Safe Speed Forums

Julian Hewitt from the Hants SCP has had a letter published in the Daily Echo which contains the most amazingly spun rebuttal of the DfT "5% causation by speeding" data.





This is great stuff. He rubbishes the causation stats. by implying that they are poorly generated and sticks to the "one third lie". Note the obscurantist form of words used. He should get a job with Alastair Cambell.

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

So, what's this idiot's email address?

This will almost certainly get to him:

safetycamera@hampshire.pnn.police.uk

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

LA LA LA We're not listening. We know best. We are the SCP.



Translation: These stats must be wrong because they do not fit in with our beliefs.

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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 think he's right !
Speed is 100% the cause of accidents.
If everyone was not moving, there would be no accidents (other than cyclists running into vehicles and pedestrians doing the same)

can someone scan the letter.

please

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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

Does that apply to plane and train accidents too?

To be more accurate than saying "speed" is the cause of all accidents; i would say that speed is not the cause, rather moving is a pre-requisite and necessary before an accident occurs. But moving is definately not the cause of accidents.

Unfortunately, moving is here to stay as we need to move to stay alive, dont we?

How many accidents would occur if we couldn't move? Think of all the heart attack victims, and also the global population starving slowly to death....

<SCP Hat on>



That wouldn't affect KSI stats so that would be just fine

<SCP Hat off>

Of course it does.
Plane not moving = plane not flying. Not flying = no crashes.
Train not moving = no train crashes.
The guy is right........all road fatalities are the result of speed, your chances of killing somebody when moving at 1 mph are vanishingly small.
So, speed is a factor in all road accidents.
What they're trying to do is to suggest that a large proportion of road accidents are caused by drivers deliberately flouting the law by exceeding the speed limits, in which they're wrong.
You're trying to argue that speed isn't a factor, in which you're wrong.
Attempting to argue that drivers should set the speed limit they can travel at safely and have no speed limits other than personal ones is a no-win situation, nobody will accept that. Even Mr Homer-Simpson-Lookalike can see that different people have different abilities, so that one person may be safe driving at 90mph while another may be a disaster waiting to happen at 20mph. Put the two together on any road and you've got a problem.

Yeah. In the same way that wheels are. It might be true, but it doesn't help.



That's no help either. If e got them both travelling at (say) 30mph, that's really a lot worse. Mr 20mph is now 50% over his competence level, and Mr 90mph is bored out of his skull because we're wasting his life at the rate of 40 minutes in the hour. And bored drivers don't perform well.

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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

Not a scan but herewith the verbatim text from the Daily Echo of 11th October.



I should have posted this originally so you can all see the scale of the problem.

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

Jesus H Christ! How do these people sleep at night?

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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

As i said......'moving', not 'speed'....

As Paul Smith says, speed is a factor in all traffic accidents in the same way that wheels are.

The speed arguement simply does not stand up to intelligent logical scruitiny.



I didn't say any of that....where on earth did you get that from?



I didn't say that either, did you even bother to read my post? How did you come to that conclusion, i assume its what you wanted to read rather than what you actually read?




All the more reason we need a sound evidence-based road safety policy, based on current best evidence. Not quackery.

Really ?
Gee, funny that 'cause practically everyone agrees that if there was no moving traffic, there wouldn't be any traffic accidents. Of course, "everybody" doesn't include "experts", just the general public.
So, you're trying to tell people that speed is not a factor ?
Or that moving is not a factor ?
Or maybe that moving at speed is not a factor ?
Maybe, just maybe, if you stood back from the argument and looked at what you say from an ordinary persons viewpoint, then you may begin to see why you're losing the argument ?
Which you are.
It's difficult to argue with someone who says that they've never had an accident and they never speed....it sounds right to most people.
Of course, you won't like what I'm saying, and maybe it is out of context....and you never said it, or meant it, or thought it.......but if you are trying to persuade people that the 30 limit in their street should be scrapped and drivers trusted to drive at "an appropriate speed", they'd laugh at you.
They're telling the people what they want to hear....and they've got loads of experts to tell them HOW to tell it to best effect, and most of the press is with THEM.
And don't shoot the messenger because you don't like the message !

We're most certainly not losing the argument.

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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

Funny but the recent stats were GOVERNMENT ones - published by the DfT per each and every news bulleting and newspaper reoprt - including the Grauniad... The report was commissioned by the DfT and the figures are the real figures as recorded by the POLICE FORCES themselves - all 43 Forces.. These figures are the returns from the police who attended well 150,000 accidents in 2005. By the way - NHS Trusts have already released figures to an Oxford University research group which also questions the "decreasing KSI" reports which the prats bandy around as a self-advertising placard.

