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Welcome to Drivers' Union East Midlands.
Our Mission: Better road safety at lower cost. No unnecessary delay or slowing of road transport. No unnecessary or unjust prosecution of safe drivers.

Motorists & Drivers' Union is at www.driversunion.co


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Monday 28 March 2016

Police, wrongly, translate local concerns about dangerous driving into being about 'speeding'



Here police encourage public to forward their concerns about speeding. and in these tweets I correct the authorities about what they are saying and doing.


Image result for speed watch






 This promotes a very lucrative and police labour costly activity based on misinformation - such as an outfit called Speedwatch - whereby police use unqualified vigilantes, usually supervised by equally unqualified beat officers, often mere PCSOs, when the community would much prefer these officers dealing with crime, vandalism, violence and anti social conduct. See more on these vigilantes here.

But police are being dishonest. Because people are unable to measure a 'speeder', what the locals are really complaining about is the obvious extreme speeders, the speed merchants, where their high speed is not 'speeding' but dangerous driving. If the police know that, why are they promoting something entirely different and prompting the wrong response to the wrong issue?

They should know that it isn't speeding that causes accidents, but driving too fast for the circumstances that does that and it's always dangerous driving. To suggest anything else is to mislead the community.

What makes things worse is that, the minor speeders that are caught, are driving perfectly safely and are mostly only 'speeding' because of a faulty limit, an enticing layout, or inadequate signage. If there is a high volume of these but no crashes, this is evidence of a site fault that needs to be corrected. Maybe the limit is far too low and like many, are entirely political and not based on any expertise or accident history at all. See a classic speed limit order.

So is this what we really want? Perfectly safe drivers put on record at great cost, when we should be just focusing on dangerous drivers? 

How many unqualified nimbyist complaints are needed before we divert valuable police to the wrong places in the community like this?   


Friday 18 March 2016

Transport Select Committee on Law Enforcement. Summary

Transport Select Committee
Inquiry on Road Law Enforcement

Keith Peat's Submission on behalf of Drivers' Union.


Summary.
  • Committee ignores scientific fact and support police lie that 'speeding' is an accident cause to be included in Fatal 4 and to be a priority in road safety at the expense of genuine killers and road safety.


We said:  Evidence ignored: (ii) An example of focusing on wrong causes can no better be demonstrated but by looking at the Fatal 4 campaign where ‘speeding’, simply to exceed a posted number which physically causes nothing, is included yet dangerous and careless driving, which undoubtedly cause death, are excluded.  Speeding however is very profitable and that is not a coincidence.

   Unfortunately the agencies themselves often prosecute for ‘speeding’ at very high speeds instead of the correct offence of dangerous driving. Rather like murder commences with assault, then ABH, then GBH first we don’t charge a murderer with assault even though it still applies, 150MPH, 80MPH over the limit, cannot still be just ‘speeding’. Were there to be a death as a result, the charge wouldn’t be death by speeding but by dangerous driving.  

  •      Committee refers to Careless Driving as a 'minor offence' to justify the fixed penalty system to be used for the first time in its history for subjective opinion. “minor” offences such as careless driving cannot be effectively detected' They say.
Can we quote them next time a driver faces jail for it?

     We said:  This was the most ill conceived idea that was introduced by the Government in sacrificing justice for police convenience and against all valid and educated advice.
      Until Fixed penalty for careless driving was introduced, FP historically had only ever been applied to totally objective and absolute acts: The car was on a yellow line, it was stationary in a box, it was driven in a bus lane, it was speeding, litter was dropped, dog poo wasn’t cleared up and so on. This was a massive step change whereby Fixed Penalty was allowed to be used subjectively and on mere opinion and for one of the most serious driving offences there is.  How on earth, if the driving was not deemed as careless driving prior to FP, does FP suddenly create the offence of careless driving? This was a step change too far. Then was added the coercive offers to accept guilt, a lesser fine and a course run for profit too. How can any of this be fair or right for drivers? FP should only be appropriate for absolute and objective conduct not subjective opinion where the right to fair trial is then under a threat of a larger penalty. That this is a feature of far lesser FP offences must be taken in the context that they are objective and absolute whereas careless driving is pure subjective opinion which should be tested at court no less..
3(ii) Courses. We have been unable to find any legal authority whereby police, having commenced a legal process, can then halt judicial process on payment of money to a third party other than a court. That many of these courses are run by limited companies makes the coercion of them even worse. We jail police officers who take money, under coercion, in lieu of due process.

