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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 08:16 
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I've witnessed a pedestrian being deliberately run over and been a passenger in a car which was deliberately driven at a pedestrian.


Yes, but I don't think the kind of person who would deliberately drive at a ped would stop and think "Oh, hang on, it's not my right of way!"


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 10:22 
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The student support team are bringing a production of 'Legal Weapon'

http://www.apetheatrecompany.co.uk/legal.htm

to the college I work at. No idea if this is any good but at least someone is trying to get through to young drivers.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 10:40 
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Rumbly wrote:
I've been lurking on and off for a while, thought it about time I said hello :0)

:welcome:

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 11:00 
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Johnnytheboy wrote:
Quote:
I've witnessed a pedestrian being deliberately run over and been a passenger in a car which was deliberately driven at a pedestrian.


Yes, but I don't think the kind of person who would deliberately drive at a ped would stop and think "Oh, hang on, it's not my right of way!"


Absolutely. The point about 'naturally giving way' stands.

Good road rules encourage co-operation and negotiation between road users.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:13 
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fixitsan wrote:
[...]I believe that excess speed can be very dangerous and don't think reducing it in some areas is bent nail of an idea[/color]

I think all of us here would agree that excess speed usually is very dangerous. Personally, I advocate the use of appropriate speed at all times...

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:15 
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fixitsan wrote:
I feel that motorised vehicles should bear right of way to pedestrians, and should drive at a speed which allows idiots, elderly, the blind, disabled and children to be allowed the same grace of time[/color]

I think that all road users, including pedestrians, should be considerate to each other and drive at an appropriate speed.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:50 
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fixitsan wrote:
I feel that motorised vehicles should bear right of way to pedestrians, and should drive at a speed which allows idiots, elderly, the blind, disabled and children to be allowed the same grace of time[/color]

Visit a town/city centre on a Saturday (or any other) - day or night - pedestrians are just wandering into and across roads EXPECTING motorists to give way (and, in doing so, they exhibit a greater faith in some drivers' abilities of observation and control than might be prudent). Progress can become painfully slow and to suggest that vehicles should ALWAYS give way means that there would be no progress; for those who advocate a total ban on vehicles in towns this will be fine - but recognise that road transport is essential: buses, taxis, delivery vehicles, refuse trucks (and emergency services - but they have sirens!).

BottyBurp wrote:
I think that all road users, including pedestrians, should be considerate to each other and drive at an appropriate speed.
and add to that: observe road signs, crossing points etc

Surely this is the right approach - and some further education in this direction would be to everyoner's advantage


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 13:06 
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Apologies all for my almighty post slicing.

fixitsan wrote:
I was talking about the most recent year or two only, the change is small, sometimes up, sometimes down, and as you say sometimes no change.
No change ? We must be close to ideal if there is no change

So how does that work considering we are investing ever more in road improvements, post crash rescue and care, ever safer cars (which the average person owns)? I ask again, are these additional improvements now a complete waste?

fixitsan wrote:
For the sake of the reader, who I assume is intelligent, they will note that as yet you have given me no statistical proof that road safety in Britain is a huge problem of the sort I often hear being quoted. I noe that you do accept that we don't actually have that much of a road safety problem in the UK which gives me some hope

You “noe” what? I do not accept we don’t have a road safety problem.
What exactly is the biggest killer of today’s 16-20 year olds?

fixitsan wrote:
Oh please explain what size of group is required for what size of noise for there to be a case worth considering.

I’m wise to tu quoque, it is a method employed to distract the questioner from the fact their questions were not answered.
I see you have dropped your noise comparisons – very wise!

fixitsan wrote:
Today I have referenced some books in a technical library. Reports from ASCE, IMechE, and the SAE. They all conclude that if we are conservative that 75% of accidents are caused by human error.
Is that enough of a noise issue for you? It is for me. And I have to conclude that it makes sense. It is random in occurrence

Yes it is, but unlike quantum effects like radiation or thermal noise, human behaviour can be changed, the error rate can always be reduced. As it is human error is far from zero.
BTW, regular here already know the largest contributing factors to all crashes – inattention (which is of course a form of human error).

fixitsan wrote:
Simply bvecause the accident rate has been improved down to a point where the human factor plays a more important part. Previously we have had no seatbelts, previously we have had poor tyres, previously we have had unreliable vehicles and poor and confusing road markings, and even (dare I say, no speed limit enforcement). Now, all of those things have been rectified and we're doing very well, so much so that we have all run out of things to blame and there's just a few left struggling for things to blame.

