MisterMMM.com: Speed kills! Really?

April 5

I have seen these adverts on TV telling me that speed kills. I see signs stuck on lamp-posts saying the same.

I know that when I travel along the motorway at the national speed limit, I don't die. I know that other people don't too, so maybe it's that we're just not going fast enough.

I have watched Formula 1 on TV and they do over 200mph and yet they don't die.

I have seen Drag racing and they go over 300mph, and they still live.

Then I thought about how the Earth rotates every day, and so the people at the equator are going around at over 1000mph.

To top that I looked at how the Earth orbits the Sun every year and then we are all moving at over 65000mph.

Would this carnage never end? Are we all dead and living in the after-life? Is this advertising a load of misguided b*!!*cks?

The dangerous part about speed, is that "Difference in Speed, Kills!". If you are all going along at the same speed, then you won't bump into anyone. If the differences in speed are small, as they should be on the motorway, then e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g......h-a-p-p-e-n-s....s-l-o-w-l-y!

The reason I was prompted to write about this, is the slip road from the Kedleston Road heading south onto the A38 at Markeaton Park. It's a very simple slip road, going downhill, which joins onto the A38.

Now, I always make sure that when I join the A38 there, that I am going as fast as I can. Even sometimes faster than the speed limit because the cars on the A38 often ignore the reduction of the speed limit, and insist on coming through there at a lot more than 40mph.

I also make sure that I am as far to the right of the slip road as I can be, so that I can see the cars coming down, and they can see me. It gives the maximum amount of time to get into your gap.

Now the best way to get the maximum difference in speed, is to stop at the end of the slip road, just as it joins. This is the most dangerous thing to do, and borders on gross stupidity if you ask me!

Stopping at this point means that not only do you have cars on the A38 bearing down on you at speed, but also those on the slip road trying to join the main road. It is made even more dangerous by the stationary driver keeping well to the left, thereby only seeing the cars coming down the ramp, and nobody on the main road.

What does surprise me at this junction, is just how few accidents there are! But they do happen and regularly.

So, Speed Kills! Is it slow speed, or fast speed? Is it the person who is stationary on a 40mph road stopping in the traffic? Or is it the person doing 40mph on a clear 40mph limit road, who is cut-up by someone joining the road at 5mph?