or very remote parts of the country."
Given that the vast majority of Australians live in major cities it's surprising.
It's really surprising how many accidents are single vehicle :
"Out of 1266 deaths, 490 victims were involved in multiple-vehicle road incidents, whereas 776 people who died were involved in single-vehicle crashes."
On top of this it should be added that in a review of fatalities in Victoria ~52% of the crashes involved a driver who tested positive for alcohol or drugs or both.
By the time I had left sixth form (18), two other people from my high school had died in RTAs and two others had life changing injuries.
Granted this was rural east of england, so the roads were/are more dangerous.
However those last crashes triggered changes to the layout of the roads where they happened. This wasn't some line painting thing either, complete junction change from a y junction to a roundabout with re-grade of the road to improve visibility.
Much as it pisses me off, speed cameras, bumps and "low" speed limits are almost always a reaction to road deaths.
All of this means that my kids, who go to a much bigger school (500 and 1500 respectively) have not lost people they know to road crashes.
objectively kids are much much safer outside than any 80s kids. Yet, for whatever reason we don't think thats the case.
I think your experience is extremely unlucky. I went to a school in London (in the 80s) with around a 1,000 kids from 8 to 18 and there was one road death, and two injuries, all in the same accident, in all the time i was there. I did not know the buy who died personally, although i knew one of the others who was in the car.
I agree with you about the improvements in general. I do think the 20mph limits where I now live (and in some other places) seem a bit random, and there are some difficult A road junctions that I think the really could do with lower limits or other improvements that do not have them.
Absolutely true that kids are objectively much safer, but people have grown fearful. I wonder whether being safer has made people less tolerant of risk more than risks have diminished. Its common to hear arguments that anything that might save even one life is worth doing.
You're probably right on that.
I'm in a london suburb now as well, which may also has something to do with it. I think the big difference is that there isn't anywhere where you can drive on to a 70mph road in the dark without a long merging lane.
> I do think the 20mph limits where I now live (and in some other places) seem a bit random,
I don't mind them being random so much, but what I hate is that they dont (or didn't) put repeater speed limit signs in 20mph zones. They normally put the signs on the road at junctions, where I'm looking for other dangers (pedestrians/cyclists and other cars)
So its fairly easy to either be dawdling in 30 or doing point/fine incurring speeds in a 20
The main factors behind the fall in deaths:
* drink-driving enforcement, * seatbelt enforcement, * speed limits and speed cameras, * NCT improving the vehicle fleet, * road engineering changes, * driver training.
So the “sharks in the pool” analogy is absurd. Everyone is safer, including the most vulnerable road users, so a better analogy is the road network has changed from shark-infested seas to a managed watercourse with swimmers, surfers, and boaters are seeing vastly fewer deaths or injuries.
> Our World in Data is a project of Global Change Data Lab, a nonprofit based in the UK (Reg. Charity No. 1186433).
I'm a Brit too, but this article felt a bit too self-congratulatory given I've read other recent reports about other places (cites, regions, and entire countries) with overall safer roads; kinda like how we love to tell everyone how chuffed we are with how safe our AC plugs are.
> If every country could lower its rates to those of the UK, Sweden, or Norway, this number would be just under 200,000. We’d save one million lives every year.
The article wasn’t making the case that the UK is the absolute best, it was discussing what the UK did to change from being unsafe to much safer.
I never see Brits saying this. Only people from other nations.
The plugs are the safest though!
I think if these guys are honest about their numbers - and the main number they're calling out is a 22-fold decline in road deaths per mile driven in the last 75 years, which is remarkable - and shows those other safer regions in their comparisons, what is the problem?
Not if you step on them with bare feet - those things are worse than LEGO. They could punch through a horse's hoof.
There's almost a dozen different plug/socket types used in Europe though: https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/Overview.html
I will say, you definitely can tread on a German "Schuhko" plug (if it has a flat face) just like a UK one.
Are these prices beyond your means?
https://www.argos.co.uk/search/extension-lead/
I would actually love to see some data that compares total deaths and injuries per capita from electrocution from plugs across different countries. I have a feeling the total worldwide figures are tiny in comparison to injuries from stepping barefoot/putting your knee on UK plugs.
Also, UK plugs tend to have the wire coming out the bottom and then curving upwards as the electrical device is usually above the socket, over time resulting in an exposed wire, while most other plugs have the wire coming out the centre.
