Safe Speed Forums

Well it's a start.

Perhaps you next need to specifically identify problems with 'conclusion and methods employed' rather than make extremely vague and unsubstantiated comments.

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

I can think of nothing worse than trying to publish information unprepared and out of context. The underlying suggestion that scientific publication is trivial is simply absurd. It's nowhere near trivial.

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

<content deleted>

Given his history of dishonesty Paul Smith is terrified that he will be found out, so he will never, ever allow his "research" to be peer-reviewed.

Fair enough. I'd not thought it through fully. Also I have since had a trawl through the site Rich linked to in his opening gambit and I realise it would be poles apart from the website format.

please be moved to this thread, the second-from-last page on the forum?

Are you suggesting some kind of conspiracy?

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

I believe you are a banned and unwelcome poster. Your posting rights will be suspended unless you supply me with proper contact details - including a telephone number so that I can verify your authenticity.

Edited to add: I suspended the Charles Napier user account when it failed certain tests.

In case I am mistaken, Charles Napier can email me at psmith@safespeed.org.uk with suitable verification details and I'll enable the account again immediately.

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

while peer review would be intresting to see it is but the opinion of a select few who may well have their own prejudices and by it's nature goes pretty much uncontested. And I suspect there will be limitations on the avaliabilty of the results. The beauty of internet discussion is that it's live, anyone can say anything, anonymously if need be, and once you sort through the chaff it's a far more balenced discussion than any traditional medium we've ever had and more relevant for guaging what people are thinking.

I've participated in discussions about the line between racism and the "acceptable" levels of tribalism in us all, and the relevance and hypocrasy of organised religion, and put foward arguements you couldn't express just anywhere for fear of being shouted down by the herd mentality. but on the internet they have to think about your arguement to counter it. and in doing so may somewhat understand your reasoning.

And I've seen very little in the way of reasonably thought out counter arguements to pauls theorys here, despite us being led to believe the majority of people support speed cameras. in fact this is one of the most eye-catching counter-arguements I've seen on here, so the fact that it's about his methods of publication and not directly contesting any of his claims says a lot...

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

Paul - think we all know who we are really dealing with.

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If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
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KEEP SMILING
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Smily to penny.. penny to pound
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how is that argument any different from the government's and, presumably, your position that speed cameras save lives? Are 'illogical' arguments only bad if they don't agree with your chosen view?

Richard - both my wife and self have our work published in "Lancet" and "BMJ" on occasion and we also "peer review" other people's work on request. My sister is a teacher - she has articles published in some teaching magazine and the Swiss teacher who has posted on here in the Nonny section once or twice in the past - has articles published in the "Times Ed" and the "Association for Language Learning" Journals.

Trouble with this is abnd I admit it - we look for things which support our own theories and tend to get a bit upset if someone disagrees with our findings as it means we have to go back to drawing board and start a newe series of trials and experiments

[small=9] If you are one of the C+ brigade - ignore the smilies My posts are being rated by the Swiss who are giving between 50p and £1 per post or fining me for "inapprorpriate smiley" - proceeds to cancer research, HIV research and we will be sending Paulie some funds as well since he provided the forum in first place [/small]

Now my referral to the teachers is very apt - these same journals condemend phonics and singing times tables as a signiifcant learning activity. For two decades children were taiught to read with "real books" and we now have a chav generation of 20-30 year olds who are basically unemployable illtiterates and innumerates and the old ways are now "fashionable" again.




I would recommend you read Dr Mountain's Appendix H again, Prof Rose Baker's "Camera Lotto" piece of last year in an accredited Maths Magazine which has also been "Peer reviewed" and supports the work on here as it comes to same conclusions and then there is teh small matter of the misrepresentation of Pilkington's piece in the BMJ which concluded that whilst the data provided appears to show success in reducing incidents at camera sites to tune of 17-70% - the data backing it need to be collated in a more efficeint, standardised way as the discrepancies cannot provide adequate proof one way or the other!

