Ok.
Today saw the long-awaited Official publication 'Road Casualties Great Britain (2006 data)'. It’s available for download
here. It gives us 2006 national contributory factors for the first time, although the big headline numbers (road deaths etc) were released in June.
Table 4c: Contributory factors: GB 2005/2006 comparison is the main point at issue:
Code:
Contributory factor reported in accident. . . Number Percentage Number Percentage
........................................... . .2005. . . .% . . 2006.. . . %
Failed to look properly................ . . 46,516 32% .. 50,354 35%
Failed to judge other person's path or speed 26,245 18% .. 25,668 18%
Poor turn or manoeuvre ..................... 22,052 15% .. 20,610 14%
Loss of control ............................ 21,204 14% .. 21,426 15%
Travelling too fast for conditions ......... 17,107 12% .. 16,080 11%
Slippery road (due to weather) ............. 14,268 10% .. 13,623 9%
Pedestrian failed to look properly ......... 13,690 9% .. 13,879 10%
Following too close ........................ 10,847 7% .. 10,024 7%
Sudden braking ............................. 10,273 7% .. 10,354 7%
Total number of accidents ................. 147,509 100% 145,798 100%
Two Safe Speed press releases (so far) have gone out, preceded by the briefing note in the wee hours:
At 02:24 this morning,
PR538 wrote:
Road Casualties - tricks and spin news alert / briefing note news: for immediate release
Due for release at about 9:30 today by Department for Transport is the annual publication: "Road Casualties Great Britain, 2006". This will be the first time that we have seen 2006 'contributory factor' data.
Paul Smith, founder of SafeSpeed.org.uk, said: "Once you strip away the spin and the wishful thinking, these new figures show with absolute clarity that our road safety policies aren't working. Department for Transport must stop pretending that their policies work and start saving lives."
Safe Speed alerts journalists and media to watch out for the following 'spin': …..
<this continues in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/399 >
And at 10:56:
PR539 wrote:
2006 Contributory factors show driver quality in decline
news: for immediate release
Figures released today by Department for Transport [1] show that British driver quality is in serious decline. Safe Speed has long warned that this is a direct and inevitable consequence of bad road safety policy founded on speed cameras.
Table 4c of the new report reveals a number of factors which are on the increase. These are driver quality factors.
Paul Smith, founder of SafeSpeed.org.uk, said: "I have been warning for years that Department for Transport has been damaging UK road safety by neglecting driver quality. These new figures show that driver quality is in substantial decline, with clear increases in a number factors that depend on driver
quality."
"Fatal crashes with 'exceeding the speed limit' as a contributory factor have increased from 12% last year to 14% this year indicating that speed cameras are not reducing these deaths. This was entirely predictable."
"Just like last year, 95% of all crashes do not involve any vehicle exceeding a speed limit, confirming once more that speed cameras are chasing a small and unnecessary target."
"Road user quality in general and driver quality in particular are the essential foundations of all road safety. While Department for Transport continues to ignore them our roads will not get safer."
"Department for Transport road safety policies have failed according to their own figures. We need a root and branch rethink and major structural changes at Department for Transport - and we need it now.
At almost the same time as the above, the DfT’s own take was released – see
http://www.gnn.gov.uk/environment/fullD ... wsAreaID=2 This contemptible piece was countered at 13:05.
PR541 wrote:
Shameful and cowardly smokescreen regarding crash statistics. news: for immediate release
Today's publication of road casualties statistics for 2006 contains a smokescreen intended to obscure the abject failure of Department for Transport's serious injury statistics. See the section entitled: "The use of hospital data on road accidents."
It has been perfectly obvious for years that something has been going wrong with the serious injury statistics because they have been out of kilter with other data sources.
This is serious for Department for Transport because it has only been the ongoing reduction in the serious injury category that has enabled them to claim that their road safety policies were meeting their own targets.
<full detail in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/402>
"They are introducing more red herrings than you've had hot dinners."
"It's a smokescreen clearly designed to hide the fact that their targets are being missed by a country mile."
bear with me, I composed this lot off line and expect to have to edit it a few times to get the formatting right!
Twice actually - wow - not bad considering all the BBC stuff was hand-written