80 Kilometres an hour

[NickP]

There was some mention a while back that certain regions/departments were going to change back to 90 Kilometres on single carriageway roads. Has anybody heard any new information about this situation?

[Hereford]

Very strict rules to cover changing back. Manche (where we live)  do not have any roads 10 km long with no turnings off (have to have no overtaking at all so barrier...?) so we cannot do it at all.

All in our Manche Libre newspaper last Thursday. They called the rules "draconian".

The above is a rough explanation, the article took up half a page.

[Théière]

Just bitter civil servants who cannot handle the idea that 80kph was not only stupid but increased accident stats. So come up with a more ludicrous idea.

[Gardian]

There’s been talk of it, as in Departements can make their own decisions.

How on earth that would work is beyond me. Imagine moving from a 90kph dept to an 80kph one .........

It was a bonkers bit of legislation in the first place, but its done now - daft to go back again.

I really rather doubt that it’ll happen & the cameras are being repaired and re-installed - saw one today, but I suspect that its days are numbered. Paint sales are up in the local DIY shed, but the JCB bosh works best.

[woolybanana]

Didnt I hear that road deaths are up since the speed limit reduction?

[idun]

We have too many 50mph areas in this region of the UK and it is a mind numbing  speed. No wonder there are accidents and more deaths, wouldn't surprise me.

Even worse is 70mph on a motorway...... how do people concentrate when on a long journey???? Too slow, just too slow.

And yet, there are some roads where I would have the limit down to 20 mph and enforced, because, as always, it depends on where.

[Alan Zoff]

What's there to criticise? So much safer to overtake round a blind bend at 80kph than at 90kph

[idun]

 I shall never understand what recklessness is in anyone's psyche to do that.

Round the bend, literally and putting other's lives needlessly at risk.

[AnOther]

Not to crow but I predicted more accidents and deaths as soon as the 80kph change was announced.

Reverting piecemeal is not the answer and is more likely to make things worse than better.

As ever myoptic French attempts to influence end results fail because they do not address root causes.

https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Map-of-France-shows-roads-changing-speed-back-to-90kph

[suein56]

AnOther wrote : Not to crow but I predicted more accidents and deaths as soon as the 80kph change was announced.

Here in Brittany, well in Morbihan, official figures published last July showed that, after a year of 80kph, both death rates and serious injury rates had fallen.

I cannot remember if the number of incidents was fewer or not.

Consequently, perhaps, there has been little motivation to revert the speed limit back up to 90kph.

If I can find the actual historic info then I will include a link.

[BritinBretagne]

If people insist on playing numbers games please use viable data. One year’s figures do not represent a trend.

[suein56]

BinB wrote : One year’s figures do not represent a trend.

Yes I agree .. but as the change to 80kph from 90kph was only made from July 1st 2018 for one year then the figures are only going to relate to one year.

[BritinBretagne]

It doesn’t work like that. One year’s worth of data is useless, it shows a snapshot not a trend.

[Théière]

Yes we need a lot more deaths to establish a pattern.

[Alan Zoff]

French drivers are doing their best, Théière. This was a recent headline in La Montagne, the regional paper:

"Un conducteur âgé de 12 ans intercepté par les gendarmes en Creuse, son père ivre sur le siège passager"

It doesn't say what speed the 4x4 was doing when it passed the gendarmes, though. Maybe a safe 80kph.

[BritinBretagne]

[quote user="Théière"]Yes we need a lot more deaths to establish a pattern.[/quote]

Another subject that you don’t understand?

[Cathar Tours]

It is a basic fact that the faster you go the harder the impact to those inside the car and those outside the car. Studies show that the typical combined impact speed is up in the high 100's kph.

From the EU - I can't post the link else the page goes a metre wide. You can look on the Europa website for road safety plus speed and accident risk.

A drop of 1kph can result in a 1 to 5% drop in fatal accidents depending on what the limit is.

