Good news about UK transport is rare – so a fall in road deaths to below 3,000 for the first time since records began is definitely worth noting. Go here for a BBC summary, of the latest figures or here for the full-Monty DfT version. But, TC and a few others note that the latest stats also reveal that speeding is a causal factor in only 3% of accidents. This is equally good news for most of us. Go here for a Massey of the Mail report. A third year of ’cause’ stats to accompany traffic injury figures builds an increasingly clear and reliable source of facts to help balance road safety policy emphasis between speed limit enforcement and tackling the bad but non-speeding behaviour that causes most road fatalities in practice. The hard news on speed as a factor is however less good for some campaign groups, administrators, and safety/speed camera manufacturers who see speed reduction or limit enforcement as the best way to improve road safety. The facts as revealed by the latest stats place government on the horns of a thorny dilemma. The best way to counteract careless and bad driving on roads is by deploying patrols of experienced traffic police. But, in a nut shell, that is a cost for government to face and speed cameras offer a source of revenue… Road safety also has a social dimension. Links between higher death rates and deprivation are a focus of concern for this Guardian article.
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October 5th, 2008 at 10:46 am
These figures refer only to drivers of cars who are of course the great majority who pay speeding fines.
Despite cameras, the accident % involving speeding have RISEN fom 4,5,7,8 and 12 (slight, all, serious, KSI and K) to 5,6,8,9 and 13.
http://www.safespeed.org.uk provides detailed documentation of homw the DfT LIED to the Transport Select Ctte, claiming that cameras are 12% more cost effective than vehicle activated signs whereas in fact they are 50 TIMES LESS cost effective. Transcom chose to ignore the evidence I sent them showing that thse figures were insane.
The 4 year report on speed cameras chooses to ignore regression to the mean in its headline figures and claims accident and casualty reduction by speed cameras FAR FAR in excess of what is ever caused by speeding in the first place.
Intelligent Speed Adapatation – GPS based black boxes to control engine power and brakes to prevent speeding – on which millions have been spent exerimenting (DfT published report on 25th Sept) claims accident and casualty reduction of 18% to 60%, and cost recovery (£26bn !!!!) ranging from 1.9 to 5 times over 60 years (!!!!!) based on these utterly ludicrous figues AND the assumption that accidents will barely fall over those 60 years, despite the £bns being spent on safer vehicles and roads!!!!
If ever I saw figures manipulated to see achieve the answers the authors wanted – these 3 are the worst.
SI figures are now known to be spurious – the June 2006 BMJ report showed that the supposed fall is due only to falls in reporting levels, and that hospital figures are not falling at all. This is supported by the same report from which you quote – there is a whole chapter on it
Thousands of people are being killed and injured on our roads every year because of these congenital idiots, repeating their mad mantra “Speed Kills” and fiddling the figures to prove it. HEADS MUST ROLL
October 5th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Oops, minor corrections:
Your figures refer to car drivers only, mine refer to all accidents.
full web address is wwww.safespeed.org.uk/vas.html, my contact details are there, and the contents include Ladyman’s absurd letter to Transcom admitting that his £7,500 figure for a speed camera for a year did not include £32,000 for the camera itself!
I have spent thousands of hours over 7 years studying road casualty and safety data and analysis, and in nearly 50 years as an engineer can say that I have never before opened such a can of worms, if incompetence, fraud, downright lies and neglect for personal safety
December 23rd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
During my experience of riding shotgun in wagons since I was 13, then driving wagons for a living 300K Km a year for 15 years, plus my subsequent car driving following other people making a total of over 30 years on the road. I have noticed that there is something funny about the actions of some drivers. The key to this was a past older friend who was not very good at seeing and freaked out if you drove him as a passenger above 30 Mph. Obviously he didn’t drive himself although he once had a probably illegal small 120cc motor-bike for a short time. According to the latest statistics there are 20% of drivers who would fail the eyesight test on the roads today. With not looking being the greatest alleged cause of accidents, perhaps many of these accidents are avoidable if you root out those who actually can’t see to look properly.