Not really true. Not all cars that the average joe drives have ABS, seatbelts, crumple zones, traction control, airbags (for any or all occupants), deformable steering columns, side impact protection, etc.
What about post crash rescue and care? Has that stopped improving?
What about road layout engineering? Has that suddenly stopped?

fixitsan wrote:
Even with such educational support material and backing, the idiots don't learn.

People will have concentration lapses, girls will put on makeup at the wheel, guys stare someone out for pulling out in fornt of them and so on, these are the ordinary every day distractions which cause the accidents and about the best thing you can do is to either get those fools off the road or failing that just avoid them. Common sense dictates as always

What if we change people attitude to encourage themselves to take steps to eliminate or mitigate against their errors and those from others? How could we affect this….
fixitsan wrote:
We need to blame ourselves as people if we have to. We need to become accountable more, maybe we should even allow insurance comapnies to issue points on licences for when you are at fault in an accident, I bet that would change things somewhat !

Oh, so we’ve not hit the ‘noise floor’!
BTW, I agree with that proposal, although that could have other negative knock on consequences.

fixitsan wrote:
There's a bad driver issue I will have to say that, but people generally do now have the right equipment at their disposal to do a good job at driving without accidents, but somehow we just haven't worked out how !

Again, so there are more gains to be had?

fixitsan wrote:
That would be the figure which shows no change on last year ? The one which says that we have had almost the safest roads in Europe for two years running, I'll gladly include them.

Now, whats the problem ?

Explained above.


Tell me: what do you expect the fatality curve to look like when the focus has recently been shifted towards a significantly detrimental policy working in parallel with the other ongoing improvements, especially as the negative outcome resulting to the detrimental policy becomes comparable to the other positive gains?

edited for Latin spello


Last edited by Steve on Sat Nov 03, 2007 19:39, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 13:30 
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BottyBurp wrote:
I think that all road users, including pedestrians, should be considerate to each other and drive at an appropriate speed.
and add to that: observe road signs, crossing points etc

Surely this is the right approach - and some further education in this direction would be to everyoner's advantage[/quote]


...So why not take that further.
I'm starting to think that the 'pro-education' supporters support education because they don't want to have to say what changes need to be made but they instead prefer to leave that to the educators, and fail to say who should be educating the drivers. That argument is getting me no further than 'I am hungry, there should be food'

It seems too simplistic to me and out of keeping with where we stand today.
Great, education, more of it yup, great.

Has that solved anything ?

We need to start talking about the bigger picture and say what sort of education, to what standard and at what age if we really do believe education is the key.

I've tried to open that up by saying that young drivers should have to face more rigourous examination, or drive vehicles which have been limited to take bravado out of the equation until they grow up a bit. Strangely nobody picked up on that. Everyone must be in support of it i guess !

Chris


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 13:55 
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smeggy wrote:
Apologies all for my almighty post slicing.

fixitsan wrote:
I was talking about the most recent year or two only, the change is small, sometimes up, sometimes down, and as you say sometimes no change.
No change ? We must be close to ideal if there is no change

So how does that work considering we are investing ever more in road improvements, post crash rescue and care, ever safer cars (which the average person owns)? I ask again, are these additional improvements now a complete waste?


I don't see post-accident care as being relevant to anything but the prevention of a few deaths, it certainly can't stop accidents , ever. However, I do value the work of the services involved in that and consider their work at trying to improve things is relevant, but note that it is progressing only slowly due to a lack of funding to buy specialist fast response vehicles and so on.







fixitsan wrote:
For the sake of the reader, who I assume is intelligent, they will note that as yet you have given me no statistical proof that road safety in Britain is a huge problem of the sort I often hear being quoted. I noe that you do accept that we don't actually have that much of a road safety problem in the UK which gives me some hope

You “noe” what? I do not accept we don’t have a road safety problem.
What exactly is the biggest killer of today’s 16-20 year olds?

Mispelling, of 'note'





fixitsan wrote:
Oh please explain what size of group is required for what size of noise for there to be a case worth considering.

I’m wise to tu torque, it is a method employed to distract the questioner from the fact their questions were not answered.
I see you have dropped your noise comparisons – very wise!


