pwa wrote:Cunobelin wrote:pwa wrote:The car I currently drive will stop in a shorter distance than the Mk 2 Ford Escort I learned to drive in. I can't quote any figures but I am pretty certain of that. Better brakes and tyres, ABS. Does that mean I take up the slack by going faster and leaving less distance to the vehicle in front? I don't think so. If anything I think awareness of those safety issues is at least as high as when cars were crap. Awareness of the unacceptability of drink (or drug) driving is far greater. So my impression is that real life stopping distances are lower now.
Not according to TRL...........
Don’t forget that an individual may have faster responses, not be watching the satnav, on their phone etc
These are the ones that need to be legislated for
I remember my mother losing a front wing of her Morris Traveller after driving into the back of a stationary coal lorry while distracted by my younger brother who she was driving to school, around 1975. And I'm not sure using a satnav is more distracting than the alternative of trying to spot the road signs and glancing illegally at a road map on your knee. There have always been distractions.
Relying on. SatNav rather than the road and the signs is a massive source of error.
Firstly there is the assumption that the SatNav is right. there is a village in Kent, where the SatNav appears to show a road having priority on a crossroads... it doesn't, yet people are ignoring the Give Way signs, Stop line and mahoosive triangle and barrelling across at speed because the "SatNav says so"
... and we all know the classic of taking a road because the "SatNav says so" where obvious visual clues would tell you it was a river, rail track or simply too narrow.
THis guy followed his SatNav for about 1/2 a mile down this "road" because the "SatNav says so"
Not unique either:
This driver drove into a river because the "SatNav said so"
I could go on as drivers have driven along rail tracks as well.
Then there are the HGVs who again rely on "The SatNav says so"
Now what was that about drivers not reading or understanding roads and road signs?