Safe Speed Forums

Hi All,

"The First Three Year Review"

See this DfT web page:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/d ... 28165.hcsp

Which contains (strangely, apparently) two different but similar copies of the same document:

Paragraph numbered version:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/d ... 028165.pdf


Glossy version:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/d ... 028169.pdf

Strangely these documents contain:

But we are particularly concerned that the number of fatalities on our roads each year has not continued to fall since 1998. It is understood that this is a problem across Europe. But every life lost is one too many. In 2002 there were on average six car occupant or motorcyclist fatalities each day. We will take appropriate steps to return us to the previous downward trend.

Err, no, They "understand" wrong. Dowward trends have continued very nicely thanks in many other European countries.

Appropriate steps? Scrap the cameras!

I'm reviewing the whole lot and may issue a PR. Any comments about glaring nonsense in this document would be especially welcome.

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

I have only briefly skimmed through the document, but the following caught my attention...


The current use of speed cameras is far from being targeted and proportionate, and as we all know, the policy is equally far from being respected.


Kaz

Not only does enforement need to be apropriate, but the law needs to be apropriate as well. It's all very well saying it's in place to protect road users, but that isn't really the case any more. We've had admissions that speed limits are being reduced to provide social engineering, and more generally transport modal shifts - nothing to do with safety. Some speed limits are just there to reduce noise (well, at least I've seen signs saying this in germany).

If the DfT gave a stuff about road noise there wouldn't be a speed bump within 100 yards of any house in the country.

The following PR went out from Safe Speed at 6am today.

UK ROAD SAFETY PERFORMANCE DISASTER

News: For Immediate Release

Despite DfT claims to the contrary, the UK roads are showing the
poorest improvement of any European country, Safe Speed reveals.

Yesterday, the new DfT Report: "Tomorrow's roads - safer for
everyone: The first three year review" claimed: "But we are
particularly concerned that the number of fatalities on our roads
each year has not continued to fall since 1998. It is understood
that this is a problem across Europe."

But using the DfT own preferred performance indicator, UK roads
fatalities have been the poorest performing of all in Europe
(excluding those countries for which data is unavailable) in
recent years.

Road deaths. 2002 as percentage of 1994-98 average

UK 96.1%
Sweden 96.0%
Finland 95.9%
Spain 94.1%
Luxembourg 92.5%
Denmark 88.5%
France 87.4%
Austria 84.7%
Ireland 84.5%
Netherlands 81.7%
Germany 77.1%
Portugal 64.7%

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety
campaign said: "Once again we have caught the DfT
attempting to delude the public about their failed road
safety policies. Safe Speed has been warning for years
that modern road safety policy, based on "speed kills" and
speed cameras, is doing far more harm than good.

Paul continues: "Speed camera operations must cease
immediately because speed cameras are killing us. They
are, in fact, 'weapons of mass distraction'. They are
distracting local authorities from implementing proper
engineering improvements, they are distracting the Police
from their job of policing all road traffic laws, and worst of
all they are distracting drivers from proper observation of
the road ahead.

Paul continues: "Experienced drivers know instinctively that
speed cameras are bad for road safety. Thousands of
hours of analysis carried out by Safe Speed proves that
drivers are right and that the DfT is dangerously wrong.
These latest figures for comparative European performance
just add yet more proof."

<ends>

Notes for Editors
=================

The DfT Report quoted is available from the DfT at:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/d ... 028165.pdf

Our figures, with simple calculations, and verifiable web
based data sources are contained in the following Excel 97 spreadsheet:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/pr113.xls and also zipped:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/pr113.zip
========================================

Looks like this will put the cat among the pigeons AGAIN over the next 24 to 48 hours.

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

Reading through the review at the moment. Blimey, what a monster. Skimming through it they seem to be saying that they're on target, KSI coming down, winning the fight, blahblahblah. But the devil's in the details as ever, specifically that they admit that the fatality rate has levelled off. [sarcasm] Well, that's news.[/sarcasm]

Why did they pick 1994-1998 for comparison with 2002, as opposed to 84-88 or 74-78 or any other period of four years? Why did they compare the figures for a single year with an average for four years? Surely it'd be more appropriate to compare like with like, e.g. four years to Dec 31st 1998 compared with the four years to Dec 31st 2002. I wonder if comparison with that particular four year average shows the sort of improvement that they need to find. Also, this claimed reduction is for Killed and Seriously Injured, so it could be the injury figures that account for this fall and the same number of people are dying. A few paragraphs down something seems to confirm this. Mmm thought so. Nice to know they're concerned about it, eh?
A good start? They?ve just admitted that fatality figures have stopped improving, and that's supposed to be a good start? KSI again. Okay, the definition of 'killed' is fairly absolute, but how do we know that the definition of 'seriously injured' won?t be altered during this period so the results fit better. They should stick to absolutes such as killed, hospitalized, treated on scene and released etc. As for a 40% reduction, all this would achieve is to get us back to the sort of reductions we've had in the past. Looking at SafeSpeed's spreadsheet and picking a decade at random there seems to have been a 38.34% reduction in the 60's. Since they've given themselves more time to hit the 40% target they're not exactly raising the bar much are they?

Look at the chart titled "Killed or seriously injured child casualties: 1990 - 2002". How different would this have looked if it had gone back to say 1960 or so? As they're only showing 12 years they can change the scale for the casualties and show a line that?s falling. On SafeSpeed's graphs that go back several decades the lines from this period are clearly flattening. My Dad described this technique to me a few years before he retired. He said he got it out of a book called How To Lie With Statistics, still available through Amazon. (One customer review calls it "an essential guide to bulls**t detection" - 'nuff said ). Also, isn't it an amazing coincidence that the selection of targets, data and baseline show that they're already ahead on reductions (pg 9)? Is it? Why? Is it used for calculating adult KSI, and if not why not? What has the number of people under an arbitrarily chosen age got to do with it? Perhaps someone can explain to me why this is preferred over vehicle miles. How is a child defined? Under 18? Under 15? We?re not told. What I can see is that if vehicle miles and child KSI remained unchanged relative to each other, but the child population (however it's defined) went up a reduction would appear out of thin air. I have no idea if this is actually happening, but it's an example of how statistics could be made to fit in with the dogma.

Sure there's plenty more, but I need a cuppa.