I am not arguing the effects of speed, but the absolute relationship between speed and safety, that you allude to when you say "many road deaths could have been avoided if the driver wasn't going so fast". The safest roads in the UK are the fastest, the motorways. Go figure.
Yes, and I could travel for miles in the desert at great speeds without ever having an accident or killing anyone. Surprise surprise! I don't think anyone's arguing this point?
If you want to consider the "speed kills" statement in a completely literal sense, then of course it's not the case. However, anyone with half a brain would realise what the significance is beyond the convenience of the marketing campaign's slogan.
Your stats don't actually show what the relationship of "speed to crash likelyhood" is at all. All they show is the proportion of crashes attributed to speeding compared to other accident causes, which is a completely different thing to showing the proportion of speeders that end up as crash victims. For all you know, that 12% of crashes attributed to speeding could be made up of 100% of the speeding population. Of course this isn't the case, but it illustrates the problem with the conclusions you're wrongly drawing from the stats.
Indeed. It's called Life. If you don't like it, might I suggest staying in bed with the duvet over your head? You'll still not live forever, but that is the nature of it.
This amounts to saying "keep off the road so bad drivers can drive badly without endangering your life". Err no - keep your bad driving under control so I can travel safely. Obviously life has its risks. Some of the sporting activities I do are quite risky. But to not try and minimize the risks is unarguably stupid.
Ok, so you may be able to always drive at the correct speed for the given road conditions / hazards etc? Congratulations. As emergov so rightly says, everyone likes to think they're a great driver. Some people have several crashes and still believe they're great drivers.
Ah. A hobby horse. I thought there might be one somewhere.
How's that then?
I do think, as I have said in previous posts, that a lot of enforced speed limits seem to be both unrealistic and inappropriate. I don't think I've said anything to the contrary?