  •     The Committee spends a great deal of time focusing on cycling safety and making powerful and costly recommendations to the disadvantage of freight transport and drivers generally

We said:
    Why are pedestrians linked with cyclists? Pedestrians are already historically provided for in the infrastructure where they are separated from motor traffic and the carriageway generally. When on the carriageway, although given precedence, they are also exhorted not to linger and where there is no footway, to walk opposite to traffic and move to one side if needs be. Cyclists on the other hand are sharing carriageway, with their backs to motor traffic and often impeding it. It is incredible that any genuine authority interested in people safety should miss that distinction.
4(ii) The definition of road cycling is as follows: To place oneself, off the ground on a slender frame and flimsy wheels, travelling at unnatural speed, and mixing, mingling, competing with and impeding large moving essential machinery, operated by complete strangers of varying skill and mental capacity. If it were not road cycling, most humans would never place themselves in that position. It would be totally irresponsible for any authority, no matter their cycling preferences, to fail to acknowledge that reality and attempt to mitigate it at great cost to infrastructure and indeed to cyclists.
4(iii) The fact is that there are only two classes of road user that society must have to subsist and they are pedestrians and drivers. We cannot pretend to be concerned with good road safety then impose unneeded hazards in the road in a way that would not be imposed on any other crucial infrastructure. It is appalling that the Select Committee listened to three pro cycling witnesses, (See) two with financial vested interests in their evidence and without asking ‘Why must we have cyclists?’, awarded the Cycling Lobby £650,000,000 per annum when 99% of the public know that cycling, which cannot sustain society, isn’t a viable transport mode. How can we impose such a dangerous concept on infrastructure then, having done so, talk about prosecution when it goes wrong?
  •     The Committee supports illegal voiding of due judicial process by coercing drivers to pay third parties for courses and is suggesting standardisation and formalising of these courses via parliament. 'We further recommend that the costs for diversionary courses should be standardised nationwide unless there is a clear and convincing reason not to do so, and that the Government consider legislating to ensure that this is the case, so that the public can be confident in the transparency of these courses.'

We said3(ii) Courses. We have been unable to find any legal authority whereby police, having commenced a legal process, can then halt judicial process on payment of money to a third party other than a court. That many of these courses are run by limited companies makes the coercion of them even worse. We jail police officers who take money, under coercion, in lieu of due process.
  •     The Committee wants more drivers to be prosecuted for more offences by local authorities instead of the police and is 'disappointed' that so far Government hasn't listened to them. 

We said:  This has been a disaster for drivers and a major infrastructure. All roads and streets belong to all drivers and so in reality are national. Roads and prosecution policy based on the personal and parochial aspirations of local political unqualified nimbysim is total disaster for major infrastructure. Do we run railways and air travel like this?
     A national speed limit policy based on nothing more than nimbyist parochialism is what we have now as well as blatant profiteering from unrealistic speeding, parking, bus lane and yellow box policy all of which could be amended when high volumes of offenders are clearly showing a site fault. When councils are allowing a high offender rate, they are allowing a site failure. This clearly shows that the objective is income and not compliance.  

To  The deployment of people and technology in enforcing road traffic policy.
   We said:   There is less death on the road from all causes after some 300 billion driver miles a year, than from accidents in the home, than from hanging and strangulation and even than from self harm. There are other social killers too that far exceed road death. So unless all these other killers and deaths are unimportant, the only conclusion is that road safety is a very profitable source.
      So are we talking about more expensive gadgets and people for a non issue? Is there one road safety gadget, instrument, sign, camera, meter, kiddie seat, airbag, crash helmet etc supplied at no more than cost on the purely altruistic principle of saving lives and road safety?  Before going further, let’s start clawing back all the profit from road safety and use that money to save more lives by focusing on genuine accident causes, and in the NHS, Ambulance, Fire and Rescue and police too. The Committee must start looking from outside the Road Safety and Speeding Industry bubble.

The main concerns are the move to legalise illegal courses for profit and allow police to continue to use fixed penalty for subjective opinion.

More on the Committee's false speeding statement



Now anti driver MP's Committee Parrots Lies for profiteering & anti driver charities.


Transport Select Committee

Having ignored independent expert submissions of fact the committee has listened to the usual rag bag of vested interest and is publishing their lies as a result.

