Useful InformationIn our Occupational Road Risk assessments and Work Related Road Safety policies do we look seriously at alternatives to driving? Could you suggest to your customers that as part of your contribution to reducing your carbon footprint you are curtailing your use of vehicles and would prefer to hold meetings via video conferencing etc. Cost Effective DrivingDid you know that you can actually reduce costs by making a few changes? ‘Feet per Second’ and ‘Reaction Time’
“The basic cause of a road accident is widespread ignorance of ground speed, not only on the part of pedestrians but also on the part of virtually every driver of a motor car, and I add that if this widespread ignorance on the part of road users be cured – and it is curable – then there will follow a great reduction in the toll of road accidents. A speedometer does not tell anyone his ground speed. And it is because every motorist deludes himself into believing that a speedometer tells him how fast he is covering the ground that the danger of road accidents is increased. A speedometer gives you your speed in miles per hour. Have you any mental picture of the length of any hour or the length of a mile? No one has. How then can anyone possibly get a mental picture of his ground speed when he is asked to put two unrealistic factors together and obtain a result?
I have tried many running-down cases. Judges are conscientious when trying cases and I always felt that in order to understand any motor case it was necessary that I work out a respective speed of each vehicle in a measure that would tell me their respective ground speeds. The only measure that would give me any mental picture of the speed at which a vehicle covered the ground was the measure of feet per second. That involved a lot of arithmetic. Sixty miles per hour works out at 87.9 recurring feet per second and every time I converted miles per hour into feet per second I got a result in recurring decimals. So then I had to look for a simple formula, and this is how I got it.
Instead of calling 60mph 87 odd feet per second, I called it 90 feet per second and that gave me the simple formula of adding half to my miles per hour to obtain speed in feet per second correct within 2%. Ever since then I have driven cars and tried running down cases in feet per second. Now what I say to all motorists is that they try doing what I do, that is always to drive and think in speed in feet per second instead of miles per hour and you will at once become a 100% better and safer driver. All you have to do is to add one half to the figure of your speed in mph and you will get your speed in feet per second – any child can do that.
The other aspect of road safety touches what is called kinetic energy, which means the moving force possessed by a vehicle in motion. I can’t give you a more detailed explanation, but another way to put it is to refer kinetic energy as the kick possessed by a moving vehicle. A small motor car weighing about a ton and moving at a speed of 40 miles per hour strikes the same blow as 18 10-ton steam rollers travelling at their highest speed, which is 3mph. That is the force you are handling when you speed up a light car to 40mph – 60 feet per second. If you are driving a big seven-seater two ton car at 60mph (90 feet per second) its kinetic energy is more than that of 100 10-ton steam rollers moving at 3mph.”
During your ‘occupational road risk’ assessment it may be a good idea to remember Justice Blair’s theory. When you prepare your ‘Work Related Road Safety’ policy it may be sound advice to include the formula. People who ‘drive at work’ very often think they need to get from one place to another as quickly as possible – remind them of the following:
Imagine a simple experiment as might be done in a psychology test lab: "See the light, hit the button." The average reaction time in an experiment like this is likely to be about 1/4 second (0.25 sec.). But times will vary, generally as we get older, for example, we get slower. Suppose a child darts out in front of us while we are driving down the street. Here the identification - reaction time might be as little as 0.25 sec., but the vehicle response time usually will be on the order of 0.75 sec. This is the time required for the driver to see the stimulus, react to it by hitting the brakes and the time required for the brakes to start to stop the vehicle. This is a value often used in collision reconstruction but it is frequently optimistic. A 1 sec. vehicle response time - another commonly used value - may be more realistic.
Times for the above circumstances might be as high as 2 sec. for an older driver under poor lighting conditions. More complicated stimuli or environmental circumstances might make the whole response interval even longer.
Add the ‘average reaction time’ to Justice Blair’s theory and we see that in an emergency we will travel a substantial distance whilst physically ‘doing nothing’ – the time that elapses between our eyes seeing the need to react and our body physically reacting to it.
At 30mph we will travel (45feet per second x 0.75 seconds) 33 feet whilst we think about what to do. At 60mph we will travel 67 feet. A lot can happen in 67 feet – whilst we cannot physically do anything to avoid it.
Some simple exercises...Especially useful for people who drive for workInclude in your Occupational Road Risk and Work Related Road Safety policy
If you are planning a long journey either by car or motorcycle it may be a good idea to do some warm up and warm down exercises before, during and after the journey.
The aim of the warm up is basically a) to prepare the cardio-vascular and respiratory system for the main event – in this case driving or riding. B) to increase the body temperature and blood flow to the muscles c) to stretch specific joints to achieve full mobility d) to stimulate reflex activity with regard to balance and co-ordination.
Shoulders; roll forward and then backward
On completing your journey you should warm down. This is to a) return muscles that have worked to normal by removing fluid and waste products through re-absorption into the general circulation b) to assist the heart rate and respiratory rate back to normal c) to prevent muscle stiffness and possible cramping.
Why you cannot concentrate on driving and use a mobile phone at the same time......
Verbal – which is, as it implies, when we actually speak
We concentrate more on what we are saying and the message we are trying to get across. This therefore means, referring back to the visual and verbal parts of our brain, that whilst driving we are actively using our verbal side more than our visual side, and therefore making it impossible to concentrate on driving safely. When chatting with someone in the car you have regained your Non-verbal communication ability and do not have to compensate as you do when on the phone.
Please consider these facts If you drive as part of your work, if you carry out your organisation’s Occupational Road Risk assessments, or you are responsible for developing or reviewing your company’s Work Related Road Safety policy
Prepare for SummerSpring and summer usually means a different type of work load for our cars, as Bank Holidays and summer jaunts take their toll in the shape of long drives in hot conditions.
A car that has had a quiet winter with short trips can struggle when having to cope with long journeys, worn tyres and a flogged aircon unit, so here is a list of summer checks to make sure your car is suitably prepared for the warm weather. TyresOften tyres have to be replaced long before their specified life has been reached principally because of rapid or uneven tread wear. Prepare For WinterAs winter approaches we need to ensure that the car is papared for the colder weather.
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