I didn't see anyone else discuss them so was there any need to go on ? Bring them back up iof you want. Tell me what the base figure of noise is likely to be when 75% of accidents are caused by humans.....it isn't an insignificant level of disruption to anyone's attempts at improving road safety is it. It is a normal occurence for people to crash into each other, the noise is created by the fact that these human failings do not happen with great consistency





fixitsan wrote:
Today I have referenced some books in a technical library. Reports from ASCE, IMechE, and the SAE. They all conclude that if we are conservative that 75% of accidents are caused by human error.
Is that enough of a noise issue for you? It is for me. And I have to conclude that it makes sense. It is random in occurrence

Yes it is, but unlike quantum effects like radiation or thermal noise, human behaviour can be changed, the error rate can always be reduced. As it is human error is far from zero.
BTW, regular here already know the largest contributing factors to all crashes – inattention (which is of course a form of human error).



Great, so you now accept the existence of the noise. Human inattention though is unpredictable and variable. Interestingly, the effect of human inattention on the accident rate isn't thought to have decreased the rate by very much on over 40 years, except where there have been clear failings with equipment to offset it, but in terms of human factors causing the greatest percentage of accidents it has ghardly gone down. Despite education, despite tougher sentences, despite enforcement practices.

I keep hearing 'more and better education' but why ? It obviously doesn't seem to have much merit, does it ?


fixitsan wrote:
Simply bvecause the accident rate has been improved down to a point where the human factor plays a more important part. Previously we have had no seatbelts, previously we have had poor tyres, previously we have had unreliable vehicles and poor and confusing road markings, and even (dare I say, no speed limit enforcement). Now, all of those things have been rectified and we're doing very well, so much so that we have all run out of things to blame and there's just a few left struggling for things to blame.

Not really true. Not all cars that the average joe drives have ABS, seatbelts, crumple zones, traction control, airbags (for any or all occupants), deformable steering columns, side impact protection, etc.
What about post crash rescue and care? Has that stopped improving?
What about road layout engineering? Has that suddenly stopped?


No, indeed that's my point, thanks to these things the change is continuous, but has reached the point where the law of diminishing returns affects the result more and more. For a 5% improvement there would be no set formula for making it work and I think that's what you see whitht the figures which show you need large changes to geta small return. when the accident rate is very high reducing it by 5% from 25% to 20% is easy, but when the accident rate might be 5% reducing it to zero is only a dream


fixitsan wrote:
Even with such educational support material and backing, the idiots don't learn.

People will have concentration lapses, girls will put on makeup at the wheel, guys stare someone out for pulling out in fornt of them and so on, these are the ordinary every day distractions which cause the accidents and about the best thing you can do is to either get those fools off the road or failing that just avoid them. Common sense dictates as always

What if we change people attitude to encourage themselves to take steps to eliminate or mitigate against their errors and those from others? How could we affect this….


We can talk about the affect we can have when you describe those plans in more detail can't we ? Again, what are the plans which nobody has thought of before ? Most things have already been tried. About the only thing I am in favour of is stronger deterent to absent mindedness, given that that ius our greatest enemy, and one way which that could be done is to allow insurance companies to issue points on peoples licences in the cases where they have identified a party to be at fault, such as a rear shunt where there is almost never a reasonable excuse fo ramming someone from behind. A few points on top of a lost NCB will make people remember to leave more room in front , and give their own driving and that of others the respect it needs





fixitsan wrote:
We need to blame ourselves as people if we have to. We need to become accountable more, maybe we should even allow insurance comapnies to issue points on licences for when you are at fault in an accident, I bet that would change things somewhat !

Oh, so we’ve not hit the ‘noise floor’!
BTW, I agree with that proposal, although that could have other negative knock on consequences.


We have hit the noise floor for now. But just as my CD player's op-amps contribute to a particular noise floor if I change them for something superior that noise level will go down further. I haven't said the noise floor can't move, I've merely implied that for the time being the current status quo is not going to change without a step change in another area. Since I haven't heard of any plans for such a step change why should I consider a large change now ?

What negative knock on consequences do you think there might be to insurance co's issuing points ?


fixitsan wrote:
There's a bad driver issue I will have to say that, but people generally do now have the right equipment at their disposal to do a good job at driving without accidents, but somehow we just haven't worked out how !

Again, so there are more gains to be had?

You keep saying so, and I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and am waiting to hear your your proposed idea



fixitsan wrote:
That would be the figure which shows no change on last year ? The one which says that we have had almost the safest roads in Europe for two years running, I'll gladly include them.

Now, whats the problem ?

Explained above.


Tell me: what do you expect the fatality curve to look like when the focus has recently been shifted towards a significantly detrimental policy working in parallel with the other ongoing improvements, especially as the negative outcome resulting to the detrimental policy becomes comparable to the other positive gains?