This is not only road users: roadworks have restrictive speed limits, which are not taken down when there is no workforce out, to minimise risk to workers setting and unsetting limits, traffic cones etc. Things that in other countries would close a lane often close the whole road, again because of risks to road users and maintenance people.
This is of course great, but also very expensive - and I cannot shake the feeling that the UK loses so much money on this risk aversion that is actually causes more hazard due to underinvestment elsewhere. NHS is crumbling, the very safe roads take forever to navigate, introducing inefficiencies and starving the central budget of cash. GDP per capita has barely grown since 2008. Even a small annual boost would unlock a lot of cash for investment, in particular into NHS and saving lives.
It's like putting all your pension investments into bonds, because they are safer. But you swap market risk for the risk of not having enough cash when you retire.
But maybe it's easy to have this perspective because I have a desk job and commute by public transport.
One of the issues is we’re trapped with a media ecosystem that won’t even allow progressive parties to say “we’ll take a bit more in tax and in return you’ll get a functioning health service”, instead they feel they have to promise to run the economy like the Tories (which is mind numbing).
It’s not just the recent Labour election I’m referring to. The first time Blair got in it was the same.
We get the services we deserve.
This is because the rules are more complex, but actually get a license is, too. There are plenty of bad drivers, there are still idiots who drink/take drugs/use their mobile phones while driving, but it's way, way less than in some other parts of the World. And the rules of the road are broadly followed in terms of lane discipline and right of way in a way that they aren't in much of Europe or elsewhere.
I sometimes wish that we had clearer lane signage in some parts of the road network, like that seen in the US, but overall, once you get it, it's all very straightforward.
Getting my license in the US (CA and NJ) required... showing up with my own car.
And in New Jersey, they even forgot to make me take the actual driving test.
Not sure what you mean about disabled?
If nothing else a confusing road will get drivers to put the goddamn phone down.
[Edit: I should note that he's stopped driving over the last couple of years.]
First, driving in the UK is much more a privilege than a right as in the US. You can live a complete life in the UK without a license because of the wide availability of public transit. In the US however, if you want to maintain a steady job outside of NYC, Chicago, DC, Boston or perhaps a few others, you'll have to drive. Revoking a driver's license in the US can be life-altering in a way that it just won't in the UK. Fewer people bother getting the license and fewer still drive.
Second, driving is much more physically and mentally demanding in the UK. Perhaps that serves to reduce traffic deaths by forcing focus, but it also imposes a limit on the types of people who can drive here. This selects against too young, too old, too small, disabled, etc. in a way that would not be tolerated in the US for the above reasons.
Third, annual vehicle inspections are much more stringent in the UK which takes a lot of older vehicles off the road and again selects against those of lower socio-economic status in a way that would be unconscionable in the US.
More than just the overall sizes of the cars (and they are big) it's those very high, flat fronts. That surely must be bad for visibility and bad for fuel efficiency at speed. I can only imagine people like that style because it looks more like a car and less like a minivan, which is what those enormous SUVs really are.
The theory test you must pass before taking your practical also now includes a hazard perception test - you are shown multiple videos and must click when you first perceive a hazard - the earlier you click after the hazard presents the higher your score - but if you just click randomly you get a zero.
Some of them are tricky - for instance, one I remember is a van coming from a side road at too fast a speed, but you can only first see this hazard forming in a reflection of a shop window.
Regarding roundabouts, it makes sense when explained like in the article. But I've always felt like they were dangerous, especially the ones they have in Britain where you have multiple lanes with lights and connecting roundabouts. Perhaps that sense of fear is what actually makes them safe.
0: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.358056,-2.6822578,3a,75y,344...
That's the default. These were introduced in the 1950s - before then, there was no national speed limit.
Councils and highway agencies can then decide due to a number of factors to reduce that number to what they deem appropriate. Most councils pull that down to 40mph in unpopulated areas, 30mph in built-up areas. Some councils - and the whole of Wales - pulled the built-up limit down to 20mph.
The Highways Agency has deemed some parts of the motorway network aren't safe at 70mph, so will drop the speed appropriately. Sometimes permanently (50mph on junctions is common), sometimes dynamically (overhead gantrys). It's all fine.
This is how the UK works - you set a default, and then let councils figure out things for themselves.
What you seem to be missing is that this is not a speed target. In most of the UK (notable exceptions include Greater Manchester and Hull, in my experience), drivers do not aim to get to that speed, they use their judgement.
