Safe Speed Forums

Since I acquired a copy of Visio, I've been working on creating a structure diagram of the whole Safe Speed argument.

It's still very much a draft, but you can see it as a large image file here:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/structure001.gif

Over the next day or two it'll be further developed, untangled, and have references added.

Comments most welcome...

- any big omissions?
- any errors?
- any simplifcations?

Since this is only a draft, no onward distribution, please!.

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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

"KSI stats are unreliable because S is around 10 times bigger than K"

I don't think that is the correct reason. I would say that it is unreliable because what is a 'serious' injury is subjective and requires a human judgement, which makes it susceptible to deliberate or unconcious bias, especially if the people recording it are trying to meet targets. Evidence of this is the disaprity between police and hospital figures.

No! You're giving the reason that serious injury stats are unreliable.

KSI is unreliable because S is unreliable, which is what the diagram says.

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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

I'm having an absolute ball with this. It's a fascinating experience unravelling all the structures that I have been carrying in my head.

Accordingly there's a new version:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/structure003.gif

Considerably more information in the new version.

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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

Paul, I know what you mean from your explanation, but that is NOT what the diagram says. It says "KSI stats are unreliable because S is around 10 times bigger than K". KSI is unreliable because S is wrong - it has nothing to do with the multplication.

I'll certainly work on clarification, thanks.

But the multiplication is vital because it allows S to completely swamp K.

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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

I've finally looked at it!!



head hurts!!

I've been fussing and tweaking and it's now:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/structure006.gif

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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

I'm making rapid progress now with these structure diagrams.

The layout has improved, with main flows from top left to bottom right and importantly the diagram is being split into 'sensible' sections, hopefully making it more understandable and more manageable.

Here's the new draft about 'speeding':

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/structure_speeding_001.gif

The arguments here are now incredibly robust, with multiple strands supporting each intermediate conclusion. The 'speed kills' arguments are laughable by comparison.

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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

I am extremely familiar with structure diagrams and constantly find them useful myself in my own job. However, while this particular diagram is great to clarify how arguments connect and as a reminder for discussion I wouldn't like it to be released along with any PR. To the general member of the public such diagrams can *appear* to make us look like obsessed, close-minded, and single-focused.

Presenting such diagrams to the average person is likely to make them think something along the lines of "och, these nuts just think EVERYTHING supports their argument, there's no talking to them" or "Whilst I don't understand most of this I do think you do need a speedometer to drive safely. If that's wrong then I can assume the rest is wrong."

Basically, just looking at the diagram alone is likely to make people think we are *unreasonably* biased.

not sure what modelling notation you are trying to emulate - the best I can assume is that you are trying to emulate some kind of "influence" diagram? It's certainly not a mind map - that's a kind of map I use quite a lot for capturing multiple threads of thought. On a classic influence diagram one might expect to see annotation of the influence link itself; link annotations should be kept to very concise sentences where used. I thought you worked in IT before you "retired" - did you miss out on the whole UML thing? I know it's generally used for software design, but UML can be used for general purpose modelling too.

It would be good to annotate the entities on the diagrams - break them down into "verifiable facts", "inferences from verifiable facts", and "opinions". It will make the diagram look heavily skewed in favour of opinion in the first draft, but that's not a problem, it's actually an opportunity. For each identified opinion, you then have a clear objective to either get supporting facts, or find suitable inference sources, or decide if the opinion is actually core to the campaign (and thus is kept) or is chaff (struck off the model).

Subdivision of the entities would be useful in terms of what aspect of road safety they directly address - motorway vs urban roads, engineered safety, behavioural safety.

These kind of approaches (using a standard modelling format, taxonomy of the entities, driving a workflow from the categories) would then lead itself to support handing over the work to a.n.other third party or parties, for example for building the campaign "safespeed book" or making a peer-reviewable set of documents.

Just my 0.02 euros, comments on the modelling style rather than content.

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

I'm not trying to 'emulate' anything, Handy. As far as I know there are no conventions for presenting the structure of an argument in diagrammatic form.

The odd colours in the latest diagram are a 'first shot' at making the sorts of classifications you're suggesting. But I haven't settled on a set of classifications yet. It was important to unravel the flow, so blue was used for 'input' and pinkish was used for output.

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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

I don't think going after something like UML is necessary here, and would probably hurt more than help if this is to be shown to the general public. The diagrams look similar to ones I've seen in magazines that, whilst not following any standardised notations (that the general public wouldn't understand), are easy to follow.

By the way, UML is a relatively recent thing (came out in the mid-90s I believe). Whilst I am familiar with it, it's no surprise that those who went through university or work training before the 90s aren't. Also, although I do find it useful from time to time, it is, generally, crap.

It's coming together - I can see a structure that wasn't there in the earlier versions.

I think you should recognise, somewhere, that impact speed (or Delta V) is a (the?) major determinant of crash severity - perhaps the section where you make the point about the limited (better than "no useful") relationship between impact speed and free travelling speed?

Nope, I didn't go to uni in the 90's, been working for over 20 years.

s'funny, I hear similar statements on UML from people who just can't do it very well all the time.

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

I've read through and followed the threads, I think I can see the form coming along. I agree that publishing it in the current form might alienate the average bod. Maybe that's not where it would be aimed?

One small point, and it sounds silly but on structure006, it's not 'cerimony', it's 'ceremony'.

Sorry to be a pedant!

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Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Thanks. Those sorts of observations are genuinely helpful. I've fixed the spelling.

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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

Paul, We received a memo last week by E-mail about accidents in company vehicles. It seems that these for some reason are NOT counted in the stats!

I can't totally recall all the details........ so I'll print it out and post it here next week........Draco

As far as I recall, it states that accidents in company vehicles are accounted for under the RIDDOR regulations, (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrances Regs) and are NOT included in the KSI stats!

And the date of the RIDDOR regs is:...........1995! Enacted......in April 1996

Is this true? And is this why the KSI's have gone down?

Damn!.........forgot to take a look again today! try ag'in tomorrow..

er........... it seems I got that totally screwed!

here is the text.......which IS of interest to road safety.

"20 people are killed on average weekly by work related road crashes (UK Gov. Stats). Employers often cause or contribute to these deaths by excluding driving from their health and safety arrangements, placing responsibility on individual drivers' behaviour. Not satisfying legal duties to assess and mitigate risk, pressurising by unreasonable targets, occupational hazards- i.e. long hours, stress, bullying, and not recognising that driving is integral to many peoples work.

The "Health and Safety Executives" annual work related accidents / deaths statistics are wrong, as work related road incidents are excluded and do not count towards any Health and Safety improvements.

The Government must act immediately to; make reportable under RIDDOR all injuries and deaths to workers or members of the public from work related traffic incidents. Improve enforcement by the HSE, local authorities, and police employers statutory duties under existing legislation and enable the prosecution of negligent employers for corporate killing."





Sorry for the confusion Paul, I must have been tired when I first read it...

Interesting piece though and I can see many valid points...