Well, how many years constitute your use of the term 'recent', 2, 3 ? 15 ?
You haven't named the specific policies so I am left wondering abotu them. Can I assume from the nature of Safespeeds biggest policy concern that you mean the camera policy ?
May I ask, what number of deaths have been confirmed to be a result of a speed camera ?


Chris


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 16:38 
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fixitsan wrote:
May I ask, what number of deaths have been confirmed to be a result of a speed camera ?[/color]

Chris

At least one and that's one too many. I know this for a fact as it happened just up the road from me, when some kid crashed into a cashcam...

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 16:54 
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fixitsan wrote:
...So why not take that further.
I'm starting to think that the 'pro-education' supporters support education because they don't want to have to say what changes need to be made but they instead prefer to leave that to the educators, and fail to say who should be educating the drivers. That argument is getting me no further than 'I am hungry, there should be food'

It seems too simplistic to me and out of keeping with where we stand today.
Great, education, more of it yup, great.

Has that solved anything ?

We need to start talking about the bigger picture and say what sort of education, to what standard and at what age if we really do believe education is the key.

I've tried to open that up by saying that young drivers should have to face more rigourous examination, or drive vehicles which have been limited to take bravado out of the equation until they grow up a bit. Strangely nobody picked up on that. Everyone must be in support of it i guess !

Chris


We can get as specific as you like about education - although that would probably sit better in another thread.

Have you read MIND DRIVING?

Links from front page of web site at: http://www.safespeed.org.uk

You might notice that the crucial safety skills are self taught skills, learned within a framework of cultural beliefs.

Does this tell you anything?

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 19:25 
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SafeSpeed wrote:
fixitsan wrote:
...So why not take that further.
I'm starting to think that the 'pro-education' supporters support education because they don't want to have to say what changes need to be made but they instead prefer to leave that to the educators, and fail to say who should be educating the drivers. That argument is getting me no further than 'I am hungry, there should be food'

It seems too simplistic to me and out of keeping with where we stand today.
Great, education, more of it yup, great.

Has that solved anything ?

We need to start talking about the bigger picture and say what sort of education, to what standard and at what age if we really do believe education is the key.

I've tried to open that up by saying that young drivers should have to face more rigourous examination, or drive vehicles which have been limited to take bravado out of the equation until they grow up a bit. Strangely nobody picked up on that. Everyone must be in support of it i guess !

Chris


We can get as specific as you like about education - although that would probably sit better in another thread.

Then that's the kiss of death to that idea, unless you started the thread already




Have you read MIND DRIVING?

Links from front page of web site at: http://www.safespeed.org.uk

You might notice that the crucial safety skills are self taught skills, learned within a framework of cultural beliefs.

Does this tell you anything?


It does not, no.
It certainly doesn't give me confidence that people who learn such skills always practice them without question and never have an accident as a result of their own inattention just because they feel they have learned through self-teaching. The suggestion is there, but I feel that a suggestion falls short of being empirical evidence of anything remotely related to the topic


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 20:14 
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fixitsan wrote:
SafeSpeed wrote:
fixitsan wrote:
...So why not take that further.
I'm starting to think that the 'pro-education' supporters support education because they don't want to have to say what changes need to be made but they instead prefer to leave that to the educators, and fail to say who should be educating the drivers. That argument is getting me no further than 'I am hungry, there should be food'

It seems too simplistic to me and out of keeping with where we stand today.
Great, education, more of it yup, great.

Has that solved anything ?

We need to start talking about the bigger picture and say what sort of education, to what standard and at what age if we really do believe education is the key.

I've tried to open that up by saying that young drivers should have to face more rigourous examination, or drive vehicles which have been limited to take bravado out of the equation until they grow up a bit. Strangely nobody picked up on that. Everyone must be in support of it i guess !

Chris


We can get as specific as you like about education - although that would probably sit better in another thread.

Then that's the kiss of death to that idea, unless you started the thread already




Have you read MIND DRIVING?

Links from front page of web site at: http://www.safespeed.org.uk

You might notice that the crucial safety skills are self taught skills, learned within a framework of cultural beliefs.

Does this tell you anything?


It does not, no.
It certainly doesn't give me confidence that people who learn such skills always practice them without question and never have an accident as a result of their own inattention just because they feel they have learned through self-teaching. The suggestion is there, but I feel that a suggestion falls short of being empirical evidence of anything remotely related to the topic


Then how might you explain:

- that newly qualified drivers have ~20 times the national average crash rate?
- that different contries have wildly different crash rates?
- how we achieved the safest roads in the world back in 1979 when we overtook Sweden?

