Safe Speed Forums

I am aware that many people here are not fans of brake.....but:
http://www.brake.org.uk/index.php?p=741
makes interesting reading.

I have already noted (mentally) that seat belt wearing is virtually non-existent by passengers in rear seats, and that many children still go unrestrained.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Has anyone noticed the blindingly obvious? There are drivers in the age group 8-16??????
Speed enforcement is unlikely to influence their behaviour methinks

Not just that either - have you noticed how safe it is being an 8-11 year old driver - or even a 12-15 year old driver?! They are far and away the safest out of all the age groups represented! In fact all teenagers are pretty good - it's the 20-30s that are the worst!

Now clearly this is a wilfully stupid interpretation of the figures. What I think Brake (bless them! ) MEANT to do was to express those figures as a percentage of some kind of total so that we could see them in context. They could have used the traditional "per million driver kilometres" or (in my view better) "per 1000 passenger journeys". The problem with the "per X driver kilometres" is that it's not a true measure of risk (in my view). You need to know the chances of dying or being seriously injured not in any given kilometre travelled but on any particular journey undertaken. Most joyrides tend not to cover particularly great distances!

The tables, as presented, don't mean very much. We just have to ASSUME that there is a sort of "normal distribution" of drivers' ages where the bulk of drivers are between (say) 25 and 65. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy to BELIEVE that teenagers are a lousy risk, but those figures, as presented, are pretty meaningless.

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Thanks MFL. A fantastic insight into what happens when someone actually takes the time and trouble to disect the research instead of lapping-up whatever they're fed by the authorities (who clearly, will not go out of their way to apply any kind of scientific rigour - unless the conclusion happens not to suit their purposes)!

The pro-camera lobby is well-resourced and frequently resorts to quoting great numbers of obscure research papers that they know we don't have the time or money to even procure - let along rake through. What (I think!) we need is more people on here with the time, wit and resources to analyse more of this "research" and then be prepared to stand up and say "no, actually, the Emperor really doesn't have any clothes"!

My experience is very similar to Odin's. I grew up on the inside (fortunately!) of a notorious bend in the main Liverpool to Southport Road. As a kid I remember dozens of accidents (some fatal) on "our bend". Locals used to frequently complain about "the speed some people come down that road..."

Then they widened the bend slightly, signage was improved, they put down a high grip surface and they installed Armco round the outside of the bend. (not all at the same time!) The accidents reduced markedly with each measure. Now there are very few accidents on there. That's going back 40 years during which traffic volumes have increased markedly and peak vehicle speeds have INCREASED, if anything. The funny thing is, I hardly ever hear people moaning about "the speed some people come down that road" any more, since the accidents stopped!

Weepej, you say that these people have no-one to blame but themselves. Broadly, I agree. People need to take responsibility for their own actions. There are very few accidents caused by genuinely unforseeable events. Unfortunately, many of those accidents occurred well within the speed limit (NSL), so putting up a camera (had they been invented) wouldn't have helped.

It's a perfect example of how problems like this can often be tackled without resorting to your "hair shirt" approach! The only downside is that all these measure COST money whereas cameras MAKE money. You know? It's very tempting to think that might have something to do with it!

You never will, but you should read the opening (?) chapter of JJ Leeming - "Road Accidents, Prevent or Punish?" in which he describes his attempts (with his traffic engineer hat on) to work out why people kept crashing in to each other at a crossroads in Dorset.

The received wisdom was that the drivers were drunk or going too fast; "It's obvious, innit?" but Leeming realised that a slight brow in the road made the give way signs more or less invisible at night. He replaced the crossroads with a roundabout and the KSI reduced dramatically.

It's not always speed that kills! Bad roads are far more to blame IMO.

Sorry, I can't quite get my head round that.

Trying to go at 45mph round a 90 degree corner and failing is bad, it's not the road that's bad. I could walk round it perfectly well, no problems. What's the difference?

I've said this before, it's like chastising an inanimate object when a child runs into it.

