Safe Speed Forums

Looking at the various government, reports, academic papers etc on road safety, two things have struck me:

Firstly, whilst one can apply "proper methods" for analysis, one cannot be scientific in the "hard science" sense as many of the issues are influenced by psychological, behavioural and social issues. This, IMHO, means that there must be multiple interpretations that can be taken (and debated).

Secondly (and partly as a consequence of the first) - the core data employed seems open to interpretation.

Some examples:

It may be absolutely true that there has been an impact - but the identification of the factors that contribute to the impact must be down to human judgement - the prime example being "excessive speed" (A number of papers I have read admit that they do not distinguish between excessive speed and breaking a speed limit - thus ruling out excessive speed below any limit), road conditions, standard of driving etc

I'm not convinced, having made some enquiries, that the same measures for "Killed", "Seriously Injured" etc are used by emergency services (or even if these are consistent) as are used by hospitals.

The most extreme examples come when looking at attitudes - these can be so skewed by the questions asked as to become almost worthless - for example - "Should speed cameras be used to save lives" will get a different set of results from "Are speed cameras the most effective way of saving lives".

Lastly - I'd welcome the answer to this - what DOES constitute a "Camera Site"?