Safe Speed Forums

My stepson reported to me last night that he had read an article in one of the major papers here regarding a pedestrian death. I will track down the source today and hopefully post the full story tomorrow.

A woman charged with the death of a pedestrian used as her defence that as she was travelling under the speed limit. She thought she was safe and was looking at the side of the road and was not fully concentrating on the road ahead. She did not see the pedestrian at all so the impact was at the speed she was travelling at the time.

I need to find the article to get more details but this is EXACTLY what Paul has been warning about for a long time. The Government is obviously sending the WRONG message about speed and a pedestrian has died as a direct result.

I know it is only one substantiated incident but it begs the question; How many more people are driving below the speed limit, thinking they are safe, and have been fortunate enough NOT to have a pedestrian on the road ahead, or a stopped car, or a traffic signal, or a bend in the road, or a large pothole that could swing the steering off the road?

How many more people will have to die or be seriously injured before this "Speed Kills" message gets changed to something that encourages drivers to concentrate on the job at hand rather than a speed limit?

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

And this was in the Press as well, I've taken it off my post in Road Safety forum.
The truck was barely moving.

By Rachel Sharp


A WOMAN died after she was in collision with a lorry in a busy high street.

Jean Hughes, 61, of Lansdowne Road, Hillingdon, died after the accident in High Street, Yiewsley, at about 1.50pm on Wednesday, November 17.

A police spokesman said: "We were called at 13.50 to an accident in High Street, Yiewsley, at the junction of Fairfield Road.

"A Scania goods vehicle was stationary in very slow moving traffic. As the traffic started to move off the lorry edged forward and was in collision with a middle aged woman who was crossing in front of the lorry's cab.

"The lorry stopped at the scene of the accident and the woman was pronounced dead at the scene."

Police condoned off Yiewsley High Street while they carried out their investigation.

Police are appealing for witnesses to the accident. If anyone has any information they are asked to contact the collision investigation unit at Alperton on 020 8246 9820

Borehamwood & Elstree Times.

Now, the truck had just started moving, the pedestrian was out of sight in the forward blind spot, the driver could not see her, she decided to cross the road where there was no formal crossing.

Informed by my ex, who is an ambulance technician, that one hospital she delivers patients to has a policy of asking pedestrians/cyclists involved in RTAs, if they were using a formal crossing/had lights on bike, if not, they do not inform police of accident.
On Ambulance report forms, there is a tick box [DSH], for these sorts of accidents, that box should be ticked.

[DSH] = Deliberate Self Harm.

She was Blues and Twos going through Cambridge with a dire emergency patient on board, and was presented with a cyclist crossing her path, either oblivious to her approach, or just totally ignoring the blues and twos. If she had hit the cyclist, that should be ticked [DSH].

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

Not quite in the same vane though. These were pedestrian caused crashes whereas my post was about a driver causing death by "thinking she was driving safely" because she was under the speed limit.

The pedestrian may have been contributed to his/her death but the drivers’ inattention was the main reason the pedestrian died. Had the driver been concentrating on the road ahead she may have avoided the pedestrian or hit him/her at a much lower speed causing injury and not death.

In the other post the driver was not at fault.

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

Sorry to go off topic a bit here. I was just looking for the story Ross mentioned, and found this one instead.

http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/12/0 ... click=true

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The number of crashes and serious injuries on the Western Ring Road appears to be falling, despite fixed speed cameras having been turned off since May.

The decline, shown in police figures, undermines Police Minister Andre Haermeyer's repeated warnings that the absence of cameras encourages speeding and other driver misbehaviour.

It also raises questions about the Government's strong linking of speed camera enforcement to reductions in the road toll.

The police figures compare Ring Road crash and injury statistics from 2002 and 2003 with data from the first 10 months of this year. Between January and the end of October, there were 60 crashes causing injury on the Ring Road. The year before, there were 91 injury-causing crashes and 70 in 2002.

