> By the time I had left sixth form (18), two other people from my high school had died in RTAs and two others had life changing injuries.

I think your experience is extremely unlucky. I went to a school in London (in the 80s) with around a 1,000 kids from 8 to 18 and there was one road death, and two injuries, all in the same accident, in all the time i was there. I did not know the buy who died personally, although i knew one of the others who was in the car.

I agree with you about the improvements in general. I do think the 20mph limits where I now live (and in some other places) seem a bit random, and there are some difficult A road junctions that I think the really could do with lower limits or other improvements that do not have them.

Absolutely true that kids are objectively much safer, but people have grown fearful. I wonder whether being safer has made people less tolerant of risk more than risks have diminished. Its common to hear arguments that anything that might save even one life is worth doing.

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KaiserPro 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

> I think your experience is extremely unlucky

You're probably right on that.

I'm in a london suburb now as well, which may also has something to do with it. I think the big difference is that there isn't anywhere where you can drive on to a 70mph road in the dark without a long merging lane.

> I do think the 20mph limits where I now live (and in some other places) seem a bit random,

I don't mind them being random so much, but what I hate is that they dont (or didn't) put repeater speed limit signs in 20mph zones. They normally put the signs on the road at junctions, where I'm looking for other dangers (pedestrians/cyclists and other cars)

So its fairly easy to either be dawdling in 30 or doing point/fine incurring speeds in a 20

	▲	graemep 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		I agree entirely that A roads and city roads are a LOT safer than country lanes. Easier to drive on too. I find London more stressful and harder work to drive in - it may well be safer, but its harder. I far prefer public transport in big cities and I have not driven in London for years. The only time I have tripped a speed camera was doing 57 on an A road after missing the temporarily lower 50 limit for road works in the night. The road I currently I find hardest is one road where the limit keeps changing. its pretty much the same all the way along (residential area, so default would be 30, but wide as its an A road or a continuation of one). It changes four or five times over a few miles.

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orwin 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Rural and metro areas, especially before traffic calming mesures of the last 20 years, were very different. I'm not from the UK, but in Brittany, everybody know of a schoolmate who died from traffic (especially since you have one high-school for like 15 towns, so in a way, you're schoolmate with half the kids in your area)

	▲	graemep 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Rural roads still often lacking in safety in the UK.