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?
I'm not advocating taking away the responsibility of the driver to control the speed of the vehicle, this is fraught with danger as the trials with autonomous vehicles has shown. Too many variables for AI today to deal with, and ultimately the driver is responsible for the vehicle and has to be able to deal with rapidly unfolding incidents and emergencies.
What I was trying to get across, poorly, was that flashing road signs, road signs with speed and VRN feedback, and colour-coded speedometers in vehicles give instant 'cause and effect' feedback to the driver which is better than 'flat' feedback of normal signs.
Having driven on the continent, USA and Canada a lot, I wouldn't advocate their approach which is as he Germans call it Schilderwald (a forest of roadsigns) and very confusing.
Applying dynamic, safe, speed limits to roads would be sensible, but, the challenge would be how to do this and ensure all drivers could interact with changing speed limits.
I'm not advocating taking away the responsibility of the driver to control the speed of the vehicle, this is fraught with danger as the trials with autonomous vehicles has shown. Too many variables for AI today to deal with, and ultimately the driver is responsible for the vehicle and has to be able to deal with rapidly unfolding incidents and emergencies.
What I was trying to get across, poorly, was that flashing road signs, road signs with speed and VRN feedback, and colour-coded speedometers in vehicles give instant 'cause and effect' feedback to the driver which is better than 'flat' feedback of normal signs.
Having driven on the continent, USA and Canada a lot, I wouldn't advocate their approach which is as he Germans call it Schilderwald (a forest of roadsigns) and very confusing.
Applying dynamic, safe, speed limits to roads would be sensible, but, the challenge would be how to do this and ensure all drivers could interact with changing speed limits.