Fixed speed cameras were turned off on the road in May when Premier Steve Bracks admitted that tens of thousands of drivers had been wrongly fined because of faulty cameras.

The number of crashes is also lower this year - 208 for the 10 months to October, as opposed to 243 for all of last year.

The details emerged as fixed cameras were reactivated yesterday on the Monash Freeway and CityLink, and as Mr Haermeyer announced that bunkers would be built along the Ring Road to allow for greater deployment of mobile speed cameras. Fixed cameras will be reactivated on the Ring Road in mid-2005.

Mr Haermeyer has repeatedly linked the removal of the cameras to an increase in speeding and fatalities on the Ring Road. Yesterday, he reiterated his belief that driver behaviour was worse since cameras were deactivated.

"I drive on the Western Ring Road every day... my driver's car sits on cruise control at just on 100. The number of cars that are passing me now compared to what was the case a year ago is quite significantly higher," he said. "In the 18 months those cameras were operating, we had zero deaths on the Western Ring Road. Since September last year, we've had two already."

The police statistics show that three people have been killed on the Ring Road this year (the two referred to by Mr Haermeyer plus a pedestrian) compared with none in 2003 and one in 2002.

But the figures also suggest that driver behaviour has not worsened in the absence of fixed cameras. Major and serious injuries from crashes are lower - in 2003 there were 43 on the Ring Road, compared with just 28 for the first 10 months of this year.

RACV general manager Ken Ogden said the figures showed the Ring Road was relatively safe. "The overwhelming majority of drivers drive safely," he said, "they don't need speed cameras, they do the right thing."

The RACV would welcome the reintroduction of fixed cameras next year, but the Government had a credibility problem that needed to be tackled first, Dr Ogden said. "The perception that enforcement is about revenue is highly detrimental to road safety. The Government has got to put the proceeds of fines back into road safety and not into revenue, so that the public will see it is a road safety program."

Police Assistant Commissioner (Traffic) Bob Hastings supported Mr Haermeyer's view that some people were "taking advantage" of the cameras' absence.

Dr Ian Johnston, head of Monash University's Accident Research Centre, said it was difficult to accurately analyse statistics from one stretch of road because of the small sample size.
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Fair point about the small sample size, but of course it says the cameras are being switced back on so it looks like another chance to test "Speed Kills" properly has been blown.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

And I say so what if a few are taking advantage, accidents, deaths and injuries are DOWN without cameras so why put the damn things back.

I suppose when the accident rate starts increasing in the second half of 2005 this little dip will just be an anomaly and the increase will be used to justify more cameras!

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

She is correct if the pedestrian was not using a crossing, you know those things that cost taxpayers millions to install & maintain all over the country.

It is still illegal to Jaywalk, not that it is enforced.

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Steve

Sorry if you think I was off topic, but in neither case was over speeding the prime cause, it was the innattention, in your case by the driver, in my case by the pedestrian.
But don't worry, excessive speed will be blamed in both cases.

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

No it isn't. There is no legal requirement for pedestrians to use pavements where provided, only cross at official crossing points, or obey the signals at pedestrian crossings.

Any such law could only be enforced where there were zebra or signal-controlled crossings at frequent intervals.

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"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'm not sure why. It ought to be possible to draft a law along the lines of crossing s must be used when provided, and where no crossing exists pedestrians must not create a hazard to any other road user when they step onto the road. In other words, if they stick to crossings and the Green Cross Code they'll be okay, if they don't they may be jaywalking. Enforcement is still a problem as it does depend a lot on a copper being about at the right time, but that's true of many offences. Perhaps a jaywalking law would need to develop a camera system to automatically detect and fine people. I suggest we call it the Pratso.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

AFAICT priorities are clearly laid out in the Highway Code. Pedestrians have right of way on beleisha crossings, otherwise traffic on the major road (whether that traffic is wheeled or on legs) has priority over traffic on the minor road. For example, a pedestrian walking along the pavement at the side of a major road has priority over traffic entering or leaving a minor road at the junction of the two.

