Safe Speed Forums

Any minute now they should appear on:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/da ... ualtiesmr/

Safe Speed issued the following 'briefing note' to press at 23:50 last evening:

PR515: Road Casualty Statistics - Briefing note

news: for immediate release

QUICK QUOTE
===========

Assuming a total road deaths figure in excess of 3,100 for 2,006...

Paul Smith, founder of SafeSpeed.org.uk, said: "Our overall road safety
performance continues to be extremely disappointing. I am absolutely certain
that bad policy founded on 'speed kills' is at the centre of the problem.
Department for Transport needs a complete rebuild from the ground up - their
policies clearly aren't working."


BRIEFING NOTE
=============

Tomorrow at or before 10am Department for Transport are expected to issue 'Road
Casualties Great Britain (main results) 2006. This will be the first time we
have seen audited national road casualty figures for 2006.

This briefing note highlights the issues that, possibly, Department for
Transport would rather you didn't notice.


SERIOUS INJURIES
================

There is a known very high level of under-reporting of serious injury figures.
If the rate of under-reporting is rising, and we believe that it is, then a
reduction in the serious injury numbers may NOT represent a real improvement in
road safety. Safespeed highlighted the issue in 2004 [1], and both the British
Medical Journal [2] and the Statistics Commission [3] provided confirmation in
2006. The BMJ in particular told us that despite a 35% drop in DfT's 'serious
injuries' over a decade, the number of victims of road crashes who were
hospitalised rose slightly over the same decade.

Safe Speed does not believe that ongoing reduction in the serious injury
statistics represent a real improvement in road safety at all. As things stand
the serious injury series is ENTIRELY UNSUITABLE for year on year comparison.

Department for Transport, to their eternal shame, have issued a couple of
documents obfuscating the issues surrounding the serious injury statistics.


KSI
===

Department for Transport road safety targets are set in terms of 'Killed and
Seriously Injured' (KSI) persons. Unfortunately the number of 'S' is around 10
times the number of 'K' so the flawed serious injury figures dominate the KSI
figures. We could have a bizarre situation where the roads are getting more
dangerous and the numbers killed are rising, but due to increasing under-
reporting of serious injuries it might appear that targets are being met.


TOTAL ROAD DEATHS - and how they are changing
=============================================

If road safety policy 'works' road deaths go down - but it isn't quite so
simple. If policy does nothing, we should expect road deaths to fall under some
well-understood influences, especially:

- we're continuing to put safer cars on the roads every year (-3%)
- we're continuing to improve roads engineering (-1.5%)
- we're continuing to improve at post crash care and rescue (-1%)
- pedestrian activity continues to decline (-1%)
- traffic continues to increase (+1.5%)

The figures in brackets are Safe Speed current estimates of the 'value' of
each of the factors in terms of road death change over a year. Taken together
we expect road deaths to fall by around 5% per annum. These sorts of falls are
present in much of Europe according to the recent report from ETSC [1] showed
that 10 countries achieved greater than this level of improvement over the last
four years.

Of course there remains the possibility of 'social confounders' such as:

- growth of mobile phone driving
- people switching to motorbikes because of congestion
- growth of 'larger SUV style vehicles which may do more damage in some crashes
- ... and so on.

But the fact remains that the expectation and the baseline against which we
should measure our performance is not a 'flat line' but an ever downwards
slope.

Recent UK road deaths figures are as follows:

1980 6010
1981 5846
1982 5934
1983 5445
1984 5599
1985 5165
1986 5382
1987 5125
1988 5052
1989 5373
1990 5217
1991 4568
1992 4229
1993 3814
1994 3650
1995 3621
1996 3598
1997 3599
1998 3421
1999 3423
2000 3409
2001 3450
2002 3431
2003 3508
2004 3221
2005 3201

A reduction of 5% since 2005 would give a 2006 figure of 3,041 and would
represent 'reasonable performance' on one year's change. Less that 3,041 would
be good performance and higher than 3,041 would be disappointing performance.
But we have become extremely used to disappointing performance in the past
decade.

