Safe Speed Forums

I see in the Sunday Times this week that road safety campaigners are finally waking up to the idea of using a French idea to warn of sites where fatalities have occurred.
If forum members have travelled on roads like the N106 from Nimes to Ales, or the N10 north of Bordeaux, they will have seen black full-size cutouts which are obviously where someone has died on the road. There are often in clusters, particularly poignant are the little ones which represent children. I find them very useful to warn of particular hazards. The "black men" sometimes have a red bit on the top of the head to denote blood and on the N88 around Mende they have a big red heart with an arrow through it.
I've thought for a long time that this type of warning would be better than the current practice in the UK of putting flowers out (though the French sometimes do this too where someone has died after hitting a tree).

Sorry to be everso slightly flippant, but at Membury on the M4 it would be like having an audience on the embankment. Ten died there . . .

It certainly ISN'T a good idea to desensitise drivers to human figures at the road side.

It often isn't a good idea to increase a driver's 'information load'. I'm sure many crashes take place when drivers can't keep up with the totallity of information - so adding information may well increase risk.

And last, but by no means least, deaths and risk are very badly correlated - a very safe very busy road may well have more deaths than a quiet but (comparatively) dangerous road. Drivers need to know about individual risk, not population risks.

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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

Ho Yus . . .

That very same stretch of M4 was listed by Eurorap (or whatever) as one of the safest roads in the UK . . . and that was publicised almost the same day as another fatal . . .

It was one of the criticisms regularly aired on the late lamented Cumbria board that the Motorway was targetted despite its low fatal:traffic ratio. (IIRC)

Although I think the consensus was that if you have a fatality reduction tool, it should be placed where it's likely to have the greatest effect, ie the road with the highest number of fatalities.

It makes sense to me if you had a van which, when placed on or above or at the side of a road, reduced fatalities by 50%, then it would be most effectively placed on the road with the largest number of fatalities.

A motorway might have 12 fatalities per year along it's 40 mile stretch, or 2 fatalities per BVKM.
The A590 in Cumbria might have 4 fatalities per year but a fatality rate of 10 per BVKM (both guesses)

It'd be better to save 50% of 12 than 50% of 4.



I've a feeling however that you might find a tiny flaw in my analysis.

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

Seems like the same standard of reasoning found in most of the material trotted out by the safety partnerships, Ian. So that makes the logical case incontrovertible, surely?

Regression to the mean. It's just as likely that a wheelie bin or a garden gnome placed at the side of a road within an (ACPO approved) accident 'blipspot' will be as 'effective'.

The logic is fairly solid.

If Cumbria had one magical item, say a magic garden gnome which when placed on a road cut fatalities by 50%, then the best road for it to be on would be the M6 as it has the largest number of fatal collisions.

The reasoning falls down in the presumption that the camera van has any positive safety attributes on the motorway.

You seem to be on the same wavelenth, Rico

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

I definitely agree that high numbers of deaths represent the most important starting point for road safety interventions. This spotlights the problem with Eurorap figures based on individual risk.

But the existing road makes a big difference to appropriate treatments. A grade separated junction and associated flyover/underpass may cure a local crash problem once and for all - but you can't add one of those to a motorway because the junctions are already grade separated!

I think signing is likely to be a good solution in a high risk low volume situation.

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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

Many of the RAF units on which I've been stationed mount an Xmas 'Don't Drink and Drive' campaign. Sometime these are supported by a mock accident sited somewhere eye-catching on the unit, complete with mannekins and wrecked cars.
And every year folks look at it and go...oh look, they've craned two wrecked cars into position and shoved a couple of dummies into them.
I'm quite confident it does little if any good whatsoever, people simply don't relate the scene to something they themselves could be involved in.

Indeed. And the reason?

The blackspot isn't the cause of the accidents, which are in truth gnomadic....

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

It would be branded too racist to have them painted black in Britain + you could only site so many of them at a camera zone without over-crowding

Regards


Andrew

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It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

Near me theres a small luminous yellow sign on the central reservation of a three lane dual carrigae way. Having peered at it for a bit, I've determined it sayd something like "x people were killed here last year. THINK!". Or similar. Stupid.... Distract people from looking at the road whilst approaching an already dangerous junction!

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uzz

While I agree with limiting signage on our roads we have a system in Australia where dangerous locations are signed as a black spot. The signs are consistent in appearance and simply mean that the following section of road is dangerous.

As the signs are easily recognised they take little or no time away from the more important job of looking ahead but still warn drivers to be particularly careful.

So, some signage can be a good thing but a sign that has difficult to read writing is just absurd.

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

We had blackspot signs, they didn't make any money.

Blackspot signs with a donation box? Hmmmm I'm off to the brainstorming section.......

When i read the title i had visions of cutouts by the side of road wearing berets, stripy shirts and a string of onions round their necks.

SCE - shades of "allo,allo" - why not make them pictures of tone - or would that cause a rash of damaged signs.

M3RBMW - you make me remembre that once upon a time we had signs warning drivers in this country " Accident Blackspot " i think they had on them . ( mind you once upon a time in the uk we didnt have clowns in charge of the circus)

Another suggestion , bring back the old time Labour brigade , nationalise road accidents,