Weepej, honestly I really struggle to understand you. You claim to want road safety, however when a solution other than speed control proves to be more effective you come out with quotes inferring that people deserve to die on the roads. Which do you want, safe roads or drivers who are fault being killed.
Personally I don't think that being stupid should carry the death penalty, but you appear to think otherwise.

Don't forget that in every single audit of accident causation, speed is near the bottom, and poor road design is always near the top. Is it your contention that one of the largest killers (poor road design) should be ignored in favour of almost the lowest killer (speed in excess of a limit)

Not necessarily the object, but what about the authority that left it there? Can people sue when they trip over a loose paving stone?

Perhaps the definition of a bad road can include hidden or unobvious hazards (such as: concealed entrances, rises of road surfaces, muddy runoffs etc) which could be engineered out, or for which drivers aren't adequately warned?
That's a bit different to your example (where it is fairly obvious that there is no road surface in view).


Going back to an earlier questions posed to you (which you seem to have missed - unless you don't want to participate in this debate?):
Do you agree or disagree that the other effects or bias on selection' and traffic displacement (on top of RTTM and long-term trends) must be accounted for before anyone can reasonably make any firm quantative (numerical) or qualitive (simply positive) claim about the effectiveness of speed cameras?

There is less chance of the occurrence of collisions on roads where dangers are engineered out (such as motorways), so these have the least bends and highest speeds and yet are somehow the safest of all - do you agree?

Did you understand the application of the RTTM effect to your motorway camera example?

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

What we're trying to say, is that if you REMOVE the inanimate object, the kid won't EVER hit it!

Your solution would involve shackling the kid to a ball and chain so that it could never go fast enough to do itself any damage when it hits the inanimate object.

Surely you can see the benefits???

Personally,in some respects, I'm with Weepej on this one (bet that shocked you!) ....

I would hate it if roads were to lose their corners, I love twisty, challenging roads, that's one of the reasons that I avoid motorways like the plague. It's not the roads themselves that are dangerous just a combination of difficult roads and poor driving that causes accidents.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Some fairly good points there in the brake article but they had to go and spoil it with the "speed limits are too high", same old idea by saying.....

Speed
"Young drivers are more likely to seek thrill from driving fast and cornering at high speed than older drivers.[11] Even sticking to the speed limit can be too fast in the wrong conditions - such as in ice or snow, or on bendy country roads - but young driver, particularly male drivers,may be reluctant to drive under the speed limit for fear of 'losing face' in front of friends"

Then they go and prove themselves wrong by quoting several examples of people getting hurt after EXCEEDING the speed limit....so come on Brake are people getting hurt because they feel that they have to drive ON the speed limit or are they getting hurt because they don't care about speed limits....it looks to be more like the latter in the examples that they quote.



"
Three 17-year-olds died when the vehicle they were travelling in crashed at high speed into a barn. Two verdicts of unlawful killing were delivered on Andrew Mudway and Aaron Howard, both passengers in the car. A verdict of death by misadventure was recorded on the driver James Carney. The inquest heard that Carney had driven through a 30mph zone at 80mph. His blood-alcohol reading was 172mg of alcohol per 100mls of blood, more than double the legal driving limit of 80mg. [14]e reluctant to drive under the speed limit for fear of 'losing face' in front of friends.

Case study four teenage girls killed in road race
Four teenagers were killed when two young men took part in a car race in Hull. David Rogerson, 22, and Robert McCartney, 24, raced at over 70mph on a busy street before crashing. In Rogerson s car were Kimberley Brown, 17, Rachel Thomas, 17, Laura Hill, 16, and Rogerson s fianc e Karen Bunting, 18. They were all killed. Rogerson lost a leg in the crash. Rogerson and McCartney were both over the drink-drive limit at the time of the crash, Hull Crown Court was told. The two drivers had never met before and came across each other as they drove out of the city in the early hours of the morning. Both men were jailed for eight years and banned from driving for 10 years. [19]

