UK Report Shows Only 2% of Accidents Caused by Speeding

[Peter Ward]

From http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/19/1974.asp

The Newspaper said:

UK Report Shows Only 2 Percent of Accidents Caused by Speeding
UK Department for Transport report shows only two percent of accidents among drivers over 25 are caused by exceeding the speed limit.

Only two percent of road accidents were caused by adult drivers exceeding the posted speed limit, according to the UK Department for Transport (DfT). The figures were provided earlier this year in an official report to the House of Commons Select Committee on Transport regarding the impact of novice drivers. The DfT based its analysis on 147,509 accidents ranging in severity from slight to fatal.

"In 2005, for the first time, the Department collected data on contributory factors to road traffic accidents," the report stated. "Several of these factors are attributed to drivers up to the age of 25 in much higher proportions of cases than for older drivers."

The report showed that even among the youngest drivers, aged 17-19, only eight percent of accidents were caused by exceeding the posted speed limit. The more prominent factors were "loss of control," accounting for nineteen percent of accidents; "careless, reckless or in a hurry," accounting for fourteen percent; "traveling too fast for the conditions," fourteen percent; and "slippery road due to weather," at twelve percent.

The factors drop correspondingly as the age brackets changed to cover more experienced drivers. The figure for exceeding the posted speed limit drops to six percent among drivers aged 17-25 and to just two percent for drivers above age 25. Road safety expert Paul Smith, founder of Safe Speed, points out that UK government officials previously claimed one-third of accidents were "speed related" to justify the installation of more than six thousand speed cameras throughout the country.

"Recent road safety policy has been founded on a gross misunderstanding of road safety fundamentals," Smith explained. "We have never had a national problem with speeding. To get road safety back on track, DfT must admit that it has been chasing rainbows; pull the plug on the failed speed camera program and refocus national efforts on improving driver quality and effective roads policing."

The figures match those that Smith discovered buried deep in the DfT report Contributory Factors to Road Accidents released last year (view report). Younger motorists, aged 18 to 21 account for just three percent of licensed drivers in the UK.

"Problems associated with young drivers mainly represent skills or attitude shortfalls in a minority of inexperienced drivers," Smith said. "It is unreasonable to claim that speed cameras could address this problem to any significant degree. For the rest of us, speed cameras are a dangerous distraction at best."

Source: Evidence Submitted to the Select Committee on Transport (UK Department for Transport, 7/19/2007)

So we finally have a government-backed figure for accidents caused by speeding! And now the evidence is in, we can see that the next step to be taken by the DfT will be the removal of all speed cameras because it's obvious they're focused on the wrong thing if they really want to improve road safety. Oh no, sorry, wrong script, the speed cameras are there to reduce CO2 emissions because UK cars are responsible for 120% of global emissions. And the government needs the money from fines to prop up failing banks.

I don't suppose we'll see a retraction of any statements previously made, or any change in policy given the control that cameras can exert over the population.

[Peter Ward]

Bing o said:

Maybe they should put up "inappropriate speed cameras" (fnaar fnaar).

I'm waiting for our anti-speed proponents to come rushing in to the defence of speed limits.....

Actually that's a good point. If limits were lower then a larger percentage of accidents would be caused by speeding, thus proving the need for lower speed limits....

Assuming that scenario is valid, it's amazing that, given speed limits have been tumbling for several years now, we still find that a miniscule proportion of accidents are caused by speeding.

[Peter Ward]

delboy735 said:

http://www.driveandstayalive.com/info%20section/st...


Take a look at this, and then tell me Scameras are not there for the revenue.

Its all boocks. The Government wants to spend more money on something worthwhile, like finding cures for Heart disease and cancer..................how many more lives would that save. Oh yes, it's got all to do with saving lives, its about raising revenue.

Sits back and awaits response from a "jobsworth".

Interesting tables on that site. Looking at the trend per country, UK has achieved a 20% improvement in deaths (92-01) while many other countries have achieved over 30%. Another country at the low end is Australia where there is also a focus on cameras as the hammer for the KSI nail.

It's also interesting to see Poland has a rate 2.5x worse than UK. Will we see the UK trend reverse as we get increasing numbers of Polish drivers here?

[Peter Ward]

vonhosen said:

Peter Ward said:

delboy735 said:

http://www.driveandstayalive.com/info%20section/st...


Take a look at this, and then tell me Scameras are not there for the revenue.

Its all boocks. The Government wants to spend more money on something worthwhile, like finding cures for Heart disease and cancer..................how many more lives would that save. Oh yes, it's got all to do with saving lives, its about raising revenue.

Sits back and awaits response from a "jobsworth".

