Speed Awareness Courses - Do they work?

[Mill Wheel]

vonhosen said:

I don't agree with money being the objective, but I don't have a problem with having targets (i.e. targeting high risk or high offending locations)

So if a certain part of a stretch of road has a high risk... a history of serious and fatal accidents, why would a Safety Camera Partnership chose a certain part of the same stretch of road to enforce a speed limit, where there is little history of incidents, and continue to enforce there even when fatal and serious incidents continue at the part that has always had that history?

To add to the stupidity, accidents at the enforcement site ROSE once enforcement started, highlighting the ineffectiveness of the enforcement as a safety tool.
In 2010, Cumbria lost £255,000 for road safety funding - £213,000 of which was originally budgeted for speed cameras.
That was a huge slant towards speed ENFORCEMENT, NOT safety.

[Mill Wheel]

vonhosen said:

Mill Wheel said:

vonhosen said:

I don't agree with money being the objective, but I don't have a problem with having targets (i.e. targeting high risk or high offending locations)

So if a certain part of a stretch of road has a high risk... a history of serious and fatal accidents, why would a Safety Camera Partnership chose a certain part of the same stretch of road to enforce a speed limit, where there is little history of incidents, and continue to enforce there even when fatal and serious incidents continue at the part that has always had that history?

To add to the stupidity, accidents at the enforcement site ROSE once enforcement started, highlighting the ineffectiveness of the enforcement as a safety tool.
In 2010, Cumbria lost £255,000 for road safety funding - £213,000 of which was originally budgeted for speed cameras.
That was a huge slant towards speed ENFORCEMENT, NOT safety.

Well if people weren't speeding at the part that was high risk but were elsewhere, there would be little point in speed enforcement at the high risk area where they aren't speeding but there would be at the elsewhere that they are.

There isn't much point in enforcement where there is no history of offending or intelligence to suggest future offending.

Accidents rising at enforcement sites doesn't occur at all sites does it?
If accidents rise at a particular site you are talking about what is that rise put down to?

Accidents are rising because speed enforcement is sucking up money that should be spent on addressing the safety of the roads. At Ings, on the A591, the council painted the words SLOW on the road in 1999 and have never been back to repaint them since, but the tick marks on the road for the speed camera have been repainted twice!

The issue is that the enforcement is taking place in the name of SAFETY.
What they are doing is cheating the public by dressing it up as something it isn't, and spending money earmarked for safety on enforcement.
Even the speed limits are being adjusted in the name of safety, by councils who are mislead by the speed camera industry, with no real idea of the outcome.

[Mill Wheel]

vonhosen said:

Mill Wheel said:

Accidents are rising because speed enforcement is sucking up money that should be spent on addressing the safety of the roads.

Where's the evidence to support that?

Cumbria lost £255,000 for road safety funding - £213,000 of which was originally budgeted for speed cameras.

one chosen said:

Mill Hill said:

The issue is that the enforcement is taking place in the name of SAFETY.

The existence of limits is based in safety (amongst other considerations), enforcement is a consequence of limits (being broken).

Not in my neck of the woods.
The limits are imposed by a council that has no idea what makes a road safe.
We presently have a campaign supported by councillors to make Kendal 20 mph in built up areas, despite their own figures showing the average speed to be just 13 mph.
We had a drugged driver involved in a single vehicle incident on a notorious road in Kendal, which resulted in the death of his passenger. He was doing 70mph in a 30 mph limit. Will that sort of accident stop if the limit is reduced to 20 mph?
NO.

This is the sort of event which leads to fatalities, and is NOT addressed by a speed camera - in fact this clown set off the camera, but luckily a police vehicle was able to stop his progress, which the speed camera FAILED to do.
http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/135851...

Westmorland Gazette said:

Drug driver banned from the road for two years after being stopped at Ings

South Cumbria Magistrates' Court
10 Aug 2015

A DRUG driver who was more than three times the legal limit has been banned from driving for two years.

Matthew Czornenkyj, 36, was stopped by police after his grey Mercedes van was seen to pull out of a petrol station, set off a speed camera and weave between lanes on the A591 between Ings and Windermere on May 7.
When police asked Czornenkyj to step out of his van he tripped and fell, arousing further suspicion, South Cumbria Magistrates Court heard.

Police then conducted a drug test which showed that Czornenkyj tested positive for cannabis, giving a reading of 6.2 microgrammes per litre of blood - the legal limit is two microgrammes.

Upon further inspection it emerged that Czornenkyj had several small wraps of the drug in his possession which he claimed were for his own personal use.