One may be asking how these potentially blind drivers manage to keep on the roads and get from A to B, but its a simple case of finding your way from point to point at a given speed. It was normally the case that dense fog would not significantly slow my progress along the A59 on the way to Skipton at 5 AM in the morning. It was simply a case of learning the route at a said speed / time, the only time you had to slow down was when you had to slow down for any other traffic and get temporarily lost. Then it was just a case of finding the next fixed recognised point on the road and carrying along as usual. It is probably the case that people slamming on the brakes when they get ” lost ” on motorways in fog causes major accidents. My mum was totally blind for the last few years of her life and could easily navigate around our home like a sighted person just so long a the furniture was not moved. If any strangers came in they did not realise she was blind unless she told them. Before she went blind she was an excellent driver.
Potentially blind drivers may be driving around in the equivalent of dense fog at all times. They normally travel at about 40 Mph everywhere, ( any slower and they know they would stick out like a sore thumb ) and usually have a very long queue behind them on roads with a faster speed limit. It is usually the case that the diver causing the queue is fitted with ” Jam Jar ” spectacles when you finally pass them on a dual carriageway. Blind drivers are also easy to spot when they stop on the line at roundabouts when all those in the following usual queue can see that the road is clear to proceed. I believe that accidents caused by cars stopping unexpectedly at roundabouts have significantly increased over the past few years. Although some could be due to insurance scams, I suspect that more are caused by blind drivers stopping for no good reason.
By now you may be asking why the government has not introduced annual eye-sight testing for all drivers considering all the other measures it passes allegedly in the interest of road safety. Perhaps the simple fact is that the government actually like lots of road accidents just so long as they don’t kill the wage slaves. With disability benefits generally low and relatively difficult to claim the government has nothing to loose by crippling quite a few people every year. Accidents generate a lot of tax revenue in VAT etc. plus the blind drivers are far more likely to be caught by a speed camera in a 30 limit, so plenty of extra revenue from speeding fines. The government also benefits from the extra congestion caused by blind drivers, more in fuel tax and now they are considering congestion charging nationwide. Perhaps it should be up to the insurance companies to require all drivers to produce evidence of good eye-sight when they apply for their new policy each year, perhaps they could offer a discount if one did this. Once again its a case of money comes first, more insurance claims and people with speed camera convictions means higher prices for policies and as third party insurance is a legal requirement to drive they can charge whatever they want.
You also have to ask where the majority of the high profile road safety lobby are when it comes to eye-sight testing, plenty of ban this cut that but not a word on probably one of the most important factors for road safety. The simple truth is that high profile road safety groups like Brake are generally funded by the motor industry itself, and therefore campaigning for the introduction of a measure which could cut 20% of their sponsors best customers is out of the question.
It would be fairly easy to organise a simple but effective eye-sight testing facility at GP’s health centres in the treatment room. The test could be on a walk in basis and free to the user and carried out by a member of the nursing staff. Perhaps the test could be phased in starting with older drivers then rolled out to cover everyone with a driving licence around their birthday.
BBC Action Network Blog Response
I couldn’t agree more.
You have acurately described my (now deceased) father.
Suffering from macular degeneration, and repeatedly arriving home complaining of how foggy it was (on a clear day) he only decided to stop driving after three crashes into parked cars (no injuries thankfully) and when the compulsory eye test (at eighty, I think) was due.
Being in a car with him was terrifying to the extreme. My mother refused to go out with him. He would simply pull out at roundabouts with a belligerent “they’ll get out of my way”. He really had no idea if something was coming or not.
It is insane to allow people to drive in this state of health and as my selfish father proved – you cannot rely on people to police themselves.”
By susan crowe in Bromley – on 10 Jan 2007 at 14:32