You sound like a motoring journalist. Honestly, if you’re exceeding the speed limit to pass you’re unlikely to be gaining much anyway. 99% of the time people should just chill out and accept that driving a car already comes with so many unpaid externalities that not killing other people with your tonne of steel is a reasonable compromise. Speed is the major contributor to mortality and injury on the roads (and in developed countries the leading cause of death in some age groups).
Also, can some describe in detail a scenario where accelerating makes things safer than simply slowing down. Or where the knowledge that a speed limiter would kick in would not already have changed behaviour in a safety enhancing way?
>>Also, can some describe in detail a scenario where accelerating makes things safer than simply slowing down
Mostly in a situation where you've already messed up. Like you're in a middle of an overtake and suddenly you realize you're not going to make it before the incoming car, speeding up to close the gap can save your life in a way that slamming the brakes and just getting hit head-on wouldn't.
And yes, you shouldn't have gotten into that position in the first place. But if you did then accelerating can save your life(obviously dependant on the specific situation, it's an extreme edge case of course).
Even in that situation, hitting the brakes and aborting the overtake maneuver is the safer option. With ABS ubiquitous, even hard braking should leave your car maneuverable.
If you push on the accelerator, you are just increasing the risk, as you'll hit the car at a much higher speed. The crash is going to be 10x worse.
A speed limit would safe a lot of lives, but no-one will implement it because people like to speed.
>>Even in that situation, hitting the brakes and aborting the overtake maneuver is the safer option.
I'm sure you can imagine a scenario where it's impossible to abort - the vehicle incoming is a 40 tonne truck, they won't stop in time to not hit you, you can't merge back into your lane, and there is no room on the other side to escape to - your only option is to accelerate and hope for a tight squeeze.
>>If you push on the accelerator, you are just increasing the risk
Or saving your life, depending on the outcome.
Like I said, it's a situation no one shouldn't be in. But you asked for a clear example where accelerating helps, and that is one, as rare as it is.
This is dumb. I can’t really imagine a situation where the slot I the traffic I just left to overtake isn’t still available. The truck you’ve overtaking would have to be 100m long for slowing down to be a worse option.
I have attempted a pass before with the car behind me tailgating me also attempting the same pass at the same time. Very dangerous move on their part, but you would be potentially unable to merge back over in this case.
>> can’t really imagine a situation where the slot I the traffic I just left to overtake isn’t still available
Well, I can't help with that. Either you can choose to believe me that this can and does happen, or you can choose to believe that it's a fantasy scenario that doesn't exist.
>>In every case if you slow down and pull in you will have less chance of hitting a car coming the other way.
If you're in a middle of the overtake with nothing but trucks on the side, once the differential in speed is large enough you'd need the skill of an F1 driver to slow down just enough to merge back in(assuming they even let you in) and not get hit by the traffic behind you and not to lose control of the car. Add any kind of adverse weather conditions and I'd argue this is actually much more difficult to pull off.
>>This scenario doesn’t make sense.
I guess if you've never seen that scenario play out in real life it's hard to imagine how it would happen.
>>f limits were there it sounds like you think this scenario would also become less common?
Of course, but OP wanted an example where accelerating helps, so I gave them one.
What a ridiculous comment. Have you ever been stuck behind a slow vehicle? It seems like some of the idealists and scolds here have never driven in the real world.
If stuck behind an actually slow vehicle it’s possible to overtake. If stuck behind someone close to the speed limit it’s not. If someone killed my family while speeding and overtaking I would be angry and ask them why their freedom to speed was more important than their freedom from injury and death. Speed is the major contributor to injury on roads. Arguing for more speed during the riskiest maneuvers we make doesn’t sound like a smart move to me.
Have you ever worked as a first responder and seen the stupid things people do?
There's a straight road, almost no traffic, and someone still manages to hit an oncoming car because they feel that they really need to overtake that slow asshole right now but are too stupid to check if there's anyone coming towards them in the other lane.
People are fucking stupid. And I'm also including myself in that, because I've been the stupid idiot in a few situations -- fortunately always had good luck and never caused a serious accident.
Also, can some describe in detail a scenario where accelerating makes things safer than simply slowing down. Or where the knowledge that a speed limiter would kick in would not already have changed behaviour in a safety enhancing way?