I think the application of some brainpower might help you here.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 21:24 
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fixitsan wrote:
I don't see post-accident care as being relevant to anything but the prevention of a few deaths, it certainly can't stop accidents , ever. However, I do value the work of the services involved in that and consider their work at trying to improve things is relevant, but note that it is progressing only slowly due to a lack of funding to buy specialist fast response vehicles and so on.

So what about the other things I mentioned, like the ever safer cars on the streets and the road engineering? (and even reduced pedestrian activity).

What exactly is the biggest killer of today’s 16-20 year olds?
Like I said, our lack of good road safety policy is indeed a significant problem.

fixitsan wrote:
I didn't see anyone else discuss them so was there any need to go on ? Bring them back up iof you want. Tell me what the base figure of noise is likely to be when 75% of accidents are caused by humans.....it isn't an insignificant level of disruption to anyone's attempts at improving road safety is it. It is a normal occurence for people to crash into each other, the noise is created by the fact that these human failings do not happen with great consistency

It wasn’t me who raised the noise argument, I wouldn’t because it has nothing to do with the measurand. You can only be referring to quantisation noise, but like I said, with such a large hit rate that will be averaged out to insignificant levels. Anyway, it is not ‘noise’ so we can drop that.

fixitsan wrote:
Great, so you now accept the existence of the noise.

Nope!
Much of your response can be compressed to this:
fixitsan wrote:
But just as my CD player's op-amps contribute to a particular noise floor if I change them for something superior that noise level will go down further. I haven't said the noise floor can't move, I've merely implied that for the time being the current status quo is not going to change without a step change in another area. Since I haven't heard of any plans for such a step change why should I consider a large change now ?

Are you saying that there have been many useful policy changes in the past, but that all changed since the SCP program was introduced? That would makes sense because we know critical resource has been needlessly diverted into it, we saw no significant beneficial change resulting from that, which is again expected as they can only affect up to 5% of all crashes – in fact not even that much (camera can’t touch illegal drivers, they being the most dangerous of all).

fixitsan wrote:
What negative knock on consequences do you think there might be to insurance co's issuing points ?

Increased hit and runs, more people dying in the street.
Increased illegal driving and all the associated activity linked to it, like cloned plates.

fixitsan wrote:
You keep saying so, and I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and am waiting to hear your your proposed idea.

You haven't named the specific policies so I am left wondering abotu them. Can I assume from the nature of Safespeeds biggest policy concern that you mean the camera policy ?

This is a good place to start: www.safespeed.org.uk/manifesto.html
This forum is always a good place to voice such ideas, feel free to contribute.

fixitsan wrote:
May I ask, what number of deaths have been confirmed to be a result of a speed camera ?

My answer would be the area between the new trend and the long-established trend, simply because there is no other valid reason to expect a deviation.

Shoe on other foot: what number of avoided deaths have been confirmed to be a result of a speed camera?

fixitsan wrote:
Well, how many years constitute your use of the term 'recent', 2, 3 ? 15

How does that matter? I’ve not given any form of quantative reference so why should you need a quantative description? I tell you what, I’ve slightly reworded it so you can’t wriggle out of it. Please answer this:
smeggy wrote:
What do you expect the fatality curve to look like when the focus has subsequently been shifted towards a significantly detrimental policy working in parallel with the other ongoing improvements, especially as the negative outcome resulting to the detrimental policy becomes comparable to the other positive gains?

So much for your non-sequitur of a comment of better education being unable to have much merit.


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smeggy wrote:
fixitsan wrote:
I don't see post-accident care as being relevant to anything but the prevention of a few deaths, it certainly can't stop accidents , ever. However, I do value the work of the services involved in that and consider their work at trying to improve things is relevant, but note that it is progressing only slowly due to a lack of funding to buy specialist fast response vehicles and so on.

So what about the other things I mentioned, like the ever safer cars on the streets and the road engineering? (and even reduced pedestrian activity).

What exactly is the biggest killer of today’s 16-20 year olds?
Like I said, our lack of good road safety policy is indeed a significant problem.

fixitsan wrote:
I didn't see anyone else discuss them so was there any need to go on ? Bring them back up iof you want. Tell me what the base figure of noise is likely to be when 75% of accidents are caused by humans.....it isn't an insignificant level of disruption to anyone's attempts at improving road safety is it. It is a normal occurence for people to crash into each other, the noise is created by the fact that these human failings do not happen with great consistency

It wasn’t me who raised the noise argument, I wouldn’t because it has nothing to do with the measurand. You can only be referring to quantisation noise, but like I said, with such a large hit rate that will be averaged out to insignificant levels. Anyway, it is not ‘noise’ so we can drop that.

fixitsan wrote:
Great, so you now accept the existence of the noise.

