Safe Speed Forums

Hi everyone,

I have analyzed some speed camera data and need someone to check my work.
It's not difficult, just a bit tedious.

You'll need to sit in front of your PC, copy/paste a lot of data from a website into an excel spreadsheet, sort cameras into sites and add up the numbers.
I have already done this but need someone else to do it independently to check I have not left anything out or have any errors.

Has anyone here got a free day or 2 to help out?

Preferably living in Berkshire (or perhaps Buckinghamshire or Oxfordshire), anywhere in UK (or world) will do but living closer would make it more relevant!

Thanks.

ps, don't email me, use message if you want.

What aspects of speed cameras are you researching?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Hi malcolmw,
Thanks for replying,
I am writing a report on the effects that I've found of speed cameras. The idea is simply to put forward the facts so far so they can be measured and raise awareness of the safety issues surrounding cameras and the tests they've been subjected to so far.

There appears to be a lot of 'opinions' on speed cameras, both for and against, but actual factual data and genuinely independent explanations of that data are rare.

So, to cut through the cr*p, I've analysed the data for myself, looked for trends and tried to put forward explanations that could account for what I've found.

Unfortunately there's a lot of data to copy, sort and add so I was hoping someone would be prepared to do this again, completely independently from me, and see if they get the same results. That would mean I haven't made any mistakes. Obviously, therefore, I cannot tell you what I've found as that would invalidate the independence of data review.

If someone would like to do this they could be named in my report as "data reviewer" (checked the data).

I must add I am not part of any organization so I am not paid to do this.

I would be really happy to do this if I wasn't totally up to my eyes with various things to do already BUT do let me have your thoughts on the analysis that you do won't you ...

If you want to point me in the direction of the data - I would certainly like to look, and see just how much there is - I am pretty familiar with excel.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Hi,
Thanks for the offer but I'll be surprised if you'll find the time!

If you've used excel before it's easy, here's an example, load this page:

http://www.saferroads.org/camera-search ... tml?id=935

And copy/paste 2 pieces of data into excel:

935 Camera Type: Gatso
Local Authority Slough Site Length (m): 1770
Installation Date: 28/05/1996 Approval Hazard(s): 2,5,6,7,

The above says which camera, with year of installation and then:

2005 3 0
2004 1 0
2003 2 1
2002 6 1
2001 5 1
2000 4 1
1999 3 0
1998 3 0
1997 2 1
1996 6 0
1995 3 0
1994 4 1
1993 6 1
1992 1 0
1991 3 0
1990 4 1

Making sure each piece of crash data goes in separate box so it can be added later

Easy, but there are over 300 to do!

And then some cameras are in the same site so another tedious job of excluding cameras with identical data so that 1 crash is not counted twice (remembering to add removed camera number to site being kept so we know how many cameras).

But once that's been done it's easy. Add the numbers before and the numbers after (correcting for pre-1999 KSI reporting change) and a set of results will emerge. Most people would be very surprised by the results, perhaps you know more than most, though!

Don't worry if it's too much work, though. I have found some mistakes and corrected them so I think I have got it right, but a second pair of eyes would confirm it. I'll try to call you over the next few days if the number is still correct on the contact page.

Right a simpler method ...

view page source copy the 'tables' (control C)

then open - in my case Dreamweaver -
open new file,
split screen to see the code -
at the end of the automated code -
paste or Control V

Now you have a visible table with ALL the numbers EXACTLY as they are on the webpage.
Now you can save this file as an html and open it up in excel knowing that all the numbers are correct.

You can copy and paste from this file into the 'master file also open' and know that the data is exactly how it was on their site. highlight all frames up or down to 'add and hit the sum button and they will all (columns) be added up automatically and instantly

There maybe a step that you can cut out in this but it gives you the idea and I really hope that it helps !

If you want to place up a list we could get a group of people, to follow the same procedures - or at least results, and get maybe 10 or so working on it ? possibly ?

Apart from teh isdn line yes the contact page number still all work just fine

_________________
Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

You can just copy and paste into excel from the original website ... highlight the bit you want to copy .. copy it ... paste it into excel .. it'll show up in correct colums .. saves all the dreamweaver fiddling about and should end up with the same result ... I think!!

Well yes, Rumbly, that's exactly what I did.

Fancy doing it for several hundred pages?