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Safety group highlighting crashes fall
By Melanie Vass

DORSET safety campaigners have pointed to a third successive reduction in deaths and serious injuries as proof that speed cameras are working.

Figures released by the Dorset Safety Camera Partnership show an 11.3 per cent reduction in the number of people killed and seriously injured in collisions at safety camera sites across the county from April 1, 2005, to March 31, 2006.

This is in comparison to a 7.2 per cent reduction across the rest of Dorset at locations where there are no cameras.

The reduction in road deaths is even greater, with a 16.7 per cent drop in fatal casualties at camera sites, compared with a 3.03 per cent reduction in the rest of the county.

The Dorset Safety Camera Partnership has been in operation for four years, with road deaths and injuries decreasing year-on-year.

Johnny Stephens, operations project manager for the partnership, said: "This means that the partnership is getting it right in relation to where the cameras are being located. Lives are being saved.

"It is very encouraging that we continue to see a reduction in the number of people killed and seriously injured in Dorset, but that is not enough. The aim is to have zero deaths and injuries.

"Through a mix of education, enforcement and engineering, the message is getting across to people that excess and inappropriate speed kills and seriously injures, and if motorists decide to ignore speed limits they are breaking the law."

==============

I've already sent the following email to the journalist:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Dorset Road safety
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:51:11 +0100
From: Paul Smith <psmith@safespeed.org.uk>
Organization: Safe Speed
To: melanie.vass@bournemouthecho.co.uk

Hi Melanie,

I saw your article on the Camera Partnership claiming success. I beg to differ
and would like to point out that they are clearly 'lying with statistics'.

Official figures from Department for Transport for Dorset road deaths are as
follows:

1997 43
1998 31
1999 35
2000 40
2001 35
2002 54
2003 48
2004 44
2005 42

The Camera Partnership existed since July 2002. Being kind and ignoring 2002
(a very bad year) we have 110 (35+40+35) road deaths in Dorset in the three
years before the partnership existed, with 134 (48+44+42) in the three years
since. That's a massive 22% increase. There is NO WAY AT ALL to interpret
these figures fairly that indicates success for the camera partnership. Deaths
are higher than before they existed, Yet safety should be improving due to
safer cars, road engineering improvements and improvements in post crash
medical care.

As for the tiny reduction (11%) they are claiming at speed camera site, I'm
afraid that that's more trickery because most crashes are randomly located,
cameras are at least in part placed at sites of random clusters of crashes and
the random clusters do not recur, giving rise to a very substantial illusion
of benefit. This effect is know as 'regression to the mean' and is very well
understood in road safety circles. Try asking them about it.

As for the reductions claimed in 'KSI', it was recently published in the
British Medical Journal that KSI (official) statistics are showing a year on
year reduction while better data from the Hospitals shows no reduction in
admissions of road crash victims for a whole decade.

I'm on 01862 893030, and I would be pleased to back up my analysis to any
required degree.

PLEASE don't let them get away with misleading the public like this.

--
Best Regards,
Paul Smith
Safe Speed

web: http://www.safespeed.org.uk
---------------------------------
promoting intelligent road safety

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Good PR Paul - do you think that its wise to post your home phone number on the forum though?

_________________
Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

My phone numbers are available to all, and I don't mind them being published in the forums. I couldn't run the campaign if I couldn't be contacted.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Fair comment - I didn't realise that it was public info.

_________________
Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I did a bit of analysis of their mobile site data here and found that comparing the baseline speed to the latest speed on the mobile sites in 70 limits most of them are the same or higher.
That is to say mobile sites on 70 limits aren't making people slow down. The ones in 50 limits don't seem to be particularly good either.
So obviously thay aren't getting them in the right place because, as I understand it, their purpose is to slow people down.

The only camera site in Dorset which I have seen and thought it was in a good place (near a 'playing field', small road with parked cars on usually, doing > 30 would be rediculous) looked like it was empty every time I went past it. Not profitable enough I shouldn't think.

_________________
Andrew.

To me, Paul publishing his contact details so freely shows that he has nothing to hide and is willing to speak with anybody, now, try that with a pratnership

_________________
Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

I wasn't suggesting that Paul should try to evade contact, but I know I wouldn't want some of the nutters we seem to get in here seeing MY phone number...

_________________
Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Hi, new here, but very interested in your cause. I just wanted to say that I know Dorset pretty well and it seems to me that serious accidents happen far less in areas where there are no speed cameras. This is despite many roads being National Speed Limit on which it would be impractical to drive anywhere near the limit.