Nope!
Much of your response can be compressed to this:
fixitsan wrote:
But just as my CD player's op-amps contribute to a particular noise floor if I change them for something superior that noise level will go down further. I haven't said the noise floor can't move, I've merely implied that for the time being the current status quo is not going to change without a step change in another area. Since I haven't heard of any plans for such a step change why should I consider a large change now ?

Are you saying that there have been many useful policy changes in the past, but that all changed since the SCP program was introduced? That would makes sense because we know critical resource has been needlessly diverted into it, we saw no significant beneficial change resulting from that, which is again expected as they can only affect up to 5% of all crashes – in fact not even that much (camera can’t touch illegal drivers, they being the most dangerous of all).

fixitsan wrote:
What negative knock on consequences do you think there might be to insurance co's issuing points ?

Increased hit and runs, more people dying in the street.
Increased illegal driving and all the associated activity linked to it, like cloned plates.

fixitsan wrote:
You keep saying so, and I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and am waiting to hear your your proposed idea.

You haven't named the specific policies so I am left wondering abotu them. Can I assume from the nature of Safespeeds biggest policy concern that you mean the camera policy ?

This is a good place to start: www.safespeed.org.uk/manifesto.html
This forum is always a good place to voice such ideas, feel free to contribute.

fixitsan wrote:
May I ask, what number of deaths have been confirmed to be a result of a speed camera ?

My answer would be the area between the new trend and the long-established trend, simply because there is no other valid reason to expect a deviation.

Shoe on other foot: what number of avoided deaths have been confirmed to be a result of a speed camera?

>>>>

Begin at the beginning, suggest a suitable method of measuring non-events. Death is the event. All non-deaths must be non-events. In this sense you can give them a figure simply by measuring the number of drivers who have passed speed cameras and subtracting the number who died and that's your answer.






fixitsan wrote:
Well, how many years constitute your use of the term 'recent', 2, 3 ? 15

How does that matter? I’ve not given any form of quantative reference so why should you need a quantative description? I tell you what, I’ve slightly reworded it so you can’t wriggle out of it. Please answer this:
smeggy wrote:
What do you expect the fatality curve to look like when the focus has subsequently been shifted towards a significantly detrimental policy working in parallel with the other ongoing improvements, especially as the negative outcome resulting to the detrimental policy becomes comparable to the other positive gains?

So much for your non-sequitur of a comment of better education being unable to have much merit.


To that I can merely say that you have still not suggested an alternative to education by dreaming. What practical method do you suppose we could use ?

I only mentioined in passing that I was looking for some hard evidence because I was sick of seeing the same figures misused by the pro and the anti groups.

I have accepted there could be a case for better education where there is a suggestion of suitable methods of education. I merely asked, three times now, what those education methods might be. To say I am wriggling out of something is to say that you recognise wriggling and practice it too. If you aren't trying to escape your own suggestion then carry it through to the point of making a practical suggestion to me abotu the types of education whcih will alleviate us of the accidetns we make for ourselves as a result of not being educated.

Please ?


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fixitsan wrote:
To that I can merely say that you have still not suggested an alternative to education by dreaming. What practical method do you suppose we could use ?

[...]

I have accepted there could be a case for better education where there is a suggestion of suitable methods of education. I merely asked, three times now, what those education methods might be. To say I am wriggling out of something is to say that you recognise wriggling and practice it too. If you aren't trying to escape your own suggestion then carry it through to the point of making a practical suggestion to me abotu the types of education whcih will alleviate us of the accidetns we make for ourselves as a result of not being educated.


You're not paying proper attention. Are you a so-called 'road safety professional' by any chance? If you are I'm here to tell you that you are probably infected by a wholly false dogma.

Call it driver quality; call it driver experience; call it education or whatever.

Have a look at the Safe Speed Manifesto for some of the crucial ideas and methods that are necessary for a program of driver quality management.

Have you read MIND DRIVING yet?

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The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety


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fixitsan wrote:
smeggy wrote:
Shoe on other foot: what number of avoided deaths have been confirmed to be a result of a speed camera?

Begin at the beginning, suggest a suitable method of measuring non-events. Death is the event. All non-deaths must be non-events. In this sense you can give them a figure simply by measuring the number of drivers who have passed speed cameras and subtracting the number who died and that's your answer.

