Hitting back at Brake's claims that Top Gear was irresponsible over speed, Safe Speed said: "In fact it's Brake who are CONSTANLTY irresponsible over speed.They seek to reduce something complex into something very simple, but unfortunately it's oversimplified to the point of being DANGEROUSLY MISLEADING.
"Speed Kills" say Brake, but they offer no definition about what "speed" is.Apparently they hope we will assume that it has something to do with the legal speed limit.
Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "Brake are doing road safety an enormous disservice by constantly attempting to reduce something complex into a trivial and ill defined sound bite."
"Of course it's important that no one drives 'too fast' - but 'too fast' is a subtle question of judgement based on the immediate circumstances. At times 5mph can be far too fast, but equally 120mph on the Autobahn in good conditions can be quite a modest speed. The rarity of crashes is proof positive that most of our drivers most of the time do select safe and appropriate speeds according to the conditions. It's this behaviour - the result of drivers' risk assessments - that is crucial to road safety."
"Any experienced driver will tell you that it makes no difference to normal driving if his speedometer stops working. So how important can the number it shows be to the process of safe driving?"
"No amount of 'sticking to the speed limit' will keep us safe if drivers fail to manage risk. If we want safer roads we have to help drivers to develop better risk management skills."
"Safe driving is a complex business that has far more to do with skills and attitudes than rules compliance. A driver with a dangerous attitude may well break the rules and have a crash - but was it the dangerous attitude or the rules breaking that caused the crash? We believe that it's almost always the attitude."
"If Brake wants safer roads - and I believe that they do - then they must concentrate on fostering and developing skilled and responsible behaviour from all road users. Vehicle speeds have very little to do with it, and the 'speed kills' slogan is dangerously oversimplified - it's just about the first thing we need to throw out to get road safety back on track."
"You can't measure safe driving in miles per hour."