Driving at night
A teenage single mother was jailed for four years for causing the death of her friend in a car crash on the way back from a night out. Student nurse Debbie Garrow, 19, was thrown from the car when driver Jodie Gripton, also 19, clipped the kerb and lost control. The court heard that Gripton had reached speeds of 90mph. Her Renault Clio smashed into a wall and rolled down towards the beach, throwing her friend Debbie and 19-year-old boyfriend John Bremner from the car. Mr Bremner had asked Gripton to slow down and suggested they wear seatbelts. Gripton was sent to a young offenders institution and banned from driving for five years. [22]"

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Agreed

Speed doubtless was a factor; they had to be going too fast for the conditions. But there it is again “for the conditions”.

When I’ve been abroad, like Portugal for instance, and was in complete unknown territory, (driving on the RHS of the road too), I went on some roads where the signage for danger was none-existent with sheer drops to death a foot or so from my wheels. There were hairpin bends on scary roads without protective barriers where drivers were goading me into going at their familiar speed. They knew the lay of the land of course, and they drive like idiots, but I never road out of my personal comfort zone.

The perfect speed camera would assess the driver’s health, state of mind, sobriety, weather, car & road condition, and many other factors besides. They haven’t invented one yet but the good news is it already exists it’s the human brain but it needs the right program. If I can assess what a Safe Speed for the conditions is then so can others.

If we all had USB connectors on our heads I could have downloaded my program and those youngsters would still be alive.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Try doing a safe motorway speed down a country lane, then (if still alive) tell me it's speed that kills, not bad roads. If speed killed, you'd be just as dead on the motorway.

Anyway, we're never going to agree because you think cars are evil and I don't, so what's the point?
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Equally, in your child/inanimate object scenario, you endeavour to make your house child-safe if you have kids, don't you? Or would you leave knives and poison about then blame the child if he or she got hurt? Solutions: make the house child safe, or leave the knives and poison out but chastise the child whenever they exceeded a slow walking pace: "Don't run, there are knives everywhere!"

You see, that's a total misreading of the phrase "speed kills" IMO.

If you fall off the road negotiating a corner on a country lane smash into a tree and die because you were going too fast, what killed you?

If you're doing 65 with your sirens off along a dark residential road and smash into a girl crossing the road and kill her, what killed her?



Ah yes, all cars are evil, mine in particular, I swear it tried to smother me in my sleep last night

Blaming a sharp corner for a death when it was clearly that the driver that took it too quickly is very different to blaming an uneven pavement for a trip.

Corners are features of roads, and wil be in the UK forever I suspect (and hope).



Sorry, I just can't get past a driver who comes off on a bend after losing grip has been nothing more than a little bit silly (except perhaps in exteme circumstances like a diesel spill, but even then the fater you're going the more violent the crash is going to be so taking a corner at the limits of grip is never a good idea unless you've got something nice to fall off into).



Is anybody else suggesting camera sites don't have a positive effect even after traffic displacement, RTTM and other effects are taken into account?



I think RTTM is not the be all and end all of removing "undesired" effects (and by undesired I mean a postive impact on the saftey of a stretch of road) from statistical analysis you would hope.

RTTM works both ways or might not be suitable to use at all. What if the increase number of crashes that led to the treatment weren't simply bad luck. Applying RTTM automatically might lead you to take a decision not to apply a treatement and that could be the wrong decision.

I would think that's particulary likely on motorways.

Driving in to the tree (despite you loading the dice by adding "because you were going too fast").


Driving into the girl.

Your point - as far as I can divine - is that these accidents are caused by 'numerical speed'. Wrong, for the simple fact that if the speed caused this accident in the first scenario, everyone that drove round the corner at the same speed would drive in to the tree. Unless you were Lewis Hamilton in an F1 car and still crashed, I suspect some better driver in a better car who knew the road would be fine.

