Accidents now rising. What's going on?

Accidents now rising. What's going on?

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emmaT2014

1,860 posts

117 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
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MMC said:
emmaT2014 said:
Devil2575 said:
It's a bit premature to comment untill the numbers are actually released. It's also rather presumptive to assume that the yet to be released numbers support the view that the blogger is espousing.

For a communications guru the strap-line on his website is odd but perhaps apt as far as his road safety musings are concerned.

mmc's website said:
MMC Musings Musings. Ramblings. General arse.
I do love a bit of flattery.

Mind you, I think 'guru' is a new one for me.
You are most welcome. smile

anonymous-user

55 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
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There are so many variables, that the probability of finding exact causes isn't good. Especially when there could be a year of data which goes against the trend as part of normal statistical variance. This is more likely when the data reaches its saturation point i.e. road deaths become so low that they're approaching / have approached their probable base numbers.

Edited as written like crap*

Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 2nd February 10:20

Mr Taxpayer

438 posts

121 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
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V8 Fettler said:
Jonny_ said:
55palfers said:
"We have traded safety for compliance"

True.
It's the same as in industry, where health and safety propaganda and paperwork are rife yet accident statistics barely change from year to year.

Handy stick for managers/governments to beat people with, though.
Fatalities in the workplace have been dropping for decades, due in part to the running down of the more dangerous industries, but also due to changes in working practices. Farming and construction remain stubbornly high(er) though.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/fatals.htm
3 most dangerous Occupations per capita...

1. Deep Sea Fishing
2. Mining and extraction
3. Any occupation that involves driving 25,000 miles or more per annum.

I'd hazard a guess that many PHers fall into 3.

heebeegeetee

28,782 posts

249 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
quotequote all
MMC said:
Looks like crashes are rising. When ministers start pre-briefing and getting their defence in early, something's wrong.

In my opinion, it's something very, very wrong.

Moderator edit: please don't link to your own site.

Edited by jeremyc on Sunday 1st February 17:54
Cold weather?

Beggarall

550 posts

242 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
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Just too many cars on the road - lots of them doing stupid things smile

emmaT2014

1,860 posts

117 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
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Beggarall said:
Just too many cars on the road - lots of them doing stupid things smile
Not quite yet driverless cars are some way off. At the moment cars don't do anything stupid some drivers do though.

allergictocheese

1,290 posts

114 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
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heebeegeetee said:
Cold weather?
Wasn't 2014 one of the warmest years on record?

55palfers

5,914 posts

165 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
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I wonder if a big influx of drivers from countries where the driving test may not be as rigorous as ours and who are used to driving on the other side of the road may have any influence on the stats?

Devil2575

13,400 posts

189 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
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La Liga said:
The probability of finding an exact cause isn't good.

There are so many variables, that the probability of finding exact causes isn't good. Especially there could be a year of data which goes against the trend as part of normal statistical variance. This is more likely when the data reaches its saturation point i.e. road deaths become so low that they're approach / have approached their probable base numbers.
Indeed.

The overall trend has been going down but that doesn't mean the numbers are always going to be lower every year.

IIRC the same comments where made a few years back when the numbers went up one year, only for them to drop again the followimng year.

supermono

7,368 posts

249 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
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Back on track I'd like to remind readers of the great work the late Paul Smith of Safespeed did. One thing that summed up the whole speed policing lunacy was his phrase "safe driving cannot be measured in MPH."

He also pointed out that the KSI record which had been falling since records began sharply levelled out about the same time (my words here) that business discovered the speed policing industry. In fact Paul went on to explain that even though cars and medicine became better at keeping people alive and less seriously injured, the reward wasn't there in the figures.

It doesn't take a genius like him to see what happened does it? We have police, magistrates and slowsters up and down the country trotting out this 'speed kills' BS and most counties have a lucrative speed fine collection business who have to run progaganda machines too so that useful idiots in the public can support them. Don't forget insurance companies profiteering as well making out that speeding makes you a more dangerous driver so they can get their noses in the trough.