Interesting tables on that site. Looking at the trend per country, UK has achieved a 20% improvement in deaths (92-01) while many other countries have achieved over 30%. Another country at the low end is Australia where there is also a focus on cameras as the hammer for the KSI nail.

It's also interesting to see Poland has a rate 2.5x worse than UK. Will we see the UK trend reverse as we get increasing numbers of Polish drivers here?

39% reduction of a very high number still leaves a very high number.
20% reduction of a much smaller number still leaves a much smaller number.
You don't honestly expect the country with one of the lowest long term number of deaths per head to also have the greatest reductions year on year do you ?
Far easier to make huge reductions from appalling initial figures. No surprise then that Portugal figures very poorly on initial figures, has the best percentage reduction, but still has a death rate that represents 2.64 times ours despite that great reduction.

Edited by vonhosen on Tuesday 18th September 18:49

The government promised a 50% reduction in KSIs over 10 years, and chose speed reduction as the main way to achieve it. I realise KSI isn't the same as K, but if it meant a disproportionate reduction in SI and zero reduction in K then it kept it very quiet. So it's not me that's naive by "expecting" a greater reduction than 20% over 10 years, it's our masters.

[Peter Ward]

Big Fat F'r said:

Bing o said:

Big Fat F'r said:

But these idiots are out there. I see them every day. So first I want a way to try and stop them. You can't say that they will drive safely if left to select their own speeds, becasue they aren't doing. So I want to state exactly what a maximum is assessed at (just like many other risk assessments do) and then enforce it.

You see them. You see them because you are a human being.

Speed cameras don't. Scammers don't.

That is why you see them everyday. Because road policy has failed.

Bring back trafpol - let them take into account someone's driving. If we must have cameras, put them all over every BiB's car so you can see the tailgating, the aggression, the cutting up. And then take them to Court - DWDCA enough people and the message will get across.

Combined with public service films to re-edukate the masses as to how the HC works, and we might be getting somewhere.

But I want all of that as much as you. I just also want a simple way to catch those that drive too fast.

Going back to my point about not confusing enforcement with the limit it's set at, how would you deal with the known problem we have of some people driving too fast. You must know deep down that we genuinely can't have BiB on every street corner. So if you accept that some people are driving too fast, and if you accept that can't have a human presence, what is wrong with a camera, to catch those who go too fast. The ones that you would see and say yourself that something should be done about them, even though the only thing you are basing it on is his speed.

BFF

Most of the people I see going too fast in the way you describe are in town centres and residential areas. Neither type of location is generally overpopulated with cameras. To take the approach you suggest would require a wholesale relocation of cameras from cash-generating to safety-enforcing locations.

[Peter Ward]

vonhosen said:

s2art said:

Sheriff JWPepper said:

s2art said:

You are probably right. That 2% figure is likely to be an overestimate due to the high speed crashes being most likely to be investigated.

Good one but I don't think it's likely and I would suggest nor do you.

s2art said:

The research which used to be used for setting limits in the UK actually showed that the drivers most likely to be involved in accidents were the slowest 25%ish and the top 5%ish. If you force people to drive below the 'natural' speeds for a given road then expect more accidents.

I don't really want to and fro over stats, we all know they can used to 'prove' almost anything.

What would your proposals be for improving current system?

I do not dismiss the stats lightly. They are the best evidence we have and, in the case of the 85% rule, have been replicated in several countries. Of course there will be situations where it doesnt work, but its the way to bet.
Improving current systems? The danger from minor speeding is obviously grossly overestimated. Change the focus away from cameras to trafpol looking out for bad driving. Simple.

We haven't got the trafpol available for it, that's why we have cameras.
If Chief Constables have more officers, they'll post them to priority posts & trafpol isn't one of those, so it's not simple.

Then effectively what you're saying is that it's not a government priority to reduce the 98% of accidents caused by things other than speeding.

[Peter Ward]

As usual there's lot of different arguments going on at once. That's what makes it interesting

But to get back to the core for a minute, my analysis of the report's findings is that:

1. a very small percentage of accidents are caused by speeding (2%? perhaps a bit more, but certainly not 33%)
2. this indicates that the approach of focusing entirely* on speed is not going to achieve the reductions that the government seeks
3. this also indicates that the use of speed cameras on the basis of safety (ie. reducing accidents) is not going to achieve the reductions that the government seeks (this point is essentially the same as point 2 but highlights the government's means of focusing on speed)
4. if we're serious about reducing accidents, we actually need to focus on something other than speed. I guess the report indicates what that "other" might be
5. I believe that other research has shown that speed cameras (including mobile ones) can have a detrimental impact on safety
6. it therefore makes sense to consider removing a proportion of existing cameras, focusing first on those that even the Partnerships' statistics show have had no benefit
7. it probably also makes sense for the Partnerships to focus their efforts on areas of road safety other than speed. There are enough employees and BiBs on overtime available to them that they could use to monitor (for example) tailgating and middle-lane hogging -- dangers which could also handled by camera and NIP.