On that road, there is no way much over 30mph is safe, as you don't have line of sight to oncoming traffic within a stopping distance. Do you know how I know that? The driving lessons and tests I took are far, far better than most in the World, even those my parents took.
Nobody is driving that road at 60mph without a death wish, but it doesn't mean we need to spend thousands of pounds per mile dropping the limit and then struggling to actually enforce it.
> That's the default. These were introduced in the 1950s - before then, there was no national speed limit.
There's no reason the default can't be changed. Ireland recently dropped the default speed limit on rural roads from 80km/h to 60km/h and regional from 100km/h to 80km/h. Councils can and do override the limits where appropriate, but in practice it requires an engineer's report which often doesn't, as the roads genuinely aren't suitable.
That would place the road above at a 37mi/h speed limit, which while still too fast for the conditions (it should be a 10 km/h or 6 mi/h road to support vulnerable road users) sends a much more reasonable message.
There are quite a few rural roads where it is a perfectly reasonable speed (straight, wide, 2 lane), and plenty of roads where you physically couldn't get your car past 40mph without fecking it into a hedge. It's a limit, not a maximum, and it's that way so we can trust people's judgement based on the current conditions of a road, which is (at least in a rural context) almost certainly more accurate than what a council would set.
I'm more used to France's 90 km/h countryside roads (now 80 km/h for most of them) but it's the same, sometimes you can only drive 70 or 50, but sometimes 90 is perfectly fine. But you should be able to see it for yourself, and in the specific places where you can't see the danger there are generally signs and a lower speed limit.
Safe speeds vary from 15 to over 60 depending on the visibility.
If you get stuck behind an idiot it can add 10 minutes to the journey. On a clear road it takes under 15 minutes to do the 10 miles each way, but get stuck behind someone who hasn’t hit a clue, prevents you from overtaking in the places you can (one of which is about half a mile of 30mph where the idiots inevitably speed), refuses to pull in to let you past, spends forever trying to get into a passing place etc and it can take nearer 30. Get that in each direction and that’s an extra half hour a day — it’s very frustrating.
There should be a separate license for driving on country roads
Most slow vehicles do - bikes, horses, tractors. Just the idiot townies who filled their sat nav rather than the diversion signs.
You get people doing 15mph down a road like this
https://maps.app.goo.gl/76GxECaTe9ESePGY9?g_st=ic
They should be banned.
What speed do you think is appropriate on that road?
* https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/vast-majority-of-s...
And then, of course, there's the part of the A836 further south known as the Balblair Straight.
* https://news.stv.tv/highlands-islands/death-of-pensioner-ang...
I just wondered what hdgvhicv considered appropriate.
Expecting the driver to be an educated and safe driver who is capable of judging the appropriate speed for the road is far superior. This also inculcates a better attitude in the driver - the speed limit is not a target.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsOnBikes/comments/debwm4/2_bik...
I notice it when cycling too - there is more traffic on these lane - and the drivers think they can drive along like some A-road
This is not my experience riding as a passenger with locals
It's worth looking at the road deaths data in wikipedia at :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...
The road toll of 1266 in 2023 and 4.8 fatalities per 100K residents is and comparing it to 1970 where it was 3,798 and 30.4 per 100K residents.
Even the trend on deaths per 100K residents is down from 8.15 per 100K residents in 2003 and has declined to 4.4 in 2023.
In terms of road fatalities per billion kilometres driven it's down from 44 per billion kilometres traveled in 1971 to 4.4 in 2020.
It's really interesting to see how many single vehicle accidents there were and the breakdown of who was killed.
From : https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/australias-catastrophi... "48 per cent of deaths recorded were drivers, while 20 per cent were motorcyclists, 16 per cent were passengers and 12.5 per cent were pedestrians.
304 women were killed over the 12 months, while the report recorded 956 male deaths. 792 deaths occurred during weekdays and 474 victims were killed over a weekend."
The breakdown on where the crashes happened is interesting
"A total of 326 people died in major cities across Australia, with 581 deaths in regional Australia and 63 in remote or very remote parts of the country."
Given that the vast majority of Australians live in major cities it's surprising.
It's really surprising how many accidents are single vehicle :
"Out of 1266 deaths, 490 victims were involved in multiple-vehicle road incidents, whereas 776 people who died were involved in single-vehicle crashes."
On top of this it should be added that in a review of fatalities in Victoria ~52% of the crashes involved a driver who tested positive for alcohol or drugs or both.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014...
41% of fatalities are estimated to involve speeding.
https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/roadsafety/topics-tips/spee...