Until we kick these bozos into touch and start encouraging good driving instead of compliance with arbitrary speed limits, we'll see the figures rising.

Recently I saw an archive interview with that halfwit Ladyman who was asked why speed cameras don't work and he in all seriousness said accidents went down ON SPEED CAMEA SITES, completely missing the regression to mean and therefore suggesting that people were having to select brand new accident sites when a speed camera spoiled an ideal crash site.

Honestly with this calibre of people on the case is there any wonder figures are going up??


anonymous-user

55 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
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supermono said:
It doesn't take a genius like him to see what happened does it? We have police, magistrates and slowsters up and down the country trotting out this 'speed kills' BS and most counties have a lucrative speed fine collection business who have to run progaganda machines too so that useful idiots in the public can support them.
The problem is it doesn't really make any money. It's irrrlevant when you consider the scale of public finances. A few million here or there to the treasury means nothing. If we had a government so cynical to create an entire industry around money, they could actually do one which made them some.

supermono said:
He also pointed out that the KSI record which had been falling since records began sharply levelled out about the same time (my words here) that business discovered the speed policing industry. In fact Paul went on to explain that even though cars and medicine became better at keeping people alive and less seriously injured, the reward wasn't there in the figures.
The rate of progress slowed around the 1990s, when cameras were introduced. This allows you to make a casual link between speed camera introduction and the decreased rate of change.

Of course, the rate then accelerated to near record reductions / time (weighted for the decreasing opportunity of harm reduced i.e. getting closer to 0, it's actually a better rate).

I take it you won't be as keen to casually link the increase of speed cameras on the early 2000s with increased death-reduction.



I am assuming the above source is credible, but happy to be corrected.

CrutyRammers

13,735 posts

199 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
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La Liga said:
The problem is it doesn't really make any money. It's irrrlevant when you consider the scale of public finances. A few million here or there to the treasury means nothing. If we had a government so cynical to create an entire industry around money, they could actually do one which made them some.
True, but it doesn't have to be driven by central government with a view to the whole public finances. Rather by local bodies, to whom a few 10s of thousands may be rather appealing.
Rather like Holywood - the film industry overall makes very poor profits (last time I looked) of only a couple of percent. But they keep making films because it's profitable for individuals.
</OT>

kwk

562 posts

179 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
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Lack of traffic police who have now been re directed to other duties. The police these days, are directing resources into solving historical crimes instead of putting their now, limited resources onto the street and preventing new crimes.
Part of the primary objective is the prevention and detection of crime and not the other way around.

heebeegeetee

28,782 posts

249 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
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allergictocheese said:
Wasn't 2014 one of the warmest years on record?
But if they're going up right now..?

jith

2,752 posts

216 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
quotequote all
La Liga said:
supermono said:
It doesn't take a genius like him to see what happened does it? We have police, magistrates and slowsters up and down the country trotting out this 'speed kills' BS and most counties have a lucrative speed fine collection business who have to run progaganda machines too so that useful idiots in the public can support them.
The problem is it doesn't really make any money. It's irrrlevant when you consider the scale of public finances. A few million here or there to the treasury means nothing. If we had a government so cynical to create an entire industry around money, they could actually do one which made them some.

supermono said:
He also pointed out that the KSI record which had been falling since records began sharply levelled out about the same time (my words here) that business discovered the speed policing industry. In fact Paul went on to explain that even though cars and medicine became better at keeping people alive and less seriously injured, the reward wasn't there in the figures.
The rate of progress slowed around the 1990s, when cameras were introduced. This allows you to make a casual link between speed camera introduction and the decreased rate of change.

Of course, the rate then accelerated to near record reductions / time (weighted for the decreasing opportunity of harm reduced i.e. getting closer to 0, it's actually a better rate).

I take it you won't be as keen to casually link the increase of speed cameras on the early 2000s with increased death-reduction.



