Does speed or bad driving REALLY kill?

Question

Please, I dont want no crappy answers about speed and bad driving going hand in hand...

I'll answer that answer for you, most people (myself included) when driving fast concentrate even HARDER on the road than if you was cruising at 50

I've driven at speeds on the motorway which shall we say greatly exceed the speed limit, but I've never felt I've been driving dangerously or putting other people at risk because my concentration increases with that speed.

Thanks to the guy from a previous q i asked for this, he started the ball rolling.

Answer 1

It's fine and dandy that you're concentrating but what can be said for the escaped lunatic driving in the car in front of you, is he concentrating. You never know who you are driving with. You could be sharing the road with anyone. At least when you're doing the limit you're not going at ridiculous speeds and opening yourself up to problem drivers. That's my opinion anyway.

Answer 2

Do you really need other people to answer this question?
Of course the two together will kill you.
Fine, you can do 100 mph on a motorway as long as the road is clear and you are not in-dangering other drivers, but how do you know your tyre isn't going to burst, your exhaust fall off or your engine seizes up, an animal suddenly runs out in front of you, you don't, There is no way you would be able to stop in time.
Bad driving is equally as dangerous, cutting other drivers up, staying in the outside lane doing 30 mph, tail gating, fog lights on when there's no fog. etc.
I've never known any driver that exceeds the speed limit to do it because they are concentrating, they drive fast because they are idiots, brainless boys who think they own the road and everyone should get out of their way. The "I can go faster than you" syndrome, and the "Eat my dust" disorder. You need help.

Answer 3

Over confidence is a killer, speed doesn't kill it's the idiot behind the wheel that doesn't realise that pedestrians will find it hard to judge your speed. It's a fact that your stopping distance will increase with your speed, you might feel that you are driving well but as you round a curve doing 80 and find a pedestrian crossing a hundred yards up the road that you have flashed through before anyone has seen or heard you and left a smear for the 400 feet it takes you stop(up to 720 feet in the wet)!!!!!!!!
So speed can help to kill but again it's the idiot who thinks that concentrating harder will make it all better or the one that thinks he knows best and that the speed limits are to low.
Any fool can drive fast enough to be dangerous!

Answer 4

Speeding will always make an accident worse than it might have been, just on a simple physical basis, so the case could be made that speed does kill. In other words what might have resulted in an injury accident at 60 MPH could well result in death at 80 MPH. Likewise, because you have less reaction time at 80 MPH than at 60, an error on another driver's part is more likely to result in you being involved in an accident regardless of your skill or attentiveness level.

In general, a serious accident is the logical conclusion of bad driving.

Having said that, I don't agree that speeding is necessarily bad driving -OR- that someone who routinely speeds and therefore pays more attention is necessarily a good driver.

Answer 5

Speed does not kill, its inappropriate speeding in the wrong place and in the wrong conditions that kill. Also people with insufficient skill to control a car at high speed also are dangerous. Doing 90 or 100 MPH on a deserted dry motorway or freeway is not dangerous, although doing the same on a wet greasy moderately busy motorway or freeway is not recommended. You get all these safety campaigners rambling on about fools speed and all this, I actually take offence at this, they are telling me I'm a fool for speeding, believe me, I'm no fool! The really dangerous drivers are the teenagers who have just passed their test and think they are Michael Schumachers replacement, they load up the car with their mates and they think they can outdrive everyone else, until they hit a greasy bit of road and they get the car out of shape, they have insufficient experience to know how to control it and we have a mangled supermini and 5 statistics.

Answer 6

This may be true for you and hundreds(probably thousands) of drivers. But what about the millions of drivers it's not true for! Or for the animals that may cross your paths or pedestrians. Or if you have a blow out. What would you want on your tombstone? "He was an excellant driver at excessive speeds untill a blowout stopped him~dead in his tracks" And yes I know that this can happen even when you are going the speed limit. But I believe you would have a better chance of controling the vehicle if you were going the limit. They are posted for a reason~SAFETY!!!
If you feel that you have to speed, go to a race track! Thats what they are for!!

Answer 7

We need to have a speed limit that takes into account the road and the vast differences in drivers' abilities. Most arguments for 'appropriate' speed don't hold up as you can't guarantee that all drivers have the same, or even similar, perceptions of what is appropriate at any one time.

Answer 8

If you think about it...

Our reactions were developed to cope with speeds upto 10mph, yet we drive much faster.

The field of vision that we focus on is no bigger than a 5 pence piece.

The faster you go, the less time you have to react to something, so I would say speed does kill. No matter how much you concentrate, there's always another road user being stupid that you have no control over.

Answer 9

Speed certainly does NOT kill, but bad driving does.

It is never speed itself that is the cause of an accident, but it can be a contributing factor if the driver of the speeding car is a bad driver, or is compromised by a bad driver.

Most people need to be more observant and courteous on the roads - that will cut road deaths and injuries a lot.

Answer 10

My Dad had a asserting approximately this very subject. He reported, "velocity kills in spite of the incontrovertible fact that it does not reason injuries". i do no longer understand if that solutions your question, I doubt it. i do no longer think of there particularly is an answer. i think of undesirable making use of particularly reasons injuries yet an twist of fate would desire to be mixed with adequate velocity (capability) to reason dying. at an analogous time as i think that's possible, i think of it no longer likely that if all site visitors is doing 2 MPH or much less a collision will consequence in a fatality. on the different hand, if a great driving force is vacationing at 2 hundred MPH and has a mechanical subject so effortless as a blown tire a fatality can consequence. i'm sorry if I in basic terms succeeded in added blurring the subject yet it is with reference to the main suitable i will do.