Safe Speed Forums

Has anyone seen this, another case of too much reliance on technology perphaps or a useful tool in clearing accidents?


http://www.highways.gov.uk/news/press_r ... 08_19a.htm

Sounds like a good idea to me - if it works well enough, that it is.

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-mike[F]
Caught in the rush of the crowd, lost in a wall of sound..

First thoughts, sounds like a good idea in principle providing the technology is reliable (always a potential stumbling block), though we could argue that mistakes can be made now anyway. I think this is probably a sensible use of technology to improve a police function, bit like breathalysers replacing the old blow-in-the-bag jobs and smelling a driver's breath. If it's going to help the BiBs assess a crash scene and get all the evidence they need for the investigation more efficiently I'd be all for it.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

I've got a question (probably more suited to brainstorming) but...

Just what is the benefit to society of all this 'evidence gathering' that takes place at crash sites? Do we REALLY get a benefit from it that's in excess of the resources absorbed? (both delays to traffic and direct Police resources.) (And I'm asking these question because I don't know the answer, but I have my doubts that we derive any significant benefit.)

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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

Good devil's advocate question. I suppose it depends on how much time is spent over and above that needed to find out what caused the crash. If a boozy driver is three times over the limit and simply didn't stop then it's probably not worth shutting the road for an hour to look beyond it. But I expect that it's not so clear cut most of the time and the police have to look into it if they're considering charging a bad driver, and isn't there a benefit to society in doing that?

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

My worry is the knock-on effects it must have in terms of further accidents being caused by all the additional congestion, diversions etc. Anything which cuts this down must be beneficial, and could even save lives.

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

I think that you have to approach it with the attitude that until the facts are known then you could be dealing with an accident or indeed a murder.

If the latter (and its not as rare as you'd think) then the evidence needs to be collated to allow for a successful prosecution, if it is the former than the causes need to be established to identify if there are any opportunities to prevent a re-occurence either at the same place or indeed elsewhere on the road network.

An assumption that the cause is obvious is counter productive to improvements in safety. I think the most glaring example of this is the presumption that a motorcyclist must have been travelling quickly/run wide on a left hander, given that 20% of vehicles (Trucks cars etc) that I see cut right handers there has to be many occasions where a biker is wrongly assigned blame for his demise.

If a life is lost on the roads then the police need to take as much time as they nede to determine the reasons, doing so with an eye o the clock is not a good thing.

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

The Police are 'damned if they do, damned if they don't' whenever a serious accident occurs.
In this litigatious world the possibly aggrieved parties require full evidence gathering as their right these days and rely on this in their claim for damages.
Any lack of detail in the reports prepared by the police will lead to complaints that our police are not doing their job properly.
I can understand the need to determine what actually happened, especially as a friend of mine had a head-on with someone who was trying to commit suicide on their motorbike by driving into his car. The motorcyclist lived and admitted what he had done, but suppose he hadn't.

Oh indeed it is. At least one local authority that I know of (and been involved in their road safety panel) have used the outcomes of the police investigations into fatalities to guide the strategy.

And there is now an objective to speed up the exchange of information that normally takes about 6 months from the accident to get to the authority.

You would seriously be surprised at which authority it is, and what the identified causes of accidents are......

Millsee,

Is there any reason why you should not reveal the identity of this authority and the accident causation to which you refer? They seem to be using the data properly and I cannot see how this can be confidential.

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

This technique (basing strategy on real world fatalities) may seem 'obvious' and 'necessary' but it carries real risks. For a start fatal crashes are rare events. Often the fatality itself results from freak circumstances that will never be repeated. A better basis from a road safety strategy is to use injury crashes as an input, but if that's the case, then what's the benefit we get from investigating fatals (and potential fatals) in so much detail? Injury crashes are about 100 times more common than fatals, and usualy there's little or nothing in the preconditions that distinguishes a fatal from a minor.

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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's also the issue of the focus being more on approportioning blame than really finding the causes of accidents.
The people involved in accidents are often the best witnesses as to what happened - or at least they could be if they weren't so afraid that telling the truth might have them up for the high jump.