That’s a non-sequitur, an IF X=Y THEN !X==!Y fallacy. If the camera weren’t there would all of those passing driver and occupants died? Of course not, hence your answer is obviously incorrect – moreso as you originally used the term ‘confirmed’.

fixitsan wrote:
To say I am wriggling out of something is to say that you recognise wriggling and practice it too.

Please don’t judge me by your standards. I’ve dealt with enough hardened trolls to know when posters are up to tricks. To say I recognize fallacies because I use them is a fallacy in itself.

fixitsan wrote:
I only mentioined in passing that I was looking for some hard evidence because I was sick of seeing the same figures misused by the pro and the anti groups.

And therein is the real issue. How can there be no hard evidence? In their 7 years of operation, the SCPs and their enormous resource should have come up with something irrefutable by now right? So where is it?
SS is by comparison a small-time charitably funded group who are made to jump through some rather high hoops to get the necessary data, even so Paul has correctly highlighted various malpractices of the SCPs – and nothing has come the other way.

There can be no doubt there is continued and deliberate misinformation coming from the SCPs (for example see www.safespeed.org.uk/rttm.html).
To reiterate what Paul already said, if you believe you have seen figures misused by our camp them please do highlight them.

fixitsan wrote:
I have accepted there could be a case for better education where there is a suggestion of suitable methods of education. I merely asked, three times now, what those education methods might be.

If you aren't trying to escape your own suggestion then carry it through to the point of making a practical suggestion to me abotu the types of education whcih will alleviate us of the accidetns we make for ourselves as a result of not being educated.

I only jumped in to highlight the fallacy of your interpretation of the trends, to that end it seems I am done; however, I will endeavor to answer but Paul and others should be able to give better answers (if he has time).

Anyway, there’s motorway tuition, or rather the total lack of. There are some subtleties associated with it but these can easily be overcome.
There’s ‘Road user education should be added to the National Curriculum’ (did you not read the manifesto link I gave you?) where the people can be introduced to, taught the art of, and understand the problems that various road user groups face while they are more impressionable.
Within that we must have a return to the Green Cross Code. Darth Vader recently went on record to say just how disappointed he was with today’s approach to road safety.

Education is one piece of the pie. I believe we could get education to have a better impact with some cultural shift. We need to really push home on how dangerous inattentive or unpredictable driving can be and ditch our ‘get out of my way / you’re not getting past me / I think what I’m doing is right / I hate that road user group’ attitude. We need a dedicated outlet giving people feedback of the real dangers of various actions. Right now we have about 10 road deaths each day, if it wasn’t for the various reports you wouldn’t have guessed it, even if you have scoured them main news sites.

Anyway, why should it be ‘our’ job to define the minutiae of a road safety policy? Paul has enough of a job highlighting the concealed flaws in the current policy, is that not enough to get some of the thousands of the paid professionals to get off their asses and act accordingly?

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SafeSpeed wrote:
fixitsan wrote:
To that I can merely say that you have still not suggested an alternative to education by dreaming. What practical method do you suppose we could use ?

[...]

I have accepted there could be a case for better education where there is a suggestion of suitable methods of education. I merely asked, three times now, what those education methods might be. To say I am wriggling out of something is to say that you recognise wriggling and practice it too. If you aren't trying to escape your own suggestion then carry it through to the point of making a practical suggestion to me abotu the types of education whcih will alleviate us of the accidetns we make for ourselves as a result of not being educated.


You're not paying proper attention. Are you a so-called 'road safety professional' by any chance? If you are I'm here to tell you that you are probably infected by a wholly false dogma.


Oh for goodness sake, it isn't rocket science.
I have asked
"What would be better in terms of education"
You reply with career advice ?

I can only conculde you don't have a clue, you just want to keep your cause at the front....fine, but it is easy to see through it.
There isn't a worse road safety issue in Britain than in the rest of Europe, and if anything we are about the best there is in terms of deaths per billion miles travelled.

I'm not a road safety professional. I am a bloke on the street, trying to make sense of the fact that when you see from statistics that we are doing a great job at being safe drivers, someone among our ranks start saying we're one of the worst. 17th worst in fact.

If Lewis Hamilton moves up next year from 2nd place world ranking to first, and the field is made up of 20 cars he has improved by 5% , true ?
And if one of the backmarkers, say the driver in 20th place this year moves up to 16th next year he has improved by 20%, true ?
But by your accounting the backmarker has the greatest rate of improvement so therefore he is doing better than Lewis Hamilton.
There's only one problem there, if the backmarker was better than Lewis Hamilton how come he isn't first ?

This is all very very simple maths at the end of the day. The lower the rate of deaths per billion miles the safer the roads are.