Of these muppets in charge - surely their Mums told them a very good home truth: "self praise is pure vanity which means nothing. You are judged on how others perceive and value your achievements"

"Autocar" this last week gave a very clear visual analysis of these stats on page 23 and the editorial




Perhaps Mr Hewitt would like to explain to young Matthew's mum why a recovery vehicle lost control on a steep speed hump at 20 mph outside a school - or to the family of a lollipop lady killed by a bus travelling at 20 mph - because the driver coughed...how his cameras save lives and how casualties and deaths are prevented by focusing solely on low speeds. In the case of the bus driver coughing.. a very unforfunate fatally tragic incident - and perhaps the lady's family will perhaps find some solace in fact that nothing could have really prevented such a chance tragedy - as we did eventually with the chap who rear ended Wildy that time.

Perhaps Mr Hewitt would explain to the bloke posting on PH why he was pinged by hidden talivan just yards before an NSL sign. Surely the dangers and limit to enforce was through the actual village?

In a way related to the anecdote I recounted of my own sister's journey home. In addition to the irate muppet in the Punto.. she says she counted at least 12 cars stacked up behind her at a slow "convoy" of 30 mph on what appeared on sight to be NSL for about three quarter mile straight: field on one side and houses on the other. My sister says she apologises to all who were perhaps getting frustrated behind her - but she was sticking rigidly to 30 mph for a reason there.

You see.. as you come out of the village - there's a left leading to a small village church.. and just beyond the church car park area. entrance to a field. The scam operator - per the locals and regulars to the route - happens to be rather fond of this car park with its access to the field from which he gets a hidden view of the traffic along the 30 mph stretch opposite .. and all persons she knows who use this road all know someone pinged there - and the accidents? Couple we beleive at the bend into the village when the post office comes into view.. and further up in the NSL as area is prone to ground mist from the fields on each side there.


My sister says not brilliant photos - she took them on the mobile phone version - but she took photo of the entrance to the field and apparently this guy stands in this field with his laser doo-dah on a tripod.

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

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We use our smilies on YOU today
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KEEP SMILING
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Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

It's a case of how you move and how you observe things. I once asked my sister-in-law who used to compete in alpine slalom and downhill events how she managed to do this. Her answer was that you concentrated hard on the run all the way down it.

Same when the kids are running around.. they do not trip up that often ro collide with each other when playing "catc/tig" or whatever in the garden or out and about in the parks and up on the Fells because they look where they are going

You manage to get around in towns and shops without too much bumping into each other - not because you are on foot and thus at "walking speeds" - we all walk at different paces anyway - and if we look where we are going - we generally do not collide with anyone




No one is saying "scrap a speed limit". You choose a SAFE speed which can be below the speed limit but right for the conditions which is precisely why we have the stat of "12% going too fast for the conditions" with 7% caused by "too close" and failing to observe Stop signs. A whopping 66% of all accidents per the police original returns are caused by people failing to look, failing to judge another's speed, sudden braking. (guess where ) .. loss of control because they do not understand or know how to drive in poor weather conditions - which can include hot sunny weather as well.

The only people these prats are playing to are the Greens, the muesli munchers and the elusive "THEM" per my wife!

Odd though - that the DIS and Lancvs/Staff SPeed Aware Courses do teach and preach COAST though

Hmmmmm! Police input?

_________________
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.

Jomukuk, please be polite enough to actually read my posts before replying. For a second time now you are telling me I have said something that I haven't said. I would appreciate it in future if you stop trying to put words into my mouth that i simply have not said, nor agree with. You are adding 2 and 2 together and making 5, which is simply not fair and not right.

I read your posts and try to reply to them as best I can, without attemting to distort what you have said, I politely request that you do the same.

I have embolded the text in your reply that i find objectionable. It should be clearly evident to anyone reading my posts that I did not state or even imply the above, merely that road safety strategy should be focused on what is most likely to be effective as opposed to what is known to be ineffective or counter productive.

Please stick to what you read in future.

Is it just me, or did this argument get pointless somewhere?

An analogy would seem to be: If people didn't have legs, there wouldn't be any hospital admissions for broken legs!

A true fact but completely irrelevant because of course we do have legs, in much the same way that cars move.

I think that was essentially Pauls comment, wheel are the root cause of all accidents. Equally true, but as pointless as speed is at the root of all accidents.

Or perhaps there will soon be a new offence: Causing a vehicle to cease being stationary.

ps
(Hope that was the right stationary, can never remember which is which )