After pleading guilty to both drug driving and possession of a controlled drug, Czornenkyj, from Rochdale, stated that he used cannabis to help him deal with the stresses of his former job as a housing support officer at Manchester City Council.

District Judge Gerald Chalk disqualified Czornenkyj from driving for two years, ordered him to complete 70 hours unpaid work and fined him £325.

This is the sort of wishy washy call for more limits that our council panders to as it tries to appease voters demands for safer roads...
http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/147050...

Westmorland Gazette said:

Two women campaign for A591 speed reduction between Staveley and Ings

A CAMPAIGN to reduce the speed limit on a road which two people died in an head-on crash earlier this month has been launched.

After years of witnessing accidents at their doorstep, Chris Williams and Val Noon, both from Staveley, have created on online petition to reduce the speed limit from 60mph to 40mph on a stretch of the A591 from the village to Ings.

Maureen Runswick, 81, from Staveley and 90-year old Ken Townson, of Bolton-le-Sands, died following a collision opposite to Mrs Noon’s driveway on August 6.

There is no suggestion that speed was involved in the crash.my emboldening

Ms Williams, 63, said: “If somebody doesn’t ask the question we don’t get anything done. Valerie and I decided that we have got to at least try.”

Mrs Noon, 55, has lived in her house 100 yards away from the single carriageway for the past 20 years and has witnessed a number of accidents, including a death of two motorcyclists.

Mrs Noon said: “There is a 40mph speed limit area in Ings and once they arrive to Staveley, which is a 60-mile area, people really put their foot down. I keep thinking when the next accident is going to be.

“We had a police officer come in after the crash on August 6 to get some more details, who said that we should start campaigning to get the speed limit reduced. That’s when it hit home to us, with my daughter’s accident as well.”

Mrs Noon’s daughter Sophie, now 27, was airlifted to hospital six years ago following a collision when turning off the A591 to enter the drive to her home at High Reston.

Mrs Noon said: “It was just another accident on that horrendous road. Fortunately she recovered and is here to tell the tale. Unfortunately those two people didn’t survive.

“It’s really ironic that when police put up signs after that crash appealing for witnesses, the traffic actually slowed down. Once they took the signs away a week later it went back to same.”

Ms Williams said: “We are the gateway to the Lakes. Why do we need a 60 miles per hour? It’s not going to make any difference whatsoever to travel time but lowering it would make the road safer.


“For planning and all other purposes the area is classed as residential with over 15 households having to exit onto the A591. As a residential area a speed limit of 60 miles per hour is totally inappropriate.”

Mrs Noon and Ms Williams are collecting signatures at their local pharmacy and doctor’s surgery and are seeking to present their petition to Cumbria County Council once the online version gets taken down in November.

The tragic death of Mrs Runswick took place at the wheel, and her vehicle which was travelling at 40 mph, swerved across into the path of the other oncoming vehicle, killing the elderly passenger in the oncoming car.
The two motorcyclists were killed when a Czech minibus driver clipped the near side kerb, and bounced out into their path, also at 40 mph.
Mrs Noon's daughter was waiting in the road to turn right, and a few cars had become stationary behind her. An Ambulance on blues and twos encountered the stationary vehicles, and despite the curvature of the road preventing a clear view of the road ahead, it pulled out to pass the stationary vehicles just as Ms Noon commenced her turn, and the ambulance slammed into her car at some speed.

[Mill Wheel]

IF Speed Awareness Courses really are successful, wouldn't it be wise to release them as an app that you could download to your phone, and use it for a few minutes each day to improve your driving skills, hazard perception, and the impacts of speed choices?
It would become available to ALL drivers.

People use apps like Duolingo to learn languages, replicating the four hours SAC should be easy.

Of course it might not prove popular with the AA and their DriveTech arm, or TTC who both operate the lucrative courses.

[Mill Wheel]

surveyor_101 said:

I don't understand if cars are so much safer why are limits coming down all over the shop!

Driving standards are getting worse? or are the going to blame the volume of cars? Seems a nice little earner for some.

Police Chiefs said:

the new road rules were confusing motorists and more awareness was needed.

They seem certain it is drivers at fault, and NOT the new rules that are the cause of any problem.
However, more and more drivers are being told to obey this sign and that sign, rather than be allowed to think for themselves... and if the sign isn't there, they no longer seem to have the ability to think for themselves.

