Safe Speed Forums

Gatso bait said..
Now, I'm not saying that it makes no sense to have speed lmits, but to an extent the ones we have are archaic and badly need to be brought up to date. In addition

unquote..

yep, u are right, but they are bringing them all down ..... everywhere we go now its 40 and 50 instead of 60 and 70... and wel all know about humps in roads where it used to be thirty..

google search "quiet roads" on your local council web site, if not now, it will be comming to a place near you soon.

happy days
bill

Anon,

with all due respect I think it should be made clear what the problems we are all discussing with regard to speed cameras. We (the majority on this site and others) are not wanting to break speed limits all the time and drive like possessed boy racers we are trying to show that concentrating all the road safety effort on breaking a limit by marginal amounts does not contribute to road safety. it appears in the eyes of many that it does work as it is very easy to be decieved that "speed kills" and it does, we all know that, but not on the grand scale that we would are all expected to believe.

THe truth is that the stats for road deaths and injuries will hardly ever be exactly the same year on year so putting a camera in is just not going to affect these stats as has been shown recently where deaths at camera sites have went down AND up or maybe stayed the same, this proves that in the majority of cases that the camera is as effective as putting a rock in the area. When a road experiences a bad few years a camera is installed then through probability that figure will drop, was it the camera that done it?

Let me explain my findings for three roads in my area. The Strathclyde partnership has put in cameras at each road about 8 months ago, we got a 33% reduction in KSI at one of the sites BEFORE THEY WERE EVEN INSTALLED. Please read part of the response from Strathclyde safety partnership below and study the figures carefully, all the figures are pre-camera:


Thank you for your letter.

I have set out the information you have requested below.
Data shown was collected over the periods January to December
(1999-2001 and 2000-2002). This is the information that was
submitted for the operational years 2003/2004 and 2004/2005.
As you will be aware the phrase 'KSI' refers to people killed or
seriously injured while 'PIC' means personal injury crashes.

2000-2002
A761 Kilmacolm Road, Port Glasgow..... 2 KSIs and 12 PICs
A78 Inverkip Road, Greenock..... 3 KSIs and 17 PICs
A8 East Hamilton Street, Greenock.....2 KSIs and 20 PICs

1999-2001
A761 Kilmacolm Road, Port Glasgow.....3 KSIs and 13 PICs
A78 Inverkip Road, Greenock.......1 KSI and 12 PICs
A8 East Hamilton Street.........2 KSIs and 21 PICs

ME:

Only one site had a significant rise in KSI and PICS, the other 2 dropped. So when it comes back down will it have been the camera that done it? Or maybe it was what happened at the other site.

Don't forget the Trafpol have been slashed in this area and there is alot of drunk/drug drivers and stolen cars in this area. I would certainly not put any of these differences down to speed.

So if you don't mind can you tell me what happened to give a 33% reduction in KSI without a camera?

All the best

Andrew

Looks like we have all tried to go into a little bit of economics here! Waiting lists are in fact a necessity believe it or not, and it is quite possible that they are artificially created to keep the economic balance in order, this may explain the PHONY stats. Anybody for an explanation (it's most interesting)? There are many areas that this government has disappointed me, but transport and road safety is not one of them!


Fatal collisions (apologies). But I feel that is what's important!
http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/Web/corporate/pages.nsf/Links/A73C3BE9FE838EAB80256BCF004DC3D5


As for the A14, i happen to live in cambridge and I can tell you that the A14 is not a BAD road, it is just that people drive too fast and consequently they drive to close! The speed limit on the A14 is 70mph, which is inappropriate. I believe a similar stretch on the A1 was reduced to 50mph limit and has seen the accident rate cut to a third (how does that sound?)!

I also happen to live next door to a leading paediatrician at addenbrooks and i am quite sure they can tell you that excessive speed has a surprising contribution to deaths.

And this number was arrived at how? Doesn't say. Don't forget the partnerships are in effect businesses, and so they have to keep selling themselves. This is little different to ads for wrinkle cream claiming that X% of the people who tried it thought they had better skin afterwards. It may be true, but they can tweak the sample size and inclusion criteria to suit themselves. Has this been done here? Well, we don't know because they ain't saying.
Who arrived at the figure? Doesn't say that either. When it's independent research the partnerships aren't usually slow in shouting about it, so you have to wonder at the omission in this case.
You also have to wonder how on earth it's so much worse in Warwickshire than than the government's nationwide figures. They're saying 13% and Warwickshire are saying 45%. What makes the problem more than 3 times as bad in Warwickshire? That in itself should be ringing alarm bells. The old 1/3 stat has just about curled up its toes now that pretty much everyone knows the original figure was 7% and they just kept adding other vaguely related factors to it until they got near enough to 33% to round it up without looking too dodgy. See the problem? Warwickshire's figures are so much higher than anything else we've been told in the past, and there's already a track record of exaggeration.
But okay, let's assume for a moment that they're right. If excessive speed accidents are a growing proportion in spite of all the cameras, that strongly suggests that cameras aren't the panacea that the partnership would have us believe. But that creates a big problem for the partnership. If cameras aren't actually slowing drivers, what's the point in cameras, and by extension what's the point of camera partnerships?

Does that come from professional expertise or is it an opinion? What is his/her evidence? In short, what makes their opinion more valid than people researching the issue? I'm not being hostile, but your neighbour's field of expertise is paediatric medicine after all. They've as much right to an opinion as anyone else, but it's not like they're a trafplod or a road engineer. Yes, I know the Mad Mog talks about his A&E rellies, and they aren't experts either. However, they do see road accident victims and can provide some anecdotal evidence along the lines of better/worse than last year/hospital worked at previously.

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

Waiting lists are not a necessity at all. Our daft managers have deliberately closed off wards and cut beds. They have certainly not been created to keep an economic balance in order. We even pay for the French to carry out some ops - on NHS which costs even more money. NHS pays BUPA for beds as well.

Would be far cheaper to Joe Public to keep NHS beds and wards open, employ full time nurses instead of paying agencies through the nose.

You really are off your head! And as matter of fact I now fill in forms which seem to make me super duper doc - saving more patients. Um - my death rate (am blood & lurgy specialist - and many of my patients are in fact terminal before I get them) is about the same as it has always been!



You must be the only person in this country to think so.

Policy of speed cameras and overall increase in road deaths? Not a blinding success at all! You are easily pleased and complacent!

Little training in Green Cross code and severe curbacks in cycling proficiency tests!

Severe cutbacks in traffic police - over-reliance on scameras. More KSIs - and more and more due to illegal substances at rate unequalled since the mid 60s? (And be careful in your retort - am a blood specialist and have more specialised knowledge on this!)

Not met one person who thinks public transport is satisfactory, nor cheaper than a car.

Buses are spasmodic - as are trains. We cannot guarantee punctuality nor appearance of these.

And I am extremely disappointed and angry with a government which seeks to charge me £400 per child per annum to get them to school by bus. I have 4 children aged 16 to 6, two foster children aged 11 and 7 and one child on way!

Not exactly my idea of "successful" transport policy!



And how does a scam stop the tailgating. In fact, the bunching was particularly noticeable around the Truvelos.

Cannot say I have been tailgated on A14 on any of my trips to see my cousin-in-law who happens to be senior surgeon in much publicised area of medicine down there.

BUT

How does a Truvelo get across the message of the two second rule - or is that too difficult a concept for you? Would the old driver advert campaign and a few chevrons markers on carriageway similar to those on parts of M62 and M6 not help remdedy the situation. They have proved to work wonders on two very dangerous sections of M62 and M6.

Scamera does not prevent it - and it really does seem to exacerbate the problem of A14 in any case.



A1 is road which has frequent roundabouts and road merges - that particular stretch is one of them! And further north - A1's 50mph stretch is more dangerous and accident prone than its 70 mph stretches! It is always on the radio for something or other (Another cous' lives in North Yorks!)



Oh - but you cannot tell me yourself! And your next door neighbour (who is probably a colleague of my cousin's wife who is also a paediatrician in Cambridge hospital) will be no more able to tell me this than you are or he/she is. Children on those wards will be there for variety of reasons - and certainly not there predominantly due to road accidents. The lady deals with harrowing child diseases - but can categorically state that majority of her patients and others on the wards have never been involved in RTAC.

Especially since you were indeed quoting cut in child KSIs in previous post

Cheers mate!

Not really bothered so long as he or she arrives safely and in good health, not to mention Wildy's health of course!

Eldest's first words were : "brum brum" Twins followed with "burummm brrumm!" and the youngest ? "eeeyarmmmm!"

Think we have bunch of petrolheads already - will be interesting to see what the new lad or lass will be like!

There are a whole series of problems and potential problems with these figures:

1) Those announcing them have a vested interest.

2) The usual definition of "excessive speed" includes inappropriate speed within the speed limit. Excessive speed is not the same as "speeding". In Durham and in Avon and Somerset, the proportion of excessive speed accidents that actually involve exceeding the speed limit is about 30%.

3) Are we talking about "normal motorists" driving carefully but above the speed limit, or are we talking about drunk, drugged, reckless or stolen car drivers crashing at high speed? Obviously it's likely to be some of each, but a very significant proportion of high speed crashes involve "clearly reckless" behaviours that go way beyond "exceeding a speed limit". I'm sure you'll agree that it's unreasonable to use such behaviours against those travelling at a safe and appropriate 80mph on an empty motorway in good conditions.

4) In the face of ever increasing speed enforcement how on earth do you explain the increase in "excessive speed" accidents? Speed enforcement clearly isn't working.

5) The 45% figure claimed is not "normal" and little or no other data agrees.

_________________
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 revised and elaborated my conclusions on this study as follows (see http://www.fastandsafe.org/site.aspx/Pages/Facts/KloedenCritique/index):

Regarding the stated conclusion of the Kloeden et al study: “In a 60 km/h speed limit area, the risk of involvement in a casualty crash doubles with each 5 km/h increase in travelling speed above 60 km/h”, we are led to the following evaluation:

Their statement implies:

a) There has been a study covering all driving at all speeds under all conditions in the specified area.
b) All drivers are subject to the same risk profile so comparisons between them are valid.
c) All conditions are subject to the same risk profile so comparisons between them are valid.

None of these implications are true. (See also Silly Statistics on other out of context claims.)

Instead, the study selected only one-sixth of business-day crashes and for about half of the vehicles involved in those, it estimated approximate speed immediately before the crash and compared that with measured speeds of other traffic at the same site. The errors in the study methodology are:

1. The estimated and measured vehicle speeds are subject to unknown errors and biases which may well be greater than the observed differences in the mean crash speeds and control speeds.

2. The uncertainties in the estimated vehicle speeds were aggravated by the failure of the study to measure road skid resistance at the crash sites and by the use of assumed fixed constants for both skid resistance and for the estimate of proportional energy loss before skid marks. The latter is not constant and declines with increased speed so the estimates were biased by that to overestimate higher speeds.

3. Even if the compared speeds were accurate, the comparison applies only to driver behaviour at high risk time/place/conditions. It cannot be extrapolated to low risk conditions. A safe driver will drive faster in safe conditions and slower in risk situations. You cannot estimate his/her degree of risk by measuring his/her speed in safe conditions and comparing that with speeds measured at accident locations.

4. The weights of vehicles are ignored, yet they may vary by a large factor and have a much greater impact on casualty risk than small variations in speed. Typically a 4WD SUV may be 2-3 times heavier than a car. The risk of death if it hits a pedestrian is also very much greater than a low car profile because of its height - all this risk element is ignored by the study conclusion.

5. The study ignores the value and effect of safety measures such as side-impact bars and side airbags. Side airbags which cover the head and torso are shown to reduce fatalities in side-impact crashes by nearly 50%. Most of the crashes in this study were side-impact.

6. The study assumes all drivers have the same risk profile, but there are large differences in driver reaction times and vehicle standards.

7. By focusing solely on serious crashes the methodology is inevitably biased towards the most unsafe drivers in the most unsafe vehicles. You cannot generalize from their performance to that of even average drivers in average vehicles, let alone to good drivers in good vehicles. The conclusions are simply statistical nonsense.

The study claim is therefore false, unproven and without general application. Moreover, several other papers claiming to derive related conclusions from this source data are consequently also without foundation and fundamentally flawed.

The road safety research community has ignored these blatant oversights in their fundamental research in a rush to embrace rigid enforcement of speed limits with new and draconian technologies and regulations.

Both their competence and integrity are in serious doubt.

_________________
Alan Wilkinson (at http://www.fastandsafe.org)