Cheers
Peter

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

Well, as Patch says, surely society owes it to the relatives of a deceased person to fully investigate the circumstances of that individual's death? It matters not whether the reason is to apportion blame and if necessary prefer charges against a guilty party, or to learn lessons for the future.
I know that if a close relative of mine were killed on the roads I'd want to know the reason why. It may not help prevent future deaths, but it may put a guilty party behind bars.

Or it may prove that your close relative was "guilty".

Would this be comforting in your grief?

This is the Roadpeace issue - counselling and comfort - not blame. Does this contribute to safety?

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

That reminds me of a time about 18 months ago when a women fell from an overbridge onto the M62 which caused them to close BOTH carriageways, and there were restrictions for most of the day. Needless to say traffic congestions was hiddeous, you could not do anything whatsoever. On the face of it you would assume it was a simple case of suicide, but equally it just has well have been a murder. People were angry that what appeared to be a selfish act from one women caused dealys and misery to thousands of people. If it had of been muder(it wasn't) but not incestigated, then someone would be getting away with it.

My view is that if there was a death on the road it has to be properly investigated, if only to find out what happened and to see if any prosecutions should be brought. I appriciate that the delays caused have serious knock-on effects and cost millions, but the consequences of not investigating are potentially more serious then that.

EDITED to add: Thankfully, because they are rare occurances, its therefore rare that you are caught up in them.

The question was whether any societal benefit was derived from thoroughly investigating RTAs that resulted in deaths; this doesn't just have to mean with a view to improving safety, indeed safety was not even mentioned. Apportioning blame, if indeed any party involved is deemed blameworthy, and meting out punishment is part of the process by which society attempts to maintain order.
If my relative is not to blame then someone else's might be, it plays out both ways. Nonetheless, I'm sure both parties would be pretty dismayed if a death of a loved one was just shrugged away and not investigated on the chance that one or the other of us may be shocked at the outcome. I for one don't accept the 'shit happens' approach to death on the roads. Do you?

On the other hand, if investigations aren't carried out properly and dispassionately, it can be worse than if they aren't investigated at all.
Let's say, for example, that a car skidded and crashed into another car. The investigation might show that he was exceeding the speed limit, so they just say that he was going too fast, lost control and tht's it - he's to blame, case closed. But a closer investigation might reveal that the road surface is substandard and that a car, under braking, might skid at half the speed limit.
but they don't look any further, and so that particular spot claims more lives over the next few years, and they're all put down to someone exceeding the speed limit.

Cheers
Peter

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

You are absolutely right to point out the difference between a serious and a fatal accident. And it is one as that we as a panel tried to sort in our own minds - morally - before proceeding down the path we have.

In the end we came to this conclusion: what is the purpose of a road safety strategy? To minimise accidents overall? Or to minimise the number of fatalities? Given that the policy of the cross-authority partnership dedcided was to reduce fatalities, investigation of previous fatalities seemed a sensible place to start.

We also pointed out the discrepancies in reducing fatals to serious'es (seatbelt campaigns, enforcing tread on tyres, etc) in the overall accident rate - the policy however is: reduction in fatalities.

If we can spot trends in fatalities (as rare as they are) and address those, then we can start to make a positive contribution to the overall casualty rate. We decided that if we could not see a pattern in fatalities, then we would not pursue this line.

As I say, you would be surprised at the results. Client confidentiality and coroner privilege - regretably - prohibits me revealing publically the direct findings.

(FYI - I made them compare the previous average 5 year fatality and accident rate to the 5 year overall target!)

The Inspector of Road Policing in this authority acknowledged that prosecution is often about recompense of the seriousness of the offence.

EG - we tried to address the issue of falling asleep at the wheel. Unless a traffic car is following the offendor, there is little that can be done. Once you hit a bridge or barrier, you are generally wide awake!!

Anyone invented a sleep-camera?

Fascinating - really. Is there any data or conclusions that you can depersonalise / generalise and present? A few percentages could be highly illuminating, and maybe could be made safe for distribution?

The funny thing about fatals is often the pure bad luck involved. 50 cars come off at a bend - but only one of them hits the tree... The one that hit the tree died, but do we blame the bend, the tree or the drivers?

I'm a huge believer in working at the bottom of Heinrich's accident triangle...

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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