On 01/02/2012 12:39, dennis@home wrote:


"Ste" wrote in message
...

8

How does the driver know what he can ignore it if he doesn't see it?

Because he can ignore the object based on its position in the visual
field - and also whether the object is moving.

Like I said how can he know if he hasn't seen it.
It isn't even above and to the left when he is a few cars length away
and he should be looking that far ahead to be safe.

Because most of the brains visual system works subconsciously. The brain
is incapable of taking in and processing all the imformation that it is
bombarded with, so it notes those of importance and ignores others. The
driver *will* see the speed camera, but may only process it as an
inanimate object that he in not going to hit and that is not going to
hit him, without ever consciously recognising what it actually is.

Interesting things don't normally happen off to the left above head-
height, even less so when those things are not moving into the path of
the vehicle, and so where there is excessive demand for visual
processing, that capacity will be allocated to certain areas that
have, by experience, been found to be the places where interesting
things happen.

Like in the road in front of you where all gatso cameras have white
lines painted?

Gatsos do, others don't.

I would not have come to that verdict and the coroner should be
re-educated
as it was obviously poor driving.

No, it was intentional on the part of the agency that installed the
speed camera, that the driver should have reacted in that way - that
he should have devoted more attention to his speed, and therefore
necessarily less attention to anything else.

The driver should always be aware of his speed and the limit.
If he can not do so while still paying attention to other things he is
not capable of driving safely and will have an accident.
The case you quote proves this to be true.

All drivers are human. Even if they know the limit and are within it,
they still have momentary doubts and check again.

If you can't take in all the information that you need to drive
safely then
you are driving too fast for your abilities!

This is where people like yourself wander off into fantasy land. No
driver can take in all the information at all times that they need to
drive "safely" in all possible circumstances.

Then they shouldn't drive in those circumstances.

Then no person at all should ever be allowed to drive. That's the way
human brains are constructed and we're stuck with it.

Even people on foot,
moving by definition at walking pace, manage to fall off kerbs into
traffic, or even simply walk straight into traffic, or even fall down
uncovered manholes.

They don't have to pass a test to show they are competent.

Competent, does not and can not mean perfect.

You also missed out falling through manhole covers which is what
happened to me.

In the end, people like yourself hold drivers to impossibly high
standards simply because you don't like cars and want to drive them
off the roads, not because you have any legitimate safety (or
otherwise humanistic) agenda. When drivers react adversely to your
ploys, as the driver clearly did in this case, you use that to try to
argue for further restrictions, when in fact it was the restriction
that worsened road safety in the first place.

It was poor driving, plain and simple.
If it were the case that the camera did cause the crash then how come
nearly every other driver can manage to drive past it without problems.

Because every driver and the information presented to them will be
different, different people, different cars, clouds, lighting, noise,
animals, even leaves on trees and everyone is processing it differently.
A particular distraction (in this case a camera) might only distract one
in a million, but if you ran it all again, it could be a different
driver that was distracted and on a different day. This is not a nice
simple Newtonian system where everything runs a perfect, preset course.

IME the biggest problem with cameras is that the speeders see them and
then jump on the brakes to about 5-10 mph below the limit. They don't
spend lots of time looking at their speedo so that they run into an
object in the road.
The problem is easily solved by hiding the cameras.


I've pointed out myself before now that the prevalence of red-light
cameras in particular (and combined speed/red-light cameras), simply
means that I have now reallocated attention away from checking the
junction and road ahead (including the behaviour of pedestrians at any
associated crossings), to carefully scanning the side of the road for
the presence of a camera whilst actively inhibiting my desire to
accelerate, and being braced for an emergency stop on a much more
cautionary basis than usual.

Why, if you are driving legally there is no need to worry about the
cameras.
There are millions of drivers who don't have a problem with cameras
because they don't speed and don't try to jump amber lights.

When the lights suddenly change to amber and you are close, there is
always a moment where you have to decide is it safer to stop quickly or
continue through. That is why amber means "stop, only if it is safe to
do so." I personally don't have a problem with the idea of red light
cameras, as they are sensibly adjusted so that someone misjudging
slightly and going through a little late won't be caught, but someone
blatently forcing their way through red will.

Hidden cameras would remove the drivers that do have a problem with
speeding and jumping lights.

Anyone can get the speed limit wrong, such as missing the signs because
of parked vehicles totally obscuring them - probably why some people hit
the brakes when they see a camera and they have a moment of self-doubt.
In your world, they'd be punished for no fault of their own. No one can
be blamed for not seeing a sign that someone has parked a truck in front
of or are you only going to allow drivers with X-ray vision? And before
you say it, I have seen (or rather not) two signs that I knew were there
only because it was a familiar road, each completely concealed by a 7.5
tonner (one parked on the left, one stationary in traffic on the right)

If a pedestrian then steps out and gets run down, then that is the
choice that people like yourself have made - you can't have my
attention allocated to both tasks, because I do not have enough of it
to allocate to all possible factors,

You are driving beyond you abilities then.
You need to slow down and stop being an idiot.

Even at walking pace, pedestrians bump into things. No-one can take in
all the information and use it. They can only take what they
subconciously recognise as the most important bits and most of the time
they are right. Once in a while everyone over-prioritizes one piece of
information to the detriment of another - most of the time they get away
with it. Most of the time they will never even know. If you drove to
work today, I can absolutely guarantee that you missed some things. Some
of those won't have mattered, but some might have if the circumstances
had been slightly different. Today you were lucky. You may well be for
the rest of your life, but if not, then that is just bad luck, because
you're made just like everyone else.

and you've made it clear by
installing a camera and imposing draconian penalties, that you want my
attention to be focussed first and foremost on maintaining a lower
speed, and stopping earlier at the amber, than I would otherwise
choose to do without the presence of the camera.

I haven't, I would hide them.
However I can't see why they are a problem to anyone who knows how to
drive properly.

According to what you have stated however, a driver who had spotted
the pedestrian and given full attention to avoiding hitting that
pedestrian, but who had not spotted the bright yellow camera would be
a worse driver.

Yes, he would have been a worse driver than one that didn't need to
worry
about the speed camera because he knew how fast he was going and what
the
speed limit was. You would be amazed at how easy that is.

Drivers like yourself (I assume you are a driver in the first place)
are simply dickheads.

The fact is, most of us do not spend all our time on the roads
monitoring speed limits and our compliance with them - even by your
own logic, it is easier to observe the speed camera and make a
temporary adjustment of speed, than to observe every change of posted
limit and keep one's speed constantly in accordance with that limit.

I don't have a problem with knowing how fats I am going or what the
limit is.

And if the lamposts in a village are just above or just below the
required distance apart? Could be NSL or could be 30. Admittedly
unusual, you'd expect terminal signs, but as I've shown earlier, these
can be totally hidden.

I don't see why another driver should either.
If they do then they have a problem with their ability and need to
address it by either getting better or by changing how they drive.
If that means they have to drive at 20 mph then so be it.


And contrary to what you imply, knowing how fast you are going and
what the posted limit is, is a significant intellectual task,
demanding both careful visual observation and memory capacity (and
therefore require compensation by demonstrating a lower standard of
overall driving skill and progress, or by a reduced amount of stamina
for driving due to the high intellectual demands of your driving
behaviour - or even possibly both of these).

Balls, its insignificant effort.

It would be if roads were designed correctly. A European study
criticised the UK's roads some years ago, as many were designed for
higher speeds than the limits then set on them. This unconciously caused
drivers to exceeed the posted speed limits or concentrate more of their
effort into keeping their speed down - to the detriment of concentation
of everything else around them! This was a major study of roads
throughout Europe.

SteveW