Nuxx:F08ca6b7-f32e-4931-ae8f-cc0f30a9d24a@t13g2000yqt.googlegroups.com

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!t13g2000yqt.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID:  From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: nasty accident Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 03:43:26 -0700 (PDT) References: <_86dndEx2rAeadDXnZ2dnUVZ8rmdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk>   Lines: 29 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.132.160.236 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1246704206 2093 127.0.0.1 (4 Jul 2009 10:43:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 10:43:26 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: t13g2000yqt.googlegroups.com; posting-host=81.132.160.236; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.11) Gecko/2009060215 Firefox/3.0.11 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729),gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 2702 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:830862

On Jul 4, 9:36=A0am, Ian Smith  wrote: > On Sat, 4 Jul 2009, Chris Malcolm  wrote: > > > =A0All round it looked as though 20mph was a fairly critical threshold > > =A0speed in excess of which crash injuries rapidly became very much mor= e > > =A0serious. > > Much the same conclusion has been reached with respect to cars hitting > pedestrians.

...which does *not* mean that 20mph car speed limits are necessarily a good idea (as you were no doubt implying), since impact speed and free travelling speed are not the same thing, and other factors have a far greater effect on impact speed than free travelling speed does. As you know perfectly well, but you choose not to acknowledge, as you have a dislike of motorists, and clearly that's more important to you than keeping road users safe, otherwise you wouldn't distort the road safety debate with deceptions such as the above.

The same thing applies to cycling of course. If you want to keep your impacts below 20mph (and indeed below 10mph when they really need to be, etc), you're much better off if you anticipate, slow down in areas of danger and cycle intelligently than if you simply stay below 20mph all the time, no matter what the conditions, and expect that to be all you have to do to protect yourself.

Promoting maximum free travelling speeds far above their level of competence helps no-one.