Like I say , it isn't rocket science, we've been ranked in the top five safest countries in terms of deaths per billion miles, for literally years. How is that bad ?


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smeggy wrote:
fixitsan wrote:
smeggy wrote:
Shoe on other foot: what number of avoided deaths have been confirmed to be a result of a speed camera?

Begin at the beginning, suggest a suitable method of measuring non-events. Death is the event. All non-deaths must be non-events. In this sense you can give them a figure simply by measuring the number of drivers who have passed speed cameras and subtracting the number who died and that's your answer.

That’s a non-sequitur, an IF X=Y THEN !X==!Y fallacy. If the camera weren’t there would all of those passing driver and occupants died? Of course not, hence your answer is obviously incorrect – moreso as you originally used the term ‘confirmed’.



That's simply not true at all.
I merely asked if speed cameras were causing road safety issues where was the proof of that. You immediately chose to turn things around, and that was after accusing me of wriggling out of a question ! That's a fine way to carry on, lead by example and all that.

By reiterating your improper assumption you have merely avoided telling me how many deaths ahve been caused by cameras. If cameras are indeed dangerous , and where the clue is in the word 'dangerous', what is the danger and what is the magnitude of it ? I need to know.





fixitsan wrote:
To say I am wriggling out of something is to say that you recognise wriggling and practice it too.

Please don’t judge me by your standards. I’ve dealt with enough hardened trolls to know when posters are up to tricks. To say I recognize fallacies because I use them is a fallacy in itself.


Well clearly you need to say how cameras are dangerous, and justify that if I am to believe you. If you can't say, just say you don't know, but you won't gain any credence from merely saying there is a case which proves them, only for you to fall over when asked for the details






fixitsan wrote:
I only mentioined in passing that I was looking for some hard evidence because I was sick of seeing the same figures misused by the pro and the anti groups.

And therein is the real issue. How can there be no hard evidence? In their 7 years of operation, the SCPs and their enormous resource should have come up with something irrefutable by now right? So where is it?
SS is by comparison a small-time charitably funded group who are made to jump through some rather high hoops to get the necessary data, even so Paul has correctly highlighted various malpractices of the SCPs – and nothing has come the other way.

There can be no doubt there is continued and deliberate misinformation coming from the SCPs (for example see www.safespeed.org.uk/rttm.html).
To reiterate what Paul already said, if you believe you have seen figures misused by our camp them please do highlight them.


I already told you which figures were wrong.

"We are one of the worst countires in Britain in terms of road safety because we have improved very little " (worded in several different ways)

I disagree.

Do you agree that measuring the number of deaths per billion miles is a fair measure to use ?







fixitsan wrote:
I have accepted there could be a case for better education where there is a suggestion of suitable methods of education. I merely asked, three times now, what those education methods might be.

If you aren't trying to escape your own suggestion then carry it through to the point of making a practical suggestion to me abotu the types of education whcih will alleviate us of the accidetns we make for ourselves as a result of not being educated.

I only jumped in to highlight the fallacy of your interpretation of the trends, to that end it seems I am done; however, I will endeavor to answer but Paul and others should be able to give better answers (if he has time).

As long as you accept that your understanding of the trends does not even come close to saying we have a detrimental road safety issue in Britain we can at least find agreement on something








Anyway, there’s motorway tuition, or rather the total lack of. There are some subtleties associated with it but these can easily be overcome.
There’s ‘Road user education should be added to the National Curriculum’ (did you not read the manifesto link I gave you?) where the people can be introduced to, taught the art of, and understand the problems that various road user groups face while they are more impressionable.
Within that we must have a return to the Green Cross Code. Darth Vader recently went on record to say just how disappointed he was with today’s approach to road safety.


No I didn't read the link. I thought we might try this new thing called being adult and discussing through conversation in the first person.




Education is one piece of the pie. I believe we could get education to have a better impact with some cultural shift. We need to really push home on how dangerous inattentive or unpredictable driving can be and ditch our ‘get out of my way / you’re not getting past me / I think what I’m doing is right / I hate that road user group’ attitude. We need a dedicated outlet giving people feedback of the real dangers of various actions. Right now we have about 10 road deaths each day, if it wasn’t for the various reports you wouldn’t have guessed it, even if you have scoured them main news sites.


All you really mean is "people should care "



Anyway, why should it be ‘our’ job to define the minutiae of a road safety policy? Paul has enough of a job highlighting the concealed flaws in the current policy, is that not enough to get some of the thousands of the paid professionals to get off their asses and act accordingly?



Now there's a fallacy if ever there was one.


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