I am assuming the above source is credible, but happy to be corrected.
The post is about accidents increasing, not KSIs. The decrease in those in the period you have shown is almost exclusively down to the development in vehicle technology. In otherwords, the engineers are the ones who should be taking the credit, not the deluded, politically-motivated parasites in the camera partnerships.

J

Devil2575

13,400 posts

189 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
quotequote all
supermono said:
He also pointed out that the KSI record which had been falling since records began sharply levelled out about the same time (my words here) that business discovered the speed policing industry. In fact Paul went on to explain that even though cars and medicine became better at keeping people alive and less seriously injured, the reward wasn't there in the figures.
How about illustrating this data for us because i'm not sure I agree with this assessment.

The KSI record has not been falling since record began at all.

This is the trend



If you could point out the time when business discovered the speed policing industry.

This actualy shows the last time people got excited because accidents were starting to rise, in 2011, but as we now know they fell below 2010 levels for the years 2012 and 2013.

Given the ammount of miles that are done on the UKs roads annually and the weight of traffic, it may simply be that we are reaching a point where further reductions are going to become harder and harder to achieve.


Dr Jekyll

23,820 posts

262 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
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Improvement in car design have a lot to do with it.

There was a crash up the road from me recently where 2 people where killed. The were doing at least 70 MPH and not wearing seat belts when they had a head on collision. But the inquest suggested that if they had been in a more recent car they might have survived.

anonymous-user

55 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
quotequote all
jith said:
The post is about accidents increasing, not KSIs.
The person I replied to literally wrote KSI.

I've quoted 'killed' data only, but it makes the same point as correlation / causality.

supermono said:
He also pointed out that the KSI record which had been falling since records began sharply levelled out about the same time

jith said:
The decrease in those in the period you have shown is almost exclusively down to the development in vehicle technology. In otherwords, the engineers are the ones who should be taking the credit, not the deluded, politically-motivated parasites in the camera partnerships.

J
It's multi-faceted, there's no doubt about that. This includes vehicle design, road design, social attitudes to drink-driving, higher standard driving test, better targeting of risk drivers i.e. no insurance, disqualified etc etc.

I didn't attribute speed camera increase with decreased road deaths. I was making the point about making casual connections between their introduction and data changes. I also mentioned I don't see any evidence they exist for revenue, since they fundamentally don't really generate any surplus.

Devil2575

13,400 posts

189 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
quotequote all
jith said:
The post is about accidents increasing, not KSIs. The decrease in those in the period you have shown is almost exclusively down to the development in vehicle technology. In otherwords, the engineers are the ones who should be taking the credit, not the deluded, politically-motivated parasites in the camera partnerships.

J
It is very likely that vehicle development has had an impact on KSI stats. However to make the claim that the trend is almost exclusively donw to this requires evidence. Do you have any?

Accidents are increasing?

Err, the subject of the OP was about the KSI stats, not accidents in general.

The insurance industry in the UK seems to think that accidents are actually falling...

anonymous-user

55 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
quotequote all
CrutyRammers said:
La Liga said:
The problem is it doesn't really make any money. It's irrrlevant when you consider the scale of public finances. A few million here or there to the treasury means nothing. If we had a government so cynical to create an entire industry around money, they could actually do one which made them some.
True, but it doesn't have to be driven by central government with a view to the whole public finances. Rather by local bodies, to whom a few 10s of thousands may be rather appealing.
Rather like Holywood - the film industry overall makes very poor profits (last time I looked) of only a couple of percent. But they keep making films because it's profitable for individuals.
The government changed the funding structure to remove the link between the volume of people caught and the revenue the LA received.

They also put many SCPs in a position where they could no longer financially operate.

There's the contradiction. People assert the government benefit from the revenue (they'd benefit if the LAs made money as they'd have to pay them less if it were local revenue-generation), but ignore the fact two successive governments who've a) made the funds go centrally and not related to the road safety grants (save SACs IIRC), b) reduced the road safety grant meaning SCPs had to reduce in size.

There's no consistency with the argument. A conspiring government willing to create a whole fraudulently industry to make money then self-sabotages it.