Magilla Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Nothing has made our roads more unsafe than the Labour years of its one trick road safety pony. Even Labour could only massage the figures to show speed is the cause of JUST 7% of accidents. I agree entirely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spindrift Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 I agree entirely. If speed is a factor in just 7% of accidents, how come 20mph zones see a 56% decrease in accidents? The 7% figure is a myth trotted out by camera-haters. It's made up and fallacious. The figure originally came from the ABD: The Slower Speeds Initiative wrote to the Transport Research Laboratory concerning the ABD’s use of the study. The TRL referred us to reports on speed. This is because the TRL study cited by the ABD, TRL Report 323, concerns ‘A new system for recording contributory factors in road accidents’. TRL 323 is not a study of crash causation. It is a study of how to collect data. It was not designed to draw statistically reliable conclusions about the causes of road crashes. The accidents included in the three month study were not a statistically representative sample of all accidents. There is no basis for using the study to generalise about the speed-crash relationship. The very low figure quoted by the ABD comes from a table which showed pairings of factors: In 4.04% of crashes recorded in the study, the person filling in the form paired 'excessive speed' (nowhere defined) with 'loss of control of vehicle'. 4.04% is only a subset of all speed related crashes recorded in the study. This use of statistics has been described by a professional statistician as ‘extremely naughty’ and by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions as ‘mischievous’. DETR go on to say ‘it is interesting that none of the many other TRL reports on speed and accident risk have been mentioned by those using this report as the basis for their argument.’ In order for ABD's preferred interpretation to be factually accurate, Newton's Laws of Motion would have to be wrong. Overturning 300+ years of scientific consensus is going to need some fairly compelling evidence. The TRL 323 methodology for recording contributory factors simply does not ask the questions which would reveal the inherent dangers of speed: Would the factor still have been present if the driver, and/or all the other drivers involved, had been driving more slowly? IF YES, Would the factor still have resulted in a crash? IF YES, Would the crash still have been so severe? It is obvious to almost everyone (with the exception of libertarian motorists with a soap box to drive) that higher speeds reduce the amount of time any driver has to respond to the unexpected and that higher speeds increase the force of any impact. The importance of reduced speeds to crash prevention and reducing crash severity is no mystery. In fact, the TRL study beloved of the ABD and its fellow-travellers, indirectly acknowledges the overriding importance of speed: ‘Virtually the only factor that road accidents have in common is that all would have been avoided if those involved had known with certainty, a few seconds in advance, that an accident was about the occur.’ Lower speeds provide those few extra seconds. Among the TRL reports the ABD does not like to cite is TRL 421, ‘The effects of drivers’ speed on the frequency of road accidents’ published in March 2000 . Unlike TRL 323, this study was designed to discover the speed-crash relationship. The authors looked at 300 sections of road, made 2 million observations of speed and got 10,000 drivers to complete questionnaires. They found that the faster the traffic moves on average, the more crashes there are (and crash frequency increases approximately with the square of average traffic speed) the larger the spread of speeds around the average, the more crashes there are Significantly for the ABDs argument, and for the rest of us, they also found that: drivers who choose speeds above the average on some roads tend also to do so on all roads higher speed drivers are associated with a significantly greater crash involvement than are slower drivers For these reasons they conclude that the speed of the fastest drivers (those travelling faster than the average for the road) should be reduced. The study confirmed what is described as a ‘robust general rule’ relating crash reductions to speed reductions: for every 1 mph reduction average speed, crashes are reduced by between 2-7%. More specifically, the crash reduction figure is around 6% for urban roads with low average speeds 4% for medium speed urban roads and lower speed rural main roads 3% for higher speed urban roads and rural main roads To put the dangerousness of speed into perspective, how many drivers care about or would notice a 2mph reduction in their average speed? Yet, averaged across the entire road network, a mere 2mph reduction in average speeds would prevent more than 200 deaths and 3,500 serious casualties a year. The authors of TRL 421 suggest that this target (about a sixth of the overall speed related casualty figure) is a ‘reasonable minimum’ to aim for. More importantly they use it to show ‘the sensitivity of accident numbers to a small change in average speed’. In other words, speeds that might not seem excessive. Speeds that TRL323’s methodology wouldn’t even record. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alchresearch Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Effective at what?There is no sites that i know of that the accident rate has gone up,yet speeds past turned off cameras has increased.Speaks for itself doesnt it? Catching people speeding. The biggest mistake the powers that be made is changing the name from "speed cameras" to "safety cameras". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perplexed Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Effective at what? Concentrating the minds of some drivers. If the cameras are covert, and moved every so often, they'd have to pay more attention than some of them seem to do at the present. This would be particularly useful at night with the "boy racers". If I'm on my bike late at night/early hours, I'm behind absolutely anything that stops some of the morons who blat, and I mean really blatting, hammering past me and potentially making my wife a widow. These people are not "creeping" over the limit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclone Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Which county was it that turned off all it's speed camera's? Cambridge. And to date they've seen no increase in the number of accidents or the severity of accidents... That seems to imply that as a means of improving safety, camera's are a huge fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spindrift Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Which county was it that turned off all it's speed camera's? Cambridge. And to date they've seen no increase in the number of accidents or the severity of accidents... That seems to imply that as a means of improving safety, camera's are a huge fail. It's Oxford, and they've seen a sharp increase in speeding: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-10929488 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xt500 Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 It's Oxford, and they've seen a sharp increase in speeding: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-10929488 But not ACCIDENTS!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spindrift Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 There doesn't have to be an accident for speeding to anti-social. Speeding scares the elderly, terrifies children, bullies vulnerable road users, intimidates cyclists, and annoys residents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xt500 Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 The number of people killed on British roads last year reached a record low, according to government statistics. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10408417 What was that about spouting crap? Wheres the proof lower speeds is the reason?Many cameras have been turned off up and down the country and its well known speed has gone UP so that sort of wee's on your bonfire a tad doesnt it? As for the BBC,..........once apon a time.............. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spindrift Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Authorities 'To Reactivate The Technology'03/11/2010 A serious injury lawyer at Irwin Mitchell has welcomed reports that fixed speed cameras are to be brought back into use in Oxfordshire. Stephen Nye, who specialises in cases related to road traffic accidents, said it was positive news that the region’s council are reportedly planning to go back on a decision taken in August to switch off the cameras. The decision to deactivate them was taken when Oxfordshire County Council withdrew funding for the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership. However, both parties have now confirmed they are close to agreeing a deal which will ensure the technology is in use. Commenting on the plan, Stephen Nye said: “There is no doubt that speed cameras play a key role in both preventing injuries and saving lives, so it is welcome news that the technology is set to be brought back into use. “So many of the cases I deal with highlight the traumatic, life-changing impact that road traffic accidents can have on those involved. “Because of this, it is vital that any measures designed to improve road safety and protect the wellbeing of drivers are taken advantage of.” http://www.irwinmitchell.com/news/Pages/Oxfordshire-Speed-Camera-Return-Backed-By-Accident-Expert.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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