There have been many reports of motorists using the lack of traffic on the roads during the Covid19 lockdown to flout the speed limits and now with more traffic back on the roads there is a danger that some may continue to drive at excessive speeds even after things are back to ‘normal’.
Behavioural Science in transportation (understanding the behaviour and motivations of transport users such as motorists and rail commuters etc) is a fascinating subject which plays a big part in the engineering and design of roads and their ‘furniture’ in an attempt to gently persuade drivers to modify their driving behaviour to something more appropriate.
There are many such psychological tactics in place to combat speeding but could we be doing more? What other engineering solutions could be implemented to stop excessive speeding? How do different countries tackle speeding on their roads? What could we learn from them?
To lob another dimension into this, I live in a very rural area (Cornwall). The speed limit on most of our roads is 60, but maximum safe speed is often considerably lower than this due to narrow roads, poor visibility, bad surfaces, and random creatures (human and otherwise) appearing unexpectedly. I suspect a study would show (maybe already has!) that the biggest risk factor is locals - mea culpa - who "know" the road and who assume that because there is normally no-one around the next bend that this will always hold true.
So two factors, in line with the other points raised in this thread, one is whether it would be possible to produce a camera based system that analysed the road ahead for visibility and road conditions and advised maximum safe speed. The other, and I'm being perfectly serious here, is that there is a strong correlation between people who choose to live in rural areas and people who don't like being told what to do. Hence if solutions can be developed to address some of the risks associated with this speeding problem then I'd have thought it would make a good benchmark for other situations.
To lob another dimension into this, I live in a very rural area (Cornwall). The speed limit on most of our roads is 60, but maximum safe speed is often considerably lower than this due to narrow roads, poor visibility, bad surfaces, and random creatures (human and otherwise) appearing unexpectedly. I suspect a study would show (maybe already has!) that the biggest risk factor is locals - mea culpa - who "know" the road and who assume that because there is normally no-one around the next bend that this will always hold true.
So two factors, in line with the other points raised in this thread, one is whether it would be possible to produce a camera based system that analysed the road ahead for visibility and road conditions and advised maximum safe speed. The other, and I'm being perfectly serious here, is that there is a strong correlation between people who choose to live in rural areas and people who don't like being told what to do. Hence if solutions can be developed to address some of the risks associated with this speeding problem then I'd have thought it would make a good benchmark for other situations.