1

19. The National Police Chiefs Council told us that “enforcement of the Fatal 4 [ … ] remains a priority to reduce the numbers of people killed and seriously injured”.23
The Fatal 4 are:

• Drink and drug driving. A driver/rider being impaired by alcohol contributed to 4,741 accidents in 2014, 127 of which were fatal and 1,111 caused serious injuries. This was 8% of all fatal accidents and 6% of all serious accidents. A driver/rider being impaired by drugs (illicit and medicinal) contributed to 684 accidents in 2014, 47 of which were fatal and 197 caused serious injuries. This was 3% of all fatal accidents and 6% of all serious accidents.24

• Non-wearing of seatbelts. 336 of killed car occupants in 2014 were not wearing a seat belt, this is 21% of total car occupant deaths.25


 • Driving while distracted (use of mobile phone/device). A driver using a mobile phone is recorded as a contributory factor in relatively few accidents: 492 in 2014, 21 of which were fatal and 84 caused serious injury. This was 1% of all fatal accidents and less than 1% of all serious accidents. However, “distraction in vehicle” was a contributory factor in 3,200 accidents in 2014, 68 of which were fatal and 206 caused serious injury.27

 • Inappropriate speed. Driving too fast for conditions was a contributory factor in 7,737 accidents in 2014, 169 of which were fatal and 1,441 caused serious injury. This was 11% of all fatal accidents and 8% of serious accidents. Exceeding the speed limit was a contributory factor in 5,509 accidents, 254 of which were fatal and 1,199 caused serious injury. This was 16% of all fatal accidents and 7% of all serious accidents.26

Speed 21. Exceeding the speed limit was a contributory factor in 254 fatal accidents in 2014, 16% of all fatal accidents, as well as 1,199 serious accidents; this was the fourth most prevalent contributory factor in fatal collisions.29 This is distinct from “travelling too fast for conditions”, a factor in 169 fatal accidents (11% of all fatal accidents) in 2014, which does not necessarily imply exceeding the speed limit. Exceeding the speed limit can be  dealt with by a warning, an FPN, a diversionary course (the National Speed Awareness Court, NSAC), or court proceedings. With the increasing use of this course, FPNs for speeding have more than halved from a 2005 peak of 1.98 million to 743,100 in 2014.30The use of the NSAC has more than doubled over the same period.

34. Exceeding the speed limit is a contributory factor in 16% of fatal collisions. 


  Evidence ignored: (ii) An example of focusing on wrong causes can no better be demonstrated but by looking at the Fatal 4 campaign where ‘speeding’, simply to exceed a posted number which physically causes nothing, is included yet dangerous and careless driving, which undoubtedly cause death, are excluded.  Speeding however is very profitable and that is not a coincidence.

  And also this:
     Unfortunately the agencies themselves often prosecute for ‘speeding’ at very high speeds instead of the correct offence of dangerous driving. Rather like murder commences with assault, then ABH, then GBH first we don’t charge a murderer with assault even though it still applies, 150MPH, 80MPH over the limit, cannot still be just ‘speeding’. Were there to be a death as a result, the charge wouldn’t be death by speeding but by dangerous driving.  

See Drivers' Union Submission in full.

So the committee, in ignoring factual evidence and listening to a host of anti driver non experts, are publishing a serious lie which deflects from genuine and real accident causes. 

Why was this removed from the introduction to the submission?  'Evidence of Keith Peat, ex police road safety and driving expert on behalf of Drivers’ Union, a charitable road safety and driver’s group.'

Vicious anti driver witnesses with no road safety or accident cause credentials and those with fiscal vested interest accepted by the Committee are:

CTC & Roger Geffen 
Anti driver CTC example

CTC calling for more driver jail

Roger Geffen gets free reign at Select Committee

BRAKE the anti driver green charity:

On BRAKE

BRAKE talking nonsense again

Brake deceiving the public yet again

BRAKE & vested interests

Police:

Appeal for honesty to NPCC & details of corrupt practice

The false police stats 19/20 forms on which the Committee rely.

The full Transport Report

The MP's who signed it off: 
Mary Glindon
Karl McCartney
Huw Merriman
Will Quince   
     
Iain Stewart
Graham Stringer
Louise Ellman (Chair)






Thursday 17 March 2016

Driver-less lorry Dynamo magic circus act will fool the media

There is about to be a demo of driver-less lorries along the M6 and no doubt there will be loads of excited media and Press on scene who already seem to have been taken in, hook line and sinker, about the prospect of driver-less motor transport.

