Once upon a time, the fastest a human could travel was limited by the human body, to around 20mph. Not much really, and if I'd been around in the mists of time looking for an increase in performance, I'd have done what the human race did next, and that is jump on another animal's back. That inspired idea got us up to around 45mph using something called a horse. Personally, I'd have tamed a cheetah which could have got us up to 70mph, although I doubt whether it would have got very far with me on it's back. Maybe a wildebeest would have been the fastest I could have sensibly used as it's just about big enough and it could hit 50mph.
Still not really enough for modern life is it? I've only got 2 weeks for a summer holiday and I'm not going to get to the Alps and back on a horse in that time frame. Ships were a minor diversion, but higher speeds and shorter journey times really only arrived with trains, but the trouble with trains is that although they can be very quick indeed (the TGV hit 357mph in 2007) they a bit difficult to steer and this means they don't go where you want to go. Their accuracy is measure in miles, in fact. Aim for the Pigalle in Paris, and you'll miss it by a good 3kms as the train gets into the Gare Du Nord. Planes are similarly inaccurate even though they can reach mind boggling speeds. No, these are all diversions, what we're need is something smaller, something more personal, something more accurate and this is where cars and motorcycles come into the equation. And what splendid things they are.
Over the last 120 years, they've been developed to make 100mph trivial and 200mph quite feasible for many of us. All you need is a lot of money for any number of current supercars, or 10k, a derestrictor and an Akrapovic exhaust for a bike which will then nudge the double ton.
Oh, and a road. Ah. Now this is where it gets tricky. Since development of vehicles that will reach these speeds has required a century of development and a very large percentage of all the resources of the entire Western world, it would be unreasonable if not downright selfish to expect one person in 6 billion to have the road system to themselves, and unfortunately for all those who wish to travel quickly and arrive intact, we have to make sure that we don't bump into any of our fellows whilst doing so.
This is not easy. It takes huge experience and not a little training and bucket load of skill to do this. Do this badly and people die.
Obviously, the reason why we collide with other humans is down to incompetence. What? Not obvious? Ok. Let's get this sorted out right now. The road traffic statistics quite plainly state that less than 5% of road traffic accidents are down to equipment failure (and most of those can be put down to punctures) which means that over 95% of accidents are the fault of the person in control. Ouch. That's got to deflate a few egos.
In fact, to be open to crashing less and improving as a driver, it's best to lose that dodgy ego altogether. Humans have a wonderful habit of pretending that something isn't their fault and employ highly developed ego defence mechanisms one of which psychologists call 'projection' and the general public call 'scapegoating'.
What happens is that people project incompetence onto others, so after an accident the vast majority of people think that the other person involved in the accident could have done something to prevent it. Or they project the reason onto inanimate objects so it was the road conditions that were to blame. It's why people swear at the coffee table they've just clattered into and the thinking is that it's something outside of our control.
And one that really gets up my nose is when people scapegoat young people when they spout the well known statistic that 20% of accidents happen to people 18-23. Yeah, and what about the other 80% of accidents, I say. It's people like you who cause those. This usually goes straight over their heads, because they just can't internalise the thought that it might be them.
Nonsense, I say, to all of this. it's always your fault. And if you don't get it, look at the language I'm using in the sentences above - I said 'they all cry', and 'it's always your fault'. That's projection at work, it's scapegoating. I do it too. Want to know why accidents happen? Want to stop them? Say it: It's MY fault.
That particular idea occurred to me many years ago whilst lying in hospital after a bit of dramatic tarmac surfing using my knees as a surfboard. I'd been awake for 18 hours following a nightshift and on a rather dull bend, I'd accelerated a bit to hard and found myself sliding towards an oncoming articulated truck which thankfully stopped in time to avoid flattening me and my precious ego. I spent some time after that trying to work out why I'd fallen off, and to this day, I'm not sure why. Certainly, I'd been on the centreline of the road and might have clipped a catseye, I certainly had a poorly damped rear shock absorber, I might have simply overwhelmed the back tyre, I may even have had a micro sleep and just stopped noticing what was going on around me, but none of this matters.
What matters is that I made a mistake, and it occurred to me that when riding a bike, it's pointless trying to blame anything but yourself. On a bike, if a car pulls out in front of you, you go to hospital. If you hit black ice, you go to hospital, if you fail to notice the bend tightens, you go to hospital. As a biker, you are utterly and finally responsible for what happens and you have to take it, good and bad. If you can't predict that the car driver is about to pull out, you have to make sure that if it does, you're ready for it, if it's cold enough for black ice, you have to have a long talk with yourself as to whether it's wise to be riding at all, and if you miss the signs that the bend is about to tighten up, well, what were you thinking?
Speed has nothing to do with any of this, of course. People die at 5mph every day. People drive at 100mph every day. It's all relative, as Einstein would say. This planet of roads is orbiting the sun at 60,000mph, it's rotating at 1,040mph and yet we're all still here. Millions of people fly around the planet at 500mph every day and live, and yet if I put my head against a wall and had a truck run into me at 1mph, I'd die, so it's not speed per se that's the problem. Hell no, it's hitting things that's the problem and the more things there are to hit, and the higher the speeds, the more likely we are to hit them.
But this does not mean that there aren't times and places where huge speeds can't be safely reached. I'm talking about speeds attainable by all those lovely bikes and cars that money can buy. It just means that choosing when is very important, and that brings us back to competence. If we are competent, we can travel far faster than the current UK law allows. Ah, UK law …
The most powerful and highly developed country in Europe has an autobahn system on which it is legal to travel as fast as the conditions allow, and for the UK legal system that's a real poke in the eye. Autobahns are pretty safe too, with accident rates no higher than other countries where it is illegal to travel at higher speeds and while UK judges may decry 'excessive speed' and jail and fine those who travel in excess of the limits, It's patently obvious that when conditions allow, very high speeds are no more dangerous than putting on a hat.
But this is a crowded country and there are precious few opportunities for this, which is true, but it doesn't mean that there are no opportunities, and it doesn't mean that people should be jailed for travelling at high speed. That's just mean. It's also pretty pointless as it doesn't address the reason for the majority of accidents which as stated above is incompetence.
Incompetence is the main reason why accidents continue to plague our lives, not speed. If we want to improve the statistics, as a country we've got to stop blaming outside agents, we have to drop the ego and take some responsibility. Most people see driving as a trivial everyday experience, but actually it's anything but.
This is why I'm very glad the previous government is no longer with us. Their facile attempt to prevent accidents with the lame 'Speed kills' argument has been demolished and removed by the present government, and good riddance to it because it allowed every driver to wallow in smug self satisfaction and ignorance, thinking and believing that if they drove within the speed limit, they wouldn't have an accident. Ha. The vast majority of accidents happen below the posted speed limit, so who were they kidding?
And to those who point out that lower speeds mean better survivability, yes, that's why Leslie Hore Belisha introduced 30mph speed limit in the 1934 Road Traffic Act, but every speed limit is arbitrary and is just the bluntest of instruments to try and reduce accidents and deaths. What we should be aiming for is zero deaths and that can only come through improving everyone's abilities. At least until modern technology renders speed limits pointless. But that's another story.
No, the idea that we might be safer by being slower was a dangerous message to send. Every time someone says speed kills, there's a hidden meaning - and that message is 'it's not me, it's the speed'.
It's not speed. It's us.
And once we admit that, perhaps we can move forward, travel more quickly and become better users of the roads.
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