My criteria has to be 100% accurate - I deal with lurgies and some of the minimising of these lurgies depends on my professional judgement. I make one slip and buck rests with me and you will all know who I am and exactly where in Keswick environs we live! I cannot afford any fudging or non standardisation of data when deciding on vaccination programmes and treatments. Lives do depend on this! Given that the partnerships are claiming lives depend onj their siting of scameras - I have a right as a road user with a growing family to be able to trust their findings and I cannot given the far too wide variations and if cameras are reducing death and injury to tune of 70% - then I would expect to see the figure of 3500 drop by this figure and not remain the same - year on year and even increase in some areas! I would also expect to see zero profits in scam areas as well if scams are succesful in slowing down drivers.

not one so called peer reviewed accredited scam peer assessed report by scam based assessors can show me this

As for Monbiot's status in population - get in tough with BBC and ask for tapes of airplay on both Radio Two and Four - the listeneres were not impressed

[/quote]


Hmm - Rose Baker's work proved to be very similar - it probably would survive scrutiny and it is very likley that the decision to prevent the prats from retaining fines to erect more scams is down to the collective body of such work whether "peer reviewed" or not!

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

Why is this website considered to be an amateur resourse?

Isn't this very resource the same that the government uses, is that amateur or professional.
If that is professional, then surely this website is also professional.

I've come into this discussion very late, one question to you richlyon, do speed cameras work or not, where do you stand?

Could I also suggest you have a look at the video on this forum, makes interesting watching, http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5347

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

We could also point out that none of the DfT's primary reports in support of cameras (and camera 'philosophy') are peer-reviewed either. And they have effectively unlimited resources.

I understand that last year's report (the three year report) cost £1.7 million. I felt able to accuse it of dishonesty within minutes of publication on Radio Five. Soon after I wrote to the lead author in an open letter:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/heydecker2.html

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

There is a fair amont of truth in this! It is true, IMHO, that the independence of much research must be regarded as "questionable". Research is expensive and dependent on the sources of funding available. Whilst it has been known for research to reach conclusions which are very "inconvenient" for those funding it, all to often one is left with feelings that some research smacks of placating the source of funding to ensure future funding.

The whole "peer-review" issue is also not as clean-cut as is often portrayed. Many academic journals belong to "schools of thought" and one doubts that editorial panels of journals would appoint peer-reviewers from opposing schools? Indeed, in terms of the research assessment exercise, the most "points" are scored by a single author INVITED paper. Such papers are, to be fair, still peer-reviewed, but by peers who almost certainly belong to the same school of thought as the author. The process is therefore critical (to the level of nit-picking on occasion), but is in effect often done by "critical friends".

What the peer-review process does achieve is ensuring that references cited are valid and pertinent, that methods employed are understood, and that conclusions are justifiable. But - justifiable does not necessarily mean correct - the conclusions of much research are hotly contended - merely that it is reasonable to draw them from the arguments employed (other conclusions may also be reasonably drawn).

I once wrote a paper which was reviewed by two "peers" for the journal I submitted it to; one liked the first half and objected to the second half, the other reviewer took an exactly opposite view. As the editior said to me - "bit of problem"! Rather than muck about with it, I withdrew tha paper and submitted a slightly revised version to another journal which accepted it without change...

One of the biggest problems with the peer-review process is that reviewers are humans with their own prejudices.
Think of what you would do if you were a reviewer, and the paper you were reviewing either a) opposed your own views, or b) agreed with them.
I believe that a useful change to the process would be for the reviews to be published along with the paper.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

I honestly think that 'open review' is the way forward.

With the Internet, there's no need for the review process to be limited in time or by selection of (typically) just three reviewers.

I note that the BMJ provides 'open review' facilities.

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

[devil's advocate mode]

With an open review process, how does one arbitrate the process so that the end-result is seen to be fair and unbiased?

[/devil's advocate mode]

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

If anyone can reply there's an inherent lack of system level bias that isn't available to other methods.

And the author can answer criticism - or equally fail to answer criticism.

I can see possible need for moderation, but freedom from bias is a benefit that arises from self-selected reviewers. If (say) 100 folk with an agenda all posted the same invalid criticism, I think that in itself would prove to be quite revealing.

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

At every turn, Paul, you betray the intellectual flaw I believe runs through the heart of your entire premise. You assert without proof the conclusion you wish to draw - that speed cameras, which you assert only coincidentally prevent you from fully enjoying the road to the extent that your particular skills allow, have caused a deterioration in road safety and therefore must be banned. You provide no evidence for why you think reversion to a set of policies designed for road conditions that prevailed prior to their introduction would be successful under the road conditions that prevail now. Nor do you explain why you select road cameras as the principle factor from all the other environmental factors that have changed during the period, and dismiss all other factors that are at least as plausible as the one you champion.

