Safe Speed Forums

Two articles:






The second in particular requires a response because it misrepresents the Safe Speed case.

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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

Hmmm.. "Professor of Road Transport" - same academic requirements as "Professor of Flower Arranging"? Quotes India as a good example of road safety policy.. Has he seen the KSI figures for India? It looks like the Somme in comparison with the UK.

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

It's funny how 'risk compensation' apparently always applies to drivers, and never to pedestrians. If a greater feeling of safety makes a driver take more risks, then surely the same must apply to pedestrians?
Or am I deluding myself?

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

It's the dogma that's deluded. Everywhere you look.

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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

An open review is a peer review because everyone (including peers) can review it... Or am I being too simple?

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Andrew.

You have got to be kidding. I have been there twice on business. The most outrageous driving I have ever seen. The pavement is treated as a slip road by taxis. horns are used all the time, by everyone.

India has some of the most dangerous roads IN THE WORLD

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/04/07/stories/2004040700010900.htm

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Speed camera policy Kills

The first article is frankly neither here nor there. It doesn't really imply a view being taken.

The second article, coming from someone who claims expertise in the area, and holds the title "professor" is shameful - I can only hope he has, to some extent, been the victim of cowboy editing. Nevertheless, lets us examine the piece:

Firstly, he starts with an implication that there are people who don't want to make improvements (and also implied - to road safety). To fair, based on what they say, NO ONE involved in road safety debates says they don't want to improve things - the arguments are surely about what works?
(There seems to be bit missing from the end of this paragraph, so I must add a caveat that I don't know what that is)

In that context, the following paragraph about seat belts and drunks is purely "cheap shot" stuff and not worthy in a serious article. Again - all sides in the road safety debate believe in driver education - again the argument is "education on what?"

We then have a statement, reasonable in itself, about three factors that have to be taken into account.

The paragraph about risk compensation is turned into rubbish by the India example, where, as has already been said, road casulty figures are horrendous. He is trying to say that that slower is safer, but contradicts the speed camera argument by saying at the end of the article that making drivers feel safer is a bad idea (is he implying the point of speed cameras is make them feel unsafe?) but that slower is safer (aren't cameras supposed to reduce speed?). His India argument seems to boil down to " in really dangerous overcrowded traffic situations everyone is frightened so they go really slowly in order that that they don't hit each other". Obviously true but what does it prove? That surely happens anywhere? (Non urban India is lethal from what the figures suggest)

The next paragraph on RTTM is disgraceful - he explains the theory and claims the analysis was careful. He say SS claimed "the report" (unspecified) had ignored RTTM and says the authors "retorted" that it had. ASSUMING (he could be talking about any report) it is the 4th year report being referred to, SS has NOT claimed RTTM was not looked at, merely complained the real truth of the work done is hidden in an appendix and misrepresented in the main report.

The next bit about trends is a non-sequitur. It may be that someone would have happened anyway (non irrelevant) but this does not make "the target" ineffective???? How can a target be either effective or ineffective? - a target is something to aim at - this is barely english except in the "political" sense ("an effective target"). He is deliberately confusing mathematical language with political language. By all means the action taken may or may not have be effective - but how does one know "what would have happened otherwise"? This sounds suspiciously like "yes, it may well have happened anyway, but what we have done hasn't stopped it happening, so doing it must have been effective" - palpable nonsense.

I would have been deeply ashamed to have written such a "cheap" piece.

(Apologies from any typos - the article has some lovely ones itself - unless "Extrolation" is a real word.)

So the professor shot himself in the foot with his comments then.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

So -( p take mode / we all travel in reverse then (after all slower is safer and negative speed is slower) (/peetake )

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Here's his personal page, detailing his work:

http://www.transport.uwe.ac.uk/staff/phil.htm

Interestingly he has just come from UCL - was he anything to do with the SCP scheme there?

Gareth

If you look at it another way Gizmo, both UK and India have very similar road fatality figures.

They both suffer approximately 6 fatalities per 100,000 population per annum.

I wonder if our :ahem: learned friend has used this statistic to draw the correlation between UK and India.

But surely it could never be this easy for a group of interested laymen to pull apart the work of an academic.

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

I do like that bit.

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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

And so you should old bean... So you should!

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

Although I have no evidence to back up the claim, I would suggest the vast majority of incidents in india occur out of urban areas where there are hardly any police, road conditions are horrendous and people do indeed drive with the same behaviour as Professor Goodwin described, only much faster!

I was with him right up to the last point - slower is safer - what evidence is there that this is true??

Of course Mr Goodwin couldn't possibly be on the payroll of the govt.?

http://www.urbansummit.gov.uk/prog/themed/15.htm

A widespread belief in reincarnation and karma also don't help the road safety effort.