My contention is that both are caused by bad driving on bad roads. I'm not saying inappropriate speed choice isn't bad driving (it is), but this - frankly wierd - belief that it's all down to the driver's numerical speed ignores every other factor involved. After all, exceeding the speed limit causes a vanishingly small proportion of accidents, so numerical speed can't be the cause of them all; it's only even a partial factor in a third of them...

I hate to go back to the same gross simplification, but you struggle to drive in to a tree/little girl on the M6, simply because it's engineered that way. Which is why motorways, despite being the fastest type of road, are also the safest.

I appreciate that we are not going to re-engineer all country lanes to motorway standard (please, no: I like corners too!), but it's notable that most of the 'killer roads' that feature repeatedly in local papers have earned that status because they aren't sufficiently developed for the type and volume of traffic that they carry. Re-engineer the road - as Leeming (post above) found, and you remove much of the accident risk, without fixating on punishing drivers' choice of numerical speed, and thus reducing their freedom to travel safely in the manner they wish to. But we persist in doing so, in my view because those who believe "speed kills" are motivated on some level by a dislike of cars and those who like them.

By the way, I laughed out loud at the car smothering you thing...how did it get up the stairs?

Perhaps you don't believe cars are evil, weepej, but I suspect you believe all drivers are burdened with some kind of 'original sin' which they can only shed by driving very slowly at all times. And looking like they're not enjoying it.

What's really annoying is that our local council has reduced all our new (less than 30 year old roads) to 40MPH in most cases, a good straight dual to 50MPH, even though they are dead straight, have footpaths well away from the road, no houses, lamposts and few if any peds etc BUT all the old country lanes which are narrow, twisty, no footpaths etc are still NSL.

Is this road safety or just" lets slow the buggers down for the sake of it " ???

I know where my money lies.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

How did we get from "concealed entrances, rises of road surfaces, muddy runoffs etc" to corners? I was talking about "hidden or unobvious hazards", not something corners can be described as; "I cannot see the road". Surely you agree it is better to engineer out any unnecessary hazards, or provide adequate warning to drivers where that isn't possible?

How does making a road more dangerous make it more safe?
Why on earth would you want corners on roads, when the roads with the minimum of these - which just so happen to have the fastest speeds and apparently must have the most severe casualties (according to those obsessed with speed ) - happen to be the safest (those with the fewest KSIs per volume traffic) of all?


So why are motorways - the fastest roads - the safest?

Sure those who travel faster than they can stop in the distance they know to be clear (i.e. too fast for the conditions) are asking for it - but the folly of this isn't being communicated via these so-called public safety messages is it?


Do did you agree or disagree with the statement I gave? I've left the question buried within your quote so you can try again, unless you don't want to answer it? I don’t see how you can continue with that part of the debate if you don’t.

To answer your own question: I say that is quite likely given the comparative scale of 'bias on selection' relative to the remaining 10% 'scheme effect' fall at urban cameras sites - wouldn't you?

Getting back to the point: those who claim benefits from speed cameras do so without factoring in, or even mentioning, these critical and highly significant factors - is this morally right? (let alone technically right)


Of course not, that's why I also highlighted the factors of long-term trends, 'bias on selection' and traffic displacement (before even considering trafpol displacement). Don't all of those have to be considered before anyone can claim any positive effect? (how many times need I ask this).
Your "undersired positive" still has a large amount of illusion associated with it.

So did you understand the application of the RTTM effect to your motorway camera example: yes or no? (that was my question to you)


That's brilliant! Make the local environment more dangerous thereby justifying the installation of a camera - that's analogous to the london congestion charge (screw the light phasing, then use the high levels of congestion as justification for the rollout the charge). Even I wouldn't go that far!

How can 'Regression to the Mean' work both ways?

Perhaps there is the odd case of authorities making an area more dangerous, but I think we can all accept that the great majority of KSI accidents occurred where the roads weren't made more dangerous - unless you disagree with that?


How? Are there sections of motorways that have been altered to make them more dangerous (without the use of cameras) to attract significant KSI clusters? Please do explain that one.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Quote of the day achieved before elevenses!