Safe Speed Forums

Come on now, it's not mike's job to actually give a considered opinion about anything

now now, lets try to be nice.

Having read the report, some of the statistics do make sense as to the Governments speed campaign, others not so much, however:

"Exceeding the speed limit or going too fast for conditions were reported as a contributory factor in 15 per cent of all accidents. However, the factor became more significant with the severity of the accident; it was reported as contributory factor in 26 per cent of fatal accidents and these accidents accounted for 28 per cent of all fatalities (793 deaths)."

Interesting reading indeed

And your conclusion is?

Not my conclusion, the conclusion of the report is that exceeding the speed limit or going too fast for conditions is responsible for about a quarter of rtc fatalities.

Yes but you highlighted it so you must have something to say about it.

what is your opinion of the paragraph that you selected? Why have you posted it?

Are those two 'the same thing'?

Do they require the same sort of interventions to improve?

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

no, they'll get better all on their own if we all wish really hard, and we all believe in Father Christmas.

_________________
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.

absolutely sit in the corner facingthe wall with your fingers in your ears shouting lah lah lah I can't hear you

Seriously though they do have different intervention needs, some can be appliedto both which is why I agree with certain principles of the Safe Speed ethos as previously posted, and I won't insult your intelligence by beginning to say I know any of the answers,but am learning by reading this forum.

Excessive Speed for the Conditions and Exceeding the Speed limit are two separate issues.

I could exceed the speed limit not be driving too fast for the conditions equally I could exceed the limit and be driving too fast for the conditions. I could be obeying the speed limit but driving too fast for the conditions or I could be obeying the limit and driving at an appropriate speed for the conditions.

2 issues resulting in 4 scenarios, that would suggest to be that that whilst the two are broadly related there is no actual interdependancy.

Exactly. They should never be added, and in fact a great deal of effort was put into ensuring that they were recorded separately in the new contibutory factors system.

See this PR Safe Speed issued 28th September 2006:

PR369: Don't add chalk and cheese.

news: for immediate release

In the new contributory factors figures published today, DfT chooses to add
'speeding' to 'inappropriate speed' to create an aggregate 'excessive speed'
figure.

There is absolutely no practical road safety basis for this addition. The
underlying behaviours are completely different - it is like adding chalk and
cheese.

Most news organisations are quoting that 15% of crashes and 26% of fatal
crashes have excessive speed as a contributory factor. They are being cheated
by DfT spin.

Reality differs. It is not reasonable to add 'legal compliance failure' (i.e.
speeding) to inappropriate speed which is a driver quality / driver judgement
issue.

'Speeding' is about legal compliance. It can be enforced by speed camera.

Inappropriate speed is about driver judgement. Speed cameras CANNOT affect it.
It takes place entirely WITHIN the speed limit. It is affected by driver skill
(or lack of it).

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "There was a very good reason when the forms were
designed to separate speeding (in excess of a speed limit) from inappropriate
speed for the conditions. Adding these figures after the researchers were so
careful to separate them only serves those who wish to mislead and defend
failing policy."

"I am disgusted that DfT lumps these figures together in a further distortion
of road safety truth."

"The truth is that 5% of crashes (and 12% of fatal crashes) involved speeding
vehicles."

<ends>

Notes for editors
=================

DON'T LET ANYONE BAMBOOZLE YOU!

see Table 6 of the new report:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/d ... 612594.pdf

Study it carefully!

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

didn't read this first time round, but I must pick up on this point (the bolded bit)



that's only partially true; it's possible for an inappropriate speed to also be illegal, just as it's possible for a legal speed to be inappropriate (and, I admit, an illegal speed to be appropriate - the speed limit is then inappropriate, arguably).

_________________
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.

Well, we're both right. In the general case you're right, but in the report in question where inappropriate speed and exceeding the speed limit were both coded the inappropriate speed entry was deleted.

Note 5 to table 6 applies:

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

So accidents where exceeding the limit was the sole cause were less than 5%.

Way, way less. Even if there is such a thing.

The 5% includes nutters in stolen cars. Idiots racing on the highway. Police officers racing to incidents. Unlicenced drivers. High speed drunks. Boy racers showing off. A long long list of 'causes'.

The 5% is only a 'contributory factor'. And even then each time it's coded it's marked down as 'possible' or 'very likely'. So many many times within the 5% it's only logged as a 'possible' factor.

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

Mike....are you listening??

The fact that two factors can produce 4 outcomes proves there is no diect linkage.

interestingly if we were to group red cars and driving at an innapropriate speed we could only come up with two scenarios. Red cars driving innapropriatelky fast and red cars driving appropriately.

I suggest that we concentrate on the red cars!!

I have considered it!

Its crap!

The point is YOU are not considering all the accidents that occur at the road-side where people merely exchange details and no police ever attend, no details taken, no stats to add to the database.

Nuf said ay.

The document is interesting reading but it’s hardly taking in to account EVERY accident is it???

_________________
Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.

“The truth is bloody boring”- Max Clifford, News Of The World

Mike,
Please make your mind up which thread you want to discuss this in.
CROSS POSTING/HIGHJACKING IS ANTI-SOCIAL, and makes it seem you are confused as to where you are, and what you are discussing.
fatboytim

Now now Mike, you can't be saying that government and Police statistics are wrong are you?

And no, you're quite right we're not considering road-side bumps. Do you think we should? Why don't we campaign for the government to forget the "killed and seriously injured" causes, make it illegal not to report EVERY bump and send along 2 PCSOs to issue FPNs.

Then we could change the theme of the whole road safety policy from "Speed Kills" - to "Speed may dent your bumper"

_________________
Wake me up when the revolution starts
STOP the Toll Tax http://www.traveltax.org.uk

In that case the police and the government are also not considering these lesser incidents, complain to them! It is impossible for anyone to consider what is unreported. The issue here is how we should be considering these unreported incidents. If we are to focus on the ‘speeding’ element of it:
The less severe incidents are those less likely to be. It’s very unlikely for an incident to warrant an ambulance call out yet not investigation/reporting. If the severity is directly related to the speed then it follows that speed would generally have been less of a factor for these incidents where the outcome is less severe. Hence the incidents which didn’t warrant an investigation/reporting are less likely to have ‘speed’ as a contributing factor.


Likewise, there could be a huge number of unreported incidents that involve:
- not looking
- being distracted
- being drunk
- being stoned
as contributing factors – some of these stated as being more significant contributors anyway.



This is the metric the government have seen fit to analyse and conclude upon, it is not unreasonable to use this as our baseline.

Shoe on other foot: RTTM!