The other issue is how safe your car is. Not just to the driver but to those outside the car. For example you don't want to be hit by any Citroen car (traveling at 50kph) if you are pedestrian or riding a bicycle because it will more than like kill you. Being hit by a Merc, BMW or Toyota doubles your chance of survival.

If your looking to buy a new car or even a second hand one it pays to look at the NCAP website. My car (Ford Focus) has yet again come inside the top five most safest cars this year.

Finally to say it's not the car it's the driver and most of the French figures are alcohol related as they are in most countries and the vehicles concerned are traveling way above the speed limit. So in a way you could say dropping the limit from 90 to 80 has made no difference because people did not take notice of 90kph limit either.

[BritinBretagne]

If only it was that easy... Don’t you live in Germany where the national speed limit is 100km/h and many parts of the Autobahn are unlimited yet the accident figures are lower than France? A low blanket speed limit will never be the answer and making people drive at speeds where they start to lose concentration is a huge step backwards step.

NCAP is secondary, primary safety is more important. All Citröen cars meet the same standards as the cars that you have listed, what a strange comment. I’d much rather be hit by a modern DS than by any X class BMW or Mercedes people carriers.

[Lehaut]

Alas, the system can try as hard as it can to "limit" the physical aspect of driving, but how do you stop the human input?

Un Périgourdin de 30 ans a été interpellé à trois reprises ce week-end. À chaque fois il conduisait sans permis et sans assurance.

Chap in Nantes already arrested 30 times, the last one, same as above but over the limit on alcohol and drugged up.

40 km in the wrong direction on the motorway (peage) A11 last week.

Sooner we get rid of drivers, the safer the roads will be!!

[Cathar Tours]

Yes I do but then Germans are far less likely to be drunk behind the wheel as the French according to French figures in the report from the EU.

Your wrong they don't meet the same standards but I am talking about 2019 models. Go to their website and see for yourself. It's a lot more informative than you think and it is an industry standard across Europe and elsewhere in the world.

Citroens come it at an NCAP rating of four only rising to five if the optional safety pack is fitted. Why would you have to pay extra to be safe?

This year overall the DS 3 Crossback came in 19th (with the optional safety pack installed). It was beaten by Audi, Merc, Ford, Toyota, Seat, Mazda, Tesla (came third), Renault, Lexus and Land Rover.

In the group to which you refer the DS3 never made the top 10.

NCAP is all about safety but not just the passengers.

[Judith-aka-Judith]

[quote user="Lehaut"]

Sooner we get rid of drivers, the safer the roads will be!![/quote]

Even driverless cars are known to "have" accidents!!

[Théière]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/driverless-taxis-on-streets-of-london-for-the-first-time-6t5x6tgv2

[NickP]

The only problem with that Théière is who will insure them. The big insurance companies always look to lay blame in the event of a shunt, so who do they sue to recoup their money, the taxi company owner, the carmaker or the software manufacturer? It'll be interesting to see how it pans out.

[Cathar Tours]

The EU is currently creating legislation that covers all of this. We already have draft documents on the technical requirements of self drive cars and lorries. Most manufacturers are designing their systems on the basis of the current version being the minimum requirement.

The easiest way to look at it is these cars will have something like a CE mark which means insurance companies cannot refuse to insure them nor refuse to pay out in the event of an accident. All of them must have "Black Box" recorders which are sealed and can only be opened by an independent authority licenced by the government. It is they who will decide whose fault it is not insurance companies.

Problem is at the moment is they rely heavily on GPS for navigation to within half a metre namely Galileo which is not fully living up to its expectations yet it is best of the bunch. There is supposed to be a major software update this year which will dramatically improve their performance.

[NickP]

"Will have something like a CE mark?" I'll believe that when I see it. Insurance companies can refuse to insure anything they think is going to cost them money. You cannot force a public company to do something it doesn't want to commercially, that wouldn't make sense at all. I may not be totally up-to-date with insurance "law" but I do listen to my daughter who is the head of marketing with one of the UK's largest insurance companies.