These rules are enforced with respect to motorised vehicles but AFAICT they are not with respect to pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders, etc. All that is needed is for the existing rules to be enforced for everyone.

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Will

I nearly got clipped this morning. I have flu, so I went over the road to the chemists and got some tablets, then went to the paper shop and got some Halls Mentholyptus. I didn’t get much sleep last night due to the flu, and I was a bit drowsy so I guess I wasn’t tip-top when I crossed back over. I had to get between two parked cars to get to the road. It was overcast, and I didn’t see the little dark car that was zooming along until the last moment, and I almost got clipped. The car driver (who was speeding along) was invulnerable, and a small mistake for him means a bent fender. For me, the consequences would have been unimaginably worse. That is why the rules are enforced with respect to motorised vehicles – pedestrians have to be careful to survive, but drivers can act like boneheads and get off with a broken light!

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I stole this .sig

That's clearly a false perception because, in fact, more car occupants are injured in a year than pedestrians...

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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 agree that priorities are laid out in the Highway Code, and that the rules are not enforced equally among all road users, but disproportionatly on drivers. However, the pedestrian section of the HC makes it look like very little enforcement can actually take place at the moment. From the intro:


Now look at the section for pedestrians. Only three rules that say must/must not: 6 - must not walk on m-ways except in emergency, 16 - must not get on or hold on to a moving vehicle, and 18 - must not loiter on crossings. All the other stuff, sensible as it is, is "should" or "should not", but it doesn't seem that

There's two problems here. First, I doubt that any pedestrians have ever looked at the Highway Code unless they are also drivers or are learning to drive. Okay, that is a substantial number of pedestrians, but we all know that few drivers look at the HC after passing their test, and I expect fewer still remember that the code still applies to them while they're on foot. Second problem is that even if you got non-drivers to read the code there's next to stuff all that they can be charged with if they choose to ignore it, unless they happen to be loitering at a crossing before nipping off to the motorway for a bit of car surfing. There are simply no sanctions against the sorts of idiots who walk out into the road without looking, regardless of the mayhem they might create. Perhaps there's something elsewhere in the law that might cover it, but from the looks of it there is very little real law covering pedestrians who can't be arsed to use crossings, or who don't cross sensibly when a crossing isn't available.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

But what if he swerved to avoid you walking out without looking, and ran over someone else?

1) crossing between parked cars....dumb
2) did you have high visibility clothing, probably not
3) what do you mean by "zooming along"..do you have a built in speed camera in a false eye perhaps... Are you saying he was driving too fast or are you exadurating for effect.
4) Try using the green-cross code in future. you may well see the car then.

stop look LISTEN

I think this may help...http://www.roadsafetyuk.co.uk/gxc.htm

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Speed camera policy Kills

I don't know what data you have, but in collisions between pedestrians and cars, pedestrians fare worse, almost always. If you can refute that, I'd eat my hat - actually, it's a very small hat made out of chocolate!



I know - that's why I told you - if it can happen to me, it could easily happen to you, Gizmo!

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I stole this .sig

That's not what he's saying, is it? Obviously pedestrians are going to come off second best to a car in a collision, but the point is that more injuries occur in cars. Presumably that means that more collsions are car-car than car-pedestrian, so it follows that car occupants are more likely on average to get injured than pedestrians. We're talking about absolute numbers of injuries here, not severity of injuries.
Oh, and that hat is bad for your teeth. Hope you floss.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Ross started the thread, about a pedestrian death. In civilised societies, people in positions of power protect the weak. I guess SafeSpeed is making a point about something in the bigger picture, but I'm raising the flag that, specifically in collisions with cars, whoever makes the mistake, pedestrians come out worse.



I’ve not had to eat it yet, and I don’t expect to this time.

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I stole this .sig

Er no..because I am not dumb....

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Speed camera policy Kills

I guess I'll have to take your word for that!

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I stole this .sig