Safe Speed Forums

Cameras 'save 100 lives a year'

Speed cameras are saving 100 lives every year, according to a government study published on Tuesday.
The three-year study of accident rates on roads with cameras shows a 40% cut in the numbers of people killed and seriously injured.

The number of cameras in England and Wales is growing. There are now around 5,000 fixed speed cameras and sites where mobile cameras are often located.

Ministers hope the latest figures will help counter speed cameras' unpopularity.

Paid for by the proceeds from speeding fines, the spread of electronic speed enforcement has been controversial.

Some motorists claim they are merely a money-raising device and one police group has expressed concern that public confidence in the police is being eroded.

But Transport Secretary Alistair Darling said: "These figures prove that cameras save lives. The number of people speeding has come down and there has been a significant reduction in deaths and injuries at camera sites.

"Up to 10 people are killed on our roads each day. We owe it to them and their families to do everything we can to improve road safety."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3807325.stm


Surprise surprise. So, how did they work that one out then?

Eh?

So how come they're expecting to have issued a record number of tickets? And people actually believe this c$@p.


Kaz

Is that it, 100 lives over the entire country with five thousand cameras? Well worth the antagonism! It can't be 100 per camera site as we would have people coming back from the dead

How many have been killed by drunk drivers and idiot drivers because of the lack of traffic police in the meantime? I bet it is more than 100 per year

Well, that's it then. may as well close websites like this, as speed cameras really do save lives. Lets have one on every street since they are so good.

Oh, hang on, the national trend in RTAs is going up. Could the result be due to improved road layouts, reduced traffic flows at camera sites, and regression to the mean? And what about fatalities on their own (not combined with serious injuries) Have fatalities gone down at every camera site- and have they gone down overall in every region which has speed scamera teams.

Does this government really believe people are so stupid.

'Speed cameras work because alastair (Anti car) Darling says so. Just like there really are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, because Tony bliar says so.

It does show they are starting to feel the pressure, and are trying to end the debate before election year. Please, anyone reading this, immediately write to your MP telling them you really don't believe the lies. Letters to MPs do make a difference, they worry about getting re-elected, especially after the Euro results. Do one today.[/b]

Who said they were all sited correctly?



Urm... you mean 3 years before the camera was placed there... or 3 years prior to when they were introduced, back in 1993 was it?

*sigh* and people still keep voting these numptys in... really wonder what goes through peoples minds, sorry do they actually have one?

Okay, so Alistair Darling says it's 100 lives a year. But now Ceefax are quoting ole Tone as saying it's 900 a year, neatly covered by the press office later as saying that when he said 'deaths' he meant KSIs. Even then, as Hazelbadge pointed out about the 100 lives saved findings, it's a pretty poor showing if over 5000 cameras can't achieve better than that between them.

By the way, if anyone's interested Alistair Darling is an anagram of "riling at liar ads"

Edited to add: in the interests of fairness I should add that "Gatsobait" is an anagram of "a big stoat". Make of that what you will.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Apparantly so. It certainly takes some nerve to present a one off step
reduction of 100 fatalities after ten years of camera-based enforcement
as an amazing success. We used to see more improvement than that
year-on-year before cameras came in.

It is actually surprising that's the best they can do, given the inherent
randomness of the figures, and the well known inbuilt biases: camera
installed after an unusually bad year (regression to the mean), camera
installed at same time as a highways engineering improvement.

One danger when looking for small trends buried in random noise is that
of 'over-filtering' an under-sampled data set. Everything which doesn't
fit the pattern you were looking for gets rejected, revealing ... the pattern
you were looking for.

Can anyone point me to the full report online? These statistics are meaningless unless properly analyzed to remove long term trends and seasonal variations. Press reports and statements are completely useless since they never give the context necessary to evaluate the data.

It took a bit of finding so I bookmarked it.

You'll find it here.

Thanks Homer.

I've had a skim through the pdf report - unfortunately there is no data attached to analyze.

One thing I noted is that the report claimed that a reduction of 5% in crashes results from a 1 mph reduction in average speed ("well-established research") and then goes on to claim a 33% reduction in crashes resulting from a 2.4 mph reduction in average speed.

On my calculation, the 2.4 mph reduction should have generated only a 12% reduction in crashes. So their new results are not very consistent with their "well-established research".

The major flaw in their methodology seems to be a complete lack of control sites - where cameras were not introduced, or where cameras were removed.

Obviously the camera sites tended to be chosen because of recent perceived high accident frequencies. This is non-random selection and is subject to distortion:

a) by the "return to the mean" effect, and
b) by becoming accompanied by other interventions including road engineering, signage and warning publicity.

There is no evidence that either of these were allowed for. Although there is the comment that information on major changes (speed limits, dual carriageway) was sought, I did not find any statement on what was done with it.

Also this kind of analysis can obscure and misinterpret significant time series effects since the only sequences allowed for in the model are a linear decrease over time and a fixed annual seasonal variation.

The other obviously missing information is whether there was a positive or negative impact outside the camera sites (and indeed how the range of a camera site was defined - unless I missed that somewhere).

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Alan Wilkinson (at http://www.fastandsafe.org)

allan ,

u didn't go to the executive sumary did u, that's full of all the old rubbish.

With all the hard numbers , even without all of the whys and wherefores u mentioned the results from the scam cam are at best poor.

the newer partnerships show a better result than the older partnerships, as they haven't had so long for a random accident to happen again. The older partnerships cameras perform badly as its their turn for an accident.

for my money, very very very few of any of the accident sites they identified had good cause for a speed cam.. but then I would say that wouldnt I !


rgds
Bill

What little data they are giving out is broken down into area/county figures. It is more interesting for what is not included than what is included.



Nothing in the figures about control sites or sites without cameras, they also conveniently exclude a number of sites where KSIs are up because they say there is insufficient data yet include similar sites where the figures have dropped.

Headline in "The News" (Portsmouth) on Friday was something like "Safety cameras are saving lives" but they only quoted the fall in KSI and not the RISE in fatalities last year...

Gareth

dear gareth..

of course they quote in that manner.

I have yet to see ANY statement coming out of ANY speed cam mouth which has even a half truth in it, They simply fudge the figures, they continue to do so, and they are failing. In the meantime we are all paying thru the nose. If ksi are not down, its accidents, if not those, its under 24's, if not those its pedistrians, or what ever small segment of the road using fraternity they wish to pick on as having saved with their wretched speed camera pension fund.

I dont disagree one little bit with anyone asking/insisting we take lots of care on the road, and that may include slowing down sometimes.. But this complete load of old twoddle they keep dishing out has to be countered time and time and time again, and the only way we have of doing that is thru the press. To then enforce their twoddle with a fine of £60.00 and three points, and possible disqualification is disproportionate to the so called offence.

yes we must have law and order, but no I don't want a stalinist state, where people are afraid to breathe or drive ..


rgds
bill

I have seen others comment that the baseline ("before") data can come from any 3 year period chosen to justify a site. Where does this assertion come from?

I have read the full report and the closest it comes to clarifying this is :
"during a period (generally 36 months duration) immediately preceding entry into partnership for that area (referred to as the baseline period)".

Does this indicate it is the 3 years immediately prior to introducing a specific camera?

Well it would make sense to have it somewhere near the date the camera was put in.
You cant choose a period years before and claim that the site used to be a danger spot therefore put a camera in.

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It's Champion Man