A figure of 3,150 has been rumoured, which would represent a drop of about
1.5%. This would be roughly consistent with recent performance but is NOWHERE
NEAR to the performance we're entitled to. Safe Speed is certain that 'bad
policy' is responsible for the last decade's bad performance.

<ends>

Notes for editors
=================

[1] http://www.safespeed.org.uk/serious.html

[2] http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/rapidpdf ... 1.4Fv1.pdf

[3] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/219

[4] European Transport Safety Council first PIN report:
http://www.etsc.be/documents/PIN_Report.pdf

Scrap Speed Cameras Week:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/sscw.html

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Now published:

_________________
"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

the number of road deaths only fell 0.906%
not 1% as they claim

_________________
Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Safe Speed has already issued two PRs on this. The first at 9:30 :
The time came out as a smiley, fixed by smeggy

PR516: New road casualty figures - first reaction

news: for immediate release

Department for Transport released this morning 2006 roads casualty figures for
the first time.

Paul Smith, founder of SafeSpeed.org.uk, said: "The fall of just under 1% in
road deaths is further damning evidence of policy failure. Most of our European
neighbours are achieving falls of 4% or more and we're entitled to at least
that."

"Our road safety policies aren't working. There's far too much focus on vehicle
speeds and no focus at all on driver quality."

"Speed cameras are at the centre of the policy failure and must go. We have to
cut out the cameras to cut out the dogma that is crippling road safety efforts
in Britain."

<ends>

Notes for editors
=================

See our comprehensive briefing note issued earlier today:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/376

New figures from:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/da ... /casualtie
smr/rcgbmainresults2006

****

And the second at 10:16:

PR517: Killed by policy; saved by technology

news: for immediate release

The underlying story of the new road casualty figures released today by
Department for Transport is that we've received part of the benefit of improved
car technology - but there's no evidence whatsoever of a benefit from road
safety policy.

Paul Smith, founder of SafeSpeed.org.uk, said: "It's obvious from this
appalling set of figures that road safety policy isn't working. Pedestrian
deaths are up. Child pedestrian deaths are up. Motorcyclist deaths are up. Bus
and coach occupant deaths are up. Only car occupant deaths are down, and it's
perfectly clear that car occupants are benefiting from improved car
technology."

"Department for Transport policies based on the grossly oversimplified notion
that 'speed kills' are making matters worse and have been for years. We have to
get rid of that notion and build real policies that save real lives again. The
best way to start is to get rid of speed cameras because they symbolise the
failed policies and the failed thinking."

"20mph zones, speed limit reductions, traffic calming and speed cameras are all
wrong-headed policies which aren't working to save British lives. Department
for Transport has got it wrong in spades and must be held accountable."

"The serious injury statistics are known to be subject to a huge degree of
under-reporting. It is perfectly obvious that the degree of under-reporting is
increasing making the figures quite unsuitable for year on year comparison.
While serious injuries fell by 35% over a decade, road crash hospitalisations
showed a slight rise. Department for Transport claims to be 'investigating'
which I presume means that they are still trying to pluck up the courage to
admit that their serious injury figures are bunk. They should be ashamed of
themselves. Lives are at stake."

"These figures highlight the huge importance to road safety of Safe Speed's
'Scrap Speed Cameras Week'. We have to scrap speed cameras because they are the
main symbol of a fatally flawed and ill founded policy that has failed
catastrophically.

"Over 28,000 signed our 'Scrap Speed Cameras' petition. They know that
something has gone seriously wrong. Why don't Department for Transport?"

<ends>

Notes for editors
=================

See our briefing note:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/376

Scrap Speed Cameras Week:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/sscw.html

New DfT release:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/da ... esults2006

Scrap Speed Cameras petition (now closed)
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/scrapcam

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety