Safe Speed Forums

Not sure whether they are down to the level they would have been had we actually got traffic police. I wonder if there is a correlation between the pratnerships lack of activity and deaths going down? I also wonder if traffic levels have reduced as people are avoiding the county due to it being littered with cameras?

Cherry pickers.

1999 55
2000 69
2001 85
2002 62
2003 78
2004 77
2005 59

Average 69.2. The 2005 figure is well within expected variation.

So their deaths are STILL worse than 1999 despite the ongoing improvements in vehicle safety, all their road safety efforts, and improvements in post crash medical care.

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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

1999 is a cherry picking year too, as it was the lowest year it has ever been. 1994 was interesting with a huge 104 deaths.

Average since 1992 up to 2000 is around 72.5. Average for last 5 pratnership years is 72.2. 0.3 of a life saved on average per year. Not a great achivement.

Is it? I didn't know. I didn't look further back than 1999.

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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

Next question is, was there a downward trend up until 1999?

1992: 74
1993: 72
1994: 102
1995: 74
1996: 65
1997: 74
1998: 68

figures from ABD's staffordshire site page. (along with the more recent figures above)

if you take all the data from 1992 to 2005 and carry out a 5 year rolling average (starting from 92-96 and finishing with 2001-2005) you get a very noticeable increasing trend over the entire period.

It's good news that deaths are down but I can think of one major change that has probably had a quite marked effect.

I haven't been in the South Stafford area for quite some time but I would expect much reduced driver stress, fatigue, rat running and possibly even some switching back to safer cars from motorcycles since the M6 toll road opened in December 2003.

I would expect such a significant road improvement would show up in the statistics over time.

Whereas the underlying trend in road safety should be substantial improvements. (vehicle safety, road engineering safety, post crash medical care) These improvements are worth far more than the growth in traffic.

And the reason we're not getting those improvements? Bad policy making drivers worse.

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

Looking at all the data there is no improvement at all!

the vast majority are between 65 and 75

there have been two outside the lower bound and two above the higher!

Two bad years are 7 years apart (94/01)

Two good years are 6 years apart (99/05)

In fact I think its fair to say that nothing has happened in terms of road safety impact on staffordshire roads since 94.

comments paul

Quite so. I'm originally from Stoke and only know 'my' areas, so won't comment on others, but they're spending lots (rightly IMHO) on the A500 at the moment on the under/overpasses that should have been built in the 1st place. On the A34 from Newcastle down to Stafford, though, they've dropped speed limits, restricted traffic flow and installed huge numbers of scameras. and seemed to have achieved an increase in casualty numbers.

staffordshire has an enormous number of speed cameras, Stoke particularly so and yet has a worsening record that speaks for itself.

Oh yeah... I remember coming back from Stoke to Manchester up the A34 on my bike last year. It's like they played "Pin the tail on the donkey" with speed cameras.

I've been playing with the stats above and can come to no conclusion other than the number of fatal's have been random over the last 13 years and they fit the classic random distribution curve.

Its typical new labour quack science.

From Stafford North, through Stone to Leek cutting across Stoke is an absolute nightmare with often 3 or 4 cameras on each side of the road per mile. Placing of the cameras is often awful with cameras part way down severe down slopes (cannot afford to look up all through the marked zone as gravity will speed you up), and some points where the speed limit starts, the speed limit sign is a huge fluorescent yellow thing with a round sign in the middle, the dodgy tarmac (rumble strips that are falling to pieces), the Vehicle activated sign to warn you, and hidden just behind the speed limit sign (it's that big) is the camera - all of this is about 10 yards.

Some relatives that lived in Leek were keeping the children occupied by counting speed cameras on their journey. They were up to about 25 each (each side), then they got onto the motorway, and when they got to West Sussex the score was still 25 each. Staffordshire is a prime example of an obsessive insanity on the behalf of the people looking after road safety.

I've been looking at my graphs again

there is absolutely no trend. Fatalities in staffs since 1994 have been entirely random.

How can people get away with this?

I've just had an epiphany

If you can't beat them join them.

Does anyone know when Staffs SCP was formed?

I think they were formed in 2000. It will probably say on their website