Safe Speed is one of our favorite monomaniacal websites, dedicated as it is to fighting the good fight against the UK's superabundance of speed cameras. Saying that, crusader/publisher Paul Smith takes semi-regular excursions off-topic to address wider road safety issues. PR546 (but who's counting?) criticizes The Highway Code for ballooning to 133 pages, as the weightier tome causes "essential safety messages to get lost." In its stead, Smith proposes a 100-word code, as follows: "Drive on the left. Make sure you can see and be seen. Keep a constant look out all around. Be aware of signs and regulations and why they are there. Be predictable. Recognise and anticipate danger and keep clear space from it. Always ensure that you can stop within the distance that you know is clear. Develop your skills. Give courtesy, co-operation and space to others. Don't obstruct them. Never take risks, drive unfit or compete with others. Safety is paramount and far more important than priority. Take personal responsibility for your safety and the safety of those nearby. Enjoy."
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All we have to do is change one word (drive on the RIGHT) and this would be a perfect 100 word description for all 50 states, Puerto Rico and all Canadian provinces to use.
Or alternately, at least it would be far fewer words for the majority of drivers to ignore.
Unfortunately in this litigious society (of which the UK is fast catching up with the USA) everything needs to be spelled out in detail because there’s nothing common about common sense.
“I’m sorry judge for running over the plaintiff’s four children while going at 75 mph near a school crossing, but there’s nothing in the 100 word highway code that says I can’t eat a Big Mac and talk to my stockbroker while driving”.
everything needs to be spelled out in detail because there’s nothing common about common sense.
I recently sat on the jury of a civil trial in which car #2 of a four-car bang-up was suing car #3 for causing the wreck.
The crux of the trial was to determine whether the defendant drove “negligently” in not hitting the brakes fast enough to avoid hitting car #2 from behind, when cars #1 and #2 came to an abrupt halt in front of him.
We the jury soon learned that there was no legal definition of “negligent” available to us, nor could we check any state traffic laws; nor could we learn anything about whether it might have actually been car #1 at fault in the first place. (Such is presented by the lawyers during trial, or not at all.) We were simply assigned to reach this fuzzy conclusion based on he-said/she-said testimony.
I’m happy to say I played the Henry Fonda role in swaying the jury to relieve the defendant of civil liability — just as they were convincing themselves to screw him, just to ensure that SOMEONE would pay the poor plaintiff’s chiropractor bills.
Congrats Kevin!!
Good to see that at least one juror kept some common sense. That is, unless Car #2 was eating/talking on his/her cellphone, or similarly distracting activity.
And I cannot seem to find the press release you refer to anywhere on the site. Of course the SafeSpeed site is total crap anyway, but their Press Release Index only goes to PR142
Ahh … never mind … it’s buried in a yahoo group now. Cos they couldn’t manage to maintain a simple table. Maybe they should just link to the Yahoo Group page instead.
Personal responsibility? Whats that?
Re Kevin,
Years ago when I was a kid, my father was driving in Boston when the car in front of him stopped in the middle of the street–suddenly–to let a passenger off. My father jammed on the brakes, came to a complete stop. The car behind us slammed into us, pushing us into the original idiot. They sued us for hitting them. (I don’t remember what happened with the suit.)
The passenger–who went nonchalantly on her way, claimed she had whiplash.
Congrats, Kevin. Well done.
Kevin-
Under the law, I thought if you rear ended somebody, 99% of the time you were traveling too close to them and it’s therefore your fault. You are supposed to leave enough space between you and the car in front of you to stop if they slam on thier brakes. Granted, in the real world, if you leave that much space, a lot of time other cars will slip into the gap, but that doesn’t change the law.
Virtual Insanity :
October 9th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Personal responsibility? Whats that?
I dont’ know what it is either. I’m thinking I might sue the school board for not teaching that to me.
Cavendel:
I smell class action…