I have already posted much on the issue of driver-less cars.   See it here and Also here

Basically this is a form of communism in the sense that, to take away your freedom to drive any time, anywhere and in your chosen style, is to control you. Behind much of today's roads policy are The Greens, who hate any progressive infrastructure and independence and want to control roads. Their stated intention is 'to get people out of cars and cycling, on buses or walking' And that's exactly what will happen with driver-less vehicles. 

Driver-less cars will be out of reach for about 90% of UK's struggling drivers. They simply wouldn't be able to afford or maintain them. Can you imagine a 12 year old third hand driver-less car with all its systems worn out?

So take it from me, these won't be for the Proles who will have gone back 60 years to pushbikes, buses and Shanks' Pony. 
Image result for driverless Lorries cartoon

But to whose driving standards and CV will these vehicles be programmed? What is the driving CV of the designers? At the moment they are being designed to please the usual green rag tag and bobtail of cyclists, 20's Plenty, Living Streets and anti driver road safety amateurs.

Whereas we are designing trains to go faster and faster, and planes to fly at their optimum speeds, for some reason, even more crucial roads infrastructure, is being hampered, constrained and forced to be slower and slower. Make no mistake we are tampering with essential infrastructure here and this will have a devastating effect on UK's economics.  So let's program these vehicles to the driving standards of top, progressive and efficient drivers or not at all. 

Image result for driverless Lorries cartoon The M6 lorry demo will be a costly display of unreality. For a start even the organisers have had to accept that all the trucks will need a driver on board, so the benefit is going to be what exactly?

'Ah' they say. 'Because all the lorries will be in convoy and at a steady speed and  tailgating each other, there will be fuel savings'. Oh please! That would be a drop in the ocean to the costs in slower travel, slower deliveries and longer driver hours.

Image result for driverless lorryBefore these convoys could start their trip, in the real world, they would have to ascertain the slowest vehicle which would need to be at the front.  Since all real lorries are different, with different engines, governors, loads and body weights, it would mean that the whole convoy is reduced to the slowest speed and that would be very costly. Perhaps, in due course, all truck operators will be forced to operate similar trucks?

In the real world, these convoys would need to be formed in a central marshaling yard where, as anyone who has run a town carnival would verify, it would take several hours to form the convoy after drivers have had to divert, from their direct route home, to the yard and long after they would have normally reached their destination, off loaded, and been home for tea, they would just be starting off. How costly would that be?

Image result for driverless lorry For the demo, of course all the trucks will dutifully and by coincidence, be heading for the same destination, whereas in real life, some would leave at the first exit and others at other exits whilst other trucks will wish to join the convoy at varying locations. So the disruption of any convoy would soon result.

Can you imagine trying to merge with a motorway safely just as one of these convoys began to trundle past? It would be a nightmare.

Of course this demo could only be on a motorway, where, just like railways and air travel, there's no opposing traffic, no cyclists, no dogs or horses, no kiddies, and no pedestrians and disabled scooters. Automatically flying planes in open skies, landing on massive empty runways, the technology required to do it is relatively crude compared to that needed to deal with all the varying hazards and issues on roads. Can you imagine trains and planes in tailgating convoys? I think our MPs and media are being fooled that the technology, already available in one limited field, is good enough for roads. It isn't.

So for driver-less it's back to the drawing boards for the officials who will need to conclude that the idea is a costly pipe dream as soon as possible.

But drivers and truck owners alike shouldn't be deluded, this is not for private control or independent use. So don't be supportive of the driver-less project: It isn't for you. 

Tuesday 15 March 2016

Drivers are jailed because of society's failure.

Apologies for the brevity and bluntness of the following tweets but Twitter only allows 140 characters to make a point.




The definition of road cycling is included (On these pages) of cycling deaths. 2014-2015-2016.

Road cycling is literally an exposed person, high off the ground, at unnatural speed, mixing & mingling with large essential fast moving machinery operated by complete strangers of very diverse ability,skill and mental capacity.

By definition it kills people

The primary cause of a cycling casualty is....cycling.


The authorities insist in analysing cycling casualties from the wrong place and this is very unfair to everyone; especially cyclists and drivers. For political and 'common purpose' reasons the politicians are ignoring a highly dangerous killer concept to promote cycling and then blaming drivers for their own total lack of responsibility. 

Drivers this could be you.  


See what the above report ignored 

UK's thirty five million drivers must start protesting loudly. 

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