I believe that where a driver is left to exercise caution for him/herself without having the sudden 'check speedo, jam on the brakes, there's a speed camera ahead' scenario and thereby feeling irritated at the imposition, the roads are far safer.

My last boss once (when she received her third NIP ) got all preachy about her staff obeying the speed limit. After driving home on the A357 (know that one?), I texted her to say I'd done my best to go at 60 the whole way but that some of the twistier sections had been a bit scary. She wasn't too impressed....

Thank you Johnny

I don't know the A357 as well as I know some others, but many Dorset roads would be almost impossible to do 60 on without using only two wheels of the four!

I am glad that Dorset is not like its neighbour where camera warning signs (unnecessarily defacing our countryside in my opinion) are more common than directional signs.

As there are now so many unreasonably low speed limits, the temptation is to make sure you travel at the speed limit where ever possible to compensate, possibly even where it may not be appropriate to do so.

Also when passing a vehicle which is going at 10mph below the limit, rather than now exceed the speed limit, to achieve the overtaking quickly and safely in the shortest time and distance, it is necessary to creep past so as not to exceed the speed limit, just in case there is a speed camera you haven’t noticed.

These may be some of the reasons why the casualty rate is not reducing as more and more speed limits are applied and speed cameras are increasingly used.

I'm afraid that effect is just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of subtle and even more damaging side effects of speed camera based road safety.

Have a look at: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/againstcameras.html

edited to fix link.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Hi Dr L

Undoubtedly speed cameras have changed the behaviour of the ordinary motorist and where they were safe drivers before they may not be so now. In the 20+ years that I've been driving, I have never felt so nervous on the roads as I do now, but that's not just because of idiot drivers and their antics, it's because of the risks involved with so many speed cameras and signs.

This is the type of thing I mean:

Last week I was driving through Somerset. On a change to a lower speed limit, several times I had other drivers right up the back of me, which adds to the nervousness. I even had some idiot go flying past me (on a change to a 30 mph zone) close to a bend, who had to swerve in front of me and brake in order to miss an oncoming car. I had to jam my brakes on as did all the cars behind me. That driver then sped off, so I can only guess that he was local and there were no actual cameras on that stretch of road despite the warning of such. That kind of thing makes it more dangerous to have the signs.

Hi Paul and thanks for the welcome

I got a 404 on that link, but I have read a lot of your site already. You do a great job with this, so thank you for providing this medium where we can all air our views

Can I ask in all seriousness where this idea that being instructed to obey the speed limit can be taken to mean you should drive at the speed limit.
It quite obviously means nothing of the sort to me, and I'm sure most people are not so cerebally challenged as to think it might

The correct link is:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/againstcameras.html

_________________
"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I think it is often interpreted as "so long as you are within the speed limit you are driving safely" which is not quite the same thing.

How many times in accident reports have you read "well, s/he wasn't speeding"?

_________________
"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

If someone keeps telling you that "even 1mph over the speed limit" you run the risk of suddenly flying off the road, killing scores of children, mowing down innocent grannies etc, etc, etc then it implies that there's absolutely no danger in driving AT the speed limit. You only have to listen to the average schmuck immediately after an accident to see this effect...
"but I wasn't speeding" being the first words out of most people's mouths, as though this is some sort of immunity from crashing.

Hang about...

Firstly, in all circumstances where the 'safe speed' is above the speed limit then it does mean drive at the speed limit.

Secondly, people who don't consider their driving in a great deal of detail are talking about 'the correct speed for the road' all the time these days. And they mean the speed limit.

Thirdly, it isn't a binary thing. We're talking about two methods for choosing a speed, one safe, one legal. There are infinite shades of grey in both time and space and across a very diverse population. But at any given moment each driver is (hopefully) doing a bit of each. But the balance is shifting away from setting speed for safety reasons towards setting speed for legal reasons. It's our job to stop it.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Thank you for the link Peter I hadn't read that before, but I will do now.


Not wishing to add fuel to the fire regarding obeying/driving at the speed limits, there are many places in Dorset and elsewhere, where it is just about impossible to drive at the National Speed Limit, even though that is the given limit. Some of those roads have passing places because there is not enough room for two cars to pass each other, they are very twisty/turny with blind bends etc. Only an absolute fool would attempt to drive at the limit on them. There can't be that many that are stupid enough to do that and I think the vast majority of drivers would adapt their speed to suit the conditions of the road they are on whatever the limit set.