http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15975564Leaving out the others for now, slide 5 seems to show that 35% of cyclists blamed for a crash, had a criminal record, while of car drivers blamed, only 21% had a criminal record.
Does that mean I am less likely to cause an accident because I have no criminal record... but more likely to cause one because I have motoring convictions?
What if I am on my bike, not in my car - are my chances worse or better?
Elsewhere among those pages there is the pretty video, recording road accidents hour by hour over the whole country...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15975724So how useful is the data presented by the BBC here? Well if you follow the link to the page intended to explain how the data was collected, even that information is muddied by the inclusion of responses emailed to the BBC regarding earlier data they reported... much of it from here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15975720If you use the above link, and the filters displayed on the right for my area, you can select different vehicle types.
My immediate thought is that there were several accidents missing in our area - but a quick search shows that some fell outside the timescale used (up to 2010) and others were not recorded where I thought they took place!
There is also little in the way of explanation, and it only includes fatal accidents.
The unfortunate couple who died at Alice Howe, just outside of Windermere simply records that the weather was fine, with no details of the cause of the accident or vehicle speed - nor whether the driver had a criminal record! :problem:
In fact the driver appeared to have been taken ill at the wheel, and veered off the road - into a solid stone plinth where milk churns used to be left for collection in times past.
My feeling about this collection of pages produced by the BBC, is that somebody has tried to make the data slick, to show off their IT skills, and have missed the boat where the figures might be useful to an otherwise uninformed public.
The one useful statistic is hidden away in the 6th slide of the first link.
Quote:
Trouble tends to cluster around junctions where vehicles join or leave the motorway. This may explain the high rate of crashes on shorter stretches of motorway with many junctions.
The A167(M), a short urban stretch of motorway in Newcastle had the highest number of crashes in our data.
I travelled the A167(M) last year, and traffic was fast, and attention poor, with drivers travelling far too fast for the inclement conditions on the day.
I saw a taxi driver run two red lights at the end of that motorway - just yards apart.
So I think the BBC should get a
"could try harder", unless these statistics prompt a wider debate and give motorists cause to reflect on THEIR driving.