You provide no evidence beyond a series of correlations you admit offer no more than possible causation. Instead, you work backward to manufacture a set of peculiar statistics and (by your own admission) half-cooked theories - which, although the product of 10,000 hours of your research and apparently good enough to sell advertising and £18,000 worth of membership fees on, you assert would take months to present to Independent Safety specialists to verify and might never be ready for publication because they are too progressive for conventional experts to appreciate - in the hope that some of it sticks (or, as you put it, "to report correlation as yet more evidence of possible causation").

Finally, for your theory to be successful, you need to posit the existence of either an incompetent or malign government that systematically fails to act in the best interest of its citizens, an ignorant population of drivers that is susceptible to a series of bizarre behavioural phenomena, an ignorant general public that is incapable of detecting the widespread manipulation of public information or reflecting on their own experience without your help, and an incompetent or corrupt body of independent Safety Specialists.

In short, you are engaging in a humdrum attempt to coerce reality into fitting your theory. The continually lengthening list of reasons why now is not a good time to offer it up to independent scrutiny should surprise no-one.


Who are you to determine what is and isn't in the public interest? I am the public - a member of the majority who voted for this government and its policies, a member of the majority that approves of speed cameras, and who is prepared to abide by social limits even if I disagree with them. To me, until you have had your work independently scrutinised, you are just a self absorbed, frustrated activist peddling speed camera detector advertising, the product of the sort of naive individualism that so often arises amongst those who would enjoy the benefits of living in a society but who would refuse to be forced to go along from time to time with decisions that go against them.

Once you have had your work independently scrutinised, I'll consider the merits of your case and whether or not they are in my interest. Until then you are indistinguishable from any tuppence-ha'penny self-approving grievance group. That's why your prevarication on this matter of verification is so fatal to your ultimate cause.


In what way could I have been any more specific in this post? To remind you, I didn't pick this example - you sent it to me by email as primary evidence of a causal link between speed camera convictions and road deaths. You supplied no qualification, either in your email or on the page itself, that the data is intended to be viewed in the context of some other piece of data. I have demonstrated quite clearly how in the form you present it it is indistinguishable from a post hoc logical fallacy.

On this thread, you state this example is now meant only "evidence of possible causation", yet on the page itself you state categorically, and without reference to any other evidence than that which is contained on the page, that "... speed cameras and the policies that support them are now costing over 1,000 lives every year." You have linked a conclusion that you hope is true to a piece of data no more substantial than "flu deaths go up when vaccinations are given", passing one off as evidence of the other thereby committing a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy of reasoning which you should remove.

However, your question continues to evade the real point. Why are you asking me to find (more) logical fallacies in your arguments - why are you not taking up the panel of Safety Experts offer to do so?


By publishing, I presume you mean bring to public attention, which from your assertion of its success in supporting your pressure group, you believe your website has done. Then by your own admission, your entire website is unprepared, and no part of it appears to be readable without reference to other contextual material that is not specified. And yet from it you advertise appliances intended to undermine a major national safety system, and thousands use it to justify their individual campaigns to destroy public property and safety systems.

It is good to conclude on a point upon which we agree.

Rich: If you believe this policy is working explain why road deaths stopped falling at 5% a year as they always have done before cameras were first introduced in the early nineties? That was also the same era extra safety features such as abs, crash testing and airbags were also starting to appear. What environmental factors are you referring to? The only difference I can think of is that this government is more anti car and their policies which actively frustrate drivers are making people drive more badly, putting them under more stress and making accidents more likely. A road system should be based on co-operation rather than contention. Sadly the latter seems to be the only thing in road planner's minds. The lack of traffic police has also seen a massive increase in illegal driving which can only be detrimental to accident rates.

Before you mention the so called majority voting for this government I think you'll find it was the lowest percentage for a majority in history. 35% odd percent wasn't it? So that means around 65% of voters did not want a labour government! As long as a few extra people in marginals voted labour it didn't really matter what the rest of the country felt. Sad fact is the majority of the british public over the age of 18 did not vote labour if they bothered to vote at all. In fact in England the conservatives got a great number of votes in total than labour.