There's been a deafening response from government to this report, and it doesn't even seem to have been picked up by the tabloids. I presume this means that logic will not be applied to the findings and that cameras will continue to proliferate.

Perhaps at the beginning of the camera blitz there were some who genuinely believed in the "1/3 lie" and saw speed reduction as a valuable tool in KSI reduction. With the publication of this report, which simply supports the evidence that's been emerging from other sources over the intervening years, I can't imagine that there's anyone who uses "evidence-based policing" that actually believes that cameras are the main weapon in KSI reduction any more. Yet their revenue, the employment that comes from it, and the control they exert, is so attractive that they will remain for the foreseeable future. If only there was an opposition in this country....

• ok not entirely, but as has been said previously, there aren't enough BiB to do what's really required because causes other than speed are not a government priority

[Peter Ward]

vonhosen said:

Peter Ward said:

Then effectively what you're saying is that it's not a government priority to reduce the 98% of accidents caused by things other than speeding.

For the Police terrorism, gun crime, burglary, robbery etc are higher priorities.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think that KSIs from terrorism, gun crime, burglary and robbery etc do not add up to even the 3000+ Ks let alone the umpteen thousand SIs each year? If I'm right, then that implies that we could save more lives by focusing on the 98% of non-speed-related accidents each year than going after terrorists, armed people, burglars and robbers.

I realise that all these criminals also cause damage other than KSIs, but then so do car accidents. Imagine reducing accidents by 50% by bringing in a large increase in trafpol who are focused on bad driving rather than speed. That could actually save more lives and property damage than MI5/6 tracking terrorists and BiBs catching all those burglars.

[Peter Ward]

vonhosen said:

Peter Ward said:

vonhosen said:

Peter Ward said:

Then effectively what you're saying is that it's not a government priority to reduce the 98% of accidents caused by things other than speeding.

For the Police terrorism, gun crime, burglary, robbery etc are higher priorities.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think that KSIs from terrorism, gun crime, burglary and robbery etc do not add up to even the 3000+ Ks let alone the umpteen thousand SIs each year? If I'm right, then that implies that we could save more lives by focusing on the 98% of non-speed-related accidents each year than going after terrorists, armed people, burglars and robbers.

I realise that all these criminals also cause damage other than KSIs, but then so do car accidents. Imagine reducing accidents by 50% by bringing in a large increase in trafpol who are focused on bad driving rather than speed. That could actually save more lives and property damage than MI5/6 tracking terrorists and BiBs catching all those burglars.

If that's how you measure it let's get rid of the Police & give the money saved to the NHS.
Police priorities though are not arbitrarily decided by the Police. Public concerns shape policy & most people are more concerned about the things I mentioned as opposed to if someone was a bit close behind on the way home in the car.

Von, I realise that the police do not decide these things, and my comments are not entirely serious. What I was trying to point out is that the police's (government's) priorities are possibly not saving as many KSIs as a well-directed campaign against bad driving. I don't just mean tailgating, but whatever it is that causes the other 98% of accidents. If tailgating is not a major source of accidents then ignore it. It may include drink-driving, or drug-driving, or joyriding, or middle-lane hoggers, or driving while tired. Whatever it is, focus on the 98% and not the 2%. Given the level of KSIs on the roads, this may save more lives than the current police priorities.

OTOH, as you say, other activities actually cause more KSIs than driving. Perhaps these require more focus even than bad driving. With limited resources we should apply them where they can make the most impact, wherever that is.

[Peter Ward]

Big Fat F'r said:

WildCat said:

But John Nichol was spot on when he pass comment on this story when reviewing the papers on some satellite news channel. He said that speed was not the cause of these accidents - poor driving skills cause a crunch at any speed ..even at zero reading in the car parks. He went on to say that more policemen, less scams und far more attention to improving actual skills und standards would be far better accident prevention measures.

Having stated what many people already believe, I don't suppose he went on to suggest how to achieve it did he?

BFF

Once the overall goal is agreed then we can define the means to achieve it. Therefore once we as a country decide that we're really going to address road safety, and that we're going to do it by (1) improving driving skills and (2) having more trafpols, then we can define the means to achieve them.

Perhaps at the same time the country might decide to include pedestrian skills, cycle-riding skills....

How long will it be before the country reaches this point? 5 years? 10 years? "Speed kills" is just so much easier for most people to swallow than "bad driving kills", not least because they only have 1 thing to concentrate on in order to claim "it wa'n't my fault guv, I wa'n't speedin'" when the inevitable accidents occur.