Speeding - The Dangers

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Driving too fast was the main cause of 1,200 deaths and more than 20,000 serious injuries on built up roads in the UK last year (2004).

Statistics show the main cause of road crashes is the combination of inappropriate or excessive speed with some form of human error.

Research has shown that nationally speed is a major contributory factor in one third of all road crashes. This means that each year excessive and inappropriate speed helps to kill 1,200 people and injure over 100,000 each year.

A staggering fact is that if a car travelling at 30 mph hits a child pedestrian or cyclist, he or she has a 45% chance of survival. At 40 mph the chance of survival is just 5%.

It has been said that police time is being wasted trapping and prosecuting 'innocent' drivers - time that could be better spent catching 'real' criminals.

'real' criminals - apart from murderers - rarely kill people, but speeding motorists do!

Over four times as many people die each year on our roads than do as a result of violent crime. It is important as a nation that our driving attitude and behaviour changes to prevent many unnecessary casualties and inexcusable deaths.

Research conclusively shows that:

Approximately 1 in 3 deaths is speed related

Look at the following table, which shows the added danger to pedestrians when average speeds are increased:

Source Killing Speed and Saving Lives, DTp. 1992

The incredible fact is that around two-thirds of all accidents where people are killed or injured happen on roads where the speed limit is 30 mph or less

Think very carefully about that. In the UK 10 people are killed in collisions every day. Most of these are in 30 mph zones where the car involved is speeding. Think!

Read the following facts carefully. The decisions you make whilst driving could mean the difference between life and death. How will your life change if you kill a child?

• 7 out of 10 drivers regularly break the speed limit - usually by about 5 mph.
   
• An average family car travelling at 35 mph will need an extra 21 feet (6.4 metres) to stop than one travelling at 30 mph. Think about that carefully !!
   
• If you hit a cyclist or pedestrian at 35 mph the force of the impact increases by more than a third than at 30 mph.
   
• Reducing your speed by an average of 1 mph will cut accident frequency by 5 per cent
   
• On urban roads 76 per cent of cars will exceed the speed limit if the road is clear.
   
• It is not safer to drive faster at night. Casualty rates are double those during daylight hours due to the higher speeds because of less traffic, higher alcohol consumption, tiredness and darkness.

As you read through the above a few time's you'll realise that by driving at 30 mph, just 5 mph over the speed limit, you dramatically increase your chances of being involved in a collision and the results of those collisions can be devastating.

Let's take a look at stopping distances:

Stopping distance is affected by a number of factors, including load, condition of the road surface, tyres, brakes, driver reactions and design and type of vehicle.

These figures assume dry weather and good tyres and an average family saloon. Naturally, stopping distances will vary according to weather conditions and some cars may perform in different ways.

There are many physical factors that can effect a cars stopping distance, however we want drivers to recognise that however good a driver they think they are and however good their car is, the difference between driving at 30 and driving a few mph over the limit, will lead to a much longer stopping distance that could have drastic consequences.