[Mill Wheel]

Ms R.Saucy said:

however extending a limit 'up stream' can be a technique to try and clear concgestion by slowingthe rate at which people are piling onto the back of the queue ... if it works some peopel will not see the queue even though they've been held back by the limits

It DOESN'T work.
Think of it as a length of steel linked chain... as the limit slows, vehicles arrive at the back and the vehicles get closer and closer together as their speed drops.
Then as the obstruction is cleared by the lead vehicles and they pull away, the slack links take time to stretch out to the original length, and the links at the back are still in the queue for longer, prolonging the impact of any obstruction.
It is demonstrated in this video quite clearly...
https://youtu.be/SPs7zPuypfQ?t=1m11s

[Mill Wheel]

PhilboSE said:

The Surveyor said:

More importantly, how do you get 48% of 24 people?

This thread is so much more interesting without statistics

I did wonder! It was a handset based voting system and I suspect it timed out or stopped when it had collected "enough" responses. So there was probably an abstainer and the score was 11/23 rounded up to 48%.

It was the course providers that gave you the 48% figure?

Why do they not just give you the numbers instead of trying to turn everything into percentages?

[Mill Wheel]

Devil2575 said:

Mill Wheel said:

It was the course providers that gave you the 48% figure?

Why do they not just give you the numbers instead of trying to turn everything into percentages?

Because a percentage is more useful.

We had a representative from the police turn up at our Town Council meeting and tell us that anti social behaviour offences had gone up 100% since our last meeting.

Turns out that there had been TWO incidents instead of ONE, so what makes a percentage more useful, especially when it is not accurate, when you can use the actual data to produce a percentage figure if it is absolutely necessary?

[Mill Wheel]

Devil2575 said:

£1 million is fk all in the big scheme of things.

North Yorkshire's pothole budget is £2.35 million, with £53 allocated per pothole, so the £1 million would fix a further 18,867 potholes.

Or it could provide 22,222 Speed Awareness Courses to drivers who haven't yet been caught, thus providing a boost to road safety... if they actually work.

[Mill Wheel]

Devil2575 said:

Mill Wheel said:

We had a representative from the police turn up at our Town Council meeting and tell us that anti social behaviour offences had gone up 100% since our last meeting.

Turns out that there had been TWO incidents instead of ONE, so what makes a percentage more useful, especially when it is not accurate, when you can use the actual data to produce a percentage figure if it is absolutely necessary?

That's a very specific example. Just because it was of no value in that case doesn't mean percentages are never useful.

They ARE useful sometimes, but my comment arose because on a course of just 24 people, the SAC organisers decided to relate the answers in percentage terms, which couldn't relate to the numbers on the course without further explanation, which was not given.
When I asked why use that format, you suggested that percentages were useful... I'm still trying to figure out how in that context.

[Mill Wheel]

768 said:

Devil2575 said:

That's a very specific example. Just because it was of no value in that case doesn't mean percentages are never useful.

You said more useful than the actual data.

I can't see that they're ever that.

Yes, if you have actual data, then you can derive the percentages should they be required, but not the other way around.
For example.
In North Yorkshire, fatality figures for elderly RTA victims show that from 2014 to 2015, they increased by 300%.
Unless I give you the original figure - TWO, you have no way of knowing if the 2015 figure warrants further investigation.
Had I told you that in 2014 it was 2 and in 2015 it was 6, you could derive the percentage yourself - if it were somehow more useful.

Another way in which figures are misrepresented is KSI.
North Yorkshire forecast 49 KSIs for a given stretch of road, and in fact ended with 47 KSIs.
In fact there were NO fatal victims, only 47 serious injury victims... but the term KILLED when placed in front of the Serious Injuries, misleads the public as to the seriousness of some figures.

[Mill Wheel]

Devil2575 said:

I think you're wrong on this.

No one is being mislead.

Also you should consider that the main factor that influences whether someobne is killed or seriously injured is luck.

The fact is there wee sufficient crashes to seriously injur 47 people. But for the role of a dice some could just as easily have been killed.

But the Safety Camera Partnerships don't see it as luck if any of the figures go down... they claim the success as theirs!
In fact North Yorkshire Police website says they AIM to reduce crashes and victims, but North Yorkshire Council are not so shy, and claim their "95 Alive" campaign was responsible for saving 126 lives between 2005 and March 2011.
How so? They provide no proof of this.

[Mill Wheel]

TooMany2cvs said:

Mill Wheel said:

It was the course providers that gave you the 48% figure?

Why do they not just give you the numbers instead of trying to turn everything into percentages?

10 people did this!

Well, great, but is that 10 out of 10, 10 out of 20, 10 out of 100, 10 out of 1m?

There were 24 people on the course... it said so in the post I was referring to, which you either did not read or chose to deliberately misunderstand.

[Mill Wheel]

vonhosen said:

They set a target & they exceeded that target?
They set that target knowing that there would be a lot of variables over which they had little control & some over which they had some control.
Presumably the target was set with that all in mind/considered & they reached their target.
Is that not to be celebrated?

They should not be claiming the credit for it, unless they can show a link between their actions and the results.

There have been less fatalities along my commute to work since I started cycling to work in Hi Viz.
I suppose I could claim that the drop in fatalities was a result of my cycling the route.
The evidence shows that when the speed cameras were installed on the same route, serious injuries rose at the camera site, and fatals remained unabated until I started cycling the route.
I rest my case, which is more tangible than North Yorkshire Councils evidence (They provide none).

[Mill Wheel]

cmaguire said:

JNW1 said:

It obviously depends to some extent on what you use as your start point but if you look at the last year prior to the SCP getting underway the number of speed related fatalities was 10; over the subsequent 4 years the annual average has been 11 so if you were being perverse you could argue the introduction of cameras has increased the number of fatalities! Now I don't believe that for a second but equally I don't think the case has been proved that cameras have made the County's roads safer

Is it really that unbelievable in certain circumstances?
If enforcement of speed limits increases on certain roads that drivers felt already had limits too low and therefore routinely exceeded them, is it such a far reach to suggest that by frustrating them even further in those areas the end result may be that this frustration then leads to some of them increasing their speeds inappropriately in other areas and thereby increasing fatalities in those other areas.
End result: the Council/SCP shout about their success and the subsequent need for increased enforcement on the other roads that now appear far more dangerous.

You are right of course. Drivers who slow down for a speed camera, drive like idiots once they have passed the camera...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxKq1GpBQCo
Not only does the driver race off through the 30 mph limit, where sight lines are poor, but he then parks on a bend where there are double white lines... but he passed the speed camera in the 40 mph limit below the limit, and even braked further at the camera!

[Mill Wheel]

vonhosen said:

I don't care if you claim credit, or who else does.
If improved figures were the goal & achieved it's a win.
Celebrate the win, it doesn't matter if it's down to the goal keeper's performance, the full back, the centre forward or anyone else.
As long as we keep winning

(Wins don't have to come in just one area, they can be safety, environmental, traffic management etc etc.
Also wins don't have to occur in every individual place for it to be a win, it's a nationwide exercise not just local).

It's a team exercise & you're part of the team, well done

Edited by vonhosen on Thursday 19th January 13:19

If that is the case, then the chap in the south who held up a sign warning of a speed trap ahead, thus getting cars to slow down, should be commended, nit be fined and had his license endorsed!

[Mill Wheel]

vonhosen said:

Of course actions have to be lawful, yours, mine, the authorities.
Everyone on the team. His weren't.

But HE got drivers to slow down - the speed trap would not - it would only punish them for speeding, therefore HIS actions should get more credit for their contribution to road safety.

[Mill Wheel]

vonhosen said:

You appear to fixated with speed, it's not only about speed, it's about addressing the issues (safety, environment & traffic management etc) through a variety of measures, speed limits being one of them.

I am not the one fixated with speed.
My view is that there are a lot more things that contribute to safety, and that to invest so much money and effort in punishing speed, is to fail to address other causes of injuries and fatalities arising from accidents that could be avoided.

[Mill Wheel]

cmaguire said:

Where did you find that joke histogram? No indication of what the Y axis units are and whatever they are it looks like it was made up anyway.

That is the basis of North Yorkshire's claim to have saved 125 lives between 2005 and March 2011.

Have a look at their website and try and find genuine details of injuries and fatalities for given years.
It isn't a joke - somebody must have spent hours of work to ensure that the figures were difficult to find.
The police figures for officers attending fatal accidents do not match the councils figures for fatalities.

[Mill Wheel]

vonhosen said:

...because it's easy to spot & action.

Exactly, so the authorities see it as an easy source of income, dress it up as a valuable safety measure, and in some areas close down their RPUs, so that phone use, inattention and a myriad of other issues go largely unaddressed.

Scotland has kept it's RPU and so far passed up on Speed Awareness Course income - but are being urged to take it up by the IAM, who are keen to get their noses in the SAC income trough!
North Yorkshires 95 Alive campaign was a success, because it was a multi agency approach.. police, ambulance, fire brigade, with campaigns in schools, and advice for vulnerable road users such as horse riders.
Where they fell down, was by the end of the campaign, they had lost direction, and started to lose sight of the objective, and try to single out one part of the campaign, and assign the credit.
This was done by the council, not the police - they remained the source of impartial and reliable statistics.