Statistics ????
Discussion
There are an awful lot of statistics banded around by the various "safety" partnerships. A recent thread quoted a sample of 800 people, in another 2332 people "who are REGULARLY asked by police for their opinions".
Here's an idea, how about a national organisation with an interest (press, TV, radio, national newspaper AA etc etc) conducting their own surveys. It could be completely voluntary, not like the official ones that pull you over to ask you how long you've been sat in the 5 mile tailback they've created. A series of signs saying something like "traffic survey in next layby, please stop if you have an opinion". Alternatively, motorway services would seem to be a safe place to question motorists. This way the sample numbers could be greatly increased (and therefore supposedly more acccurate). Another thing about questioning people this way, is you get the whole spectrum of drivers, not just the "angry from Manchester" types whose kneejerk responses are predictable.
I'd be interested to see the figures, even though a lot of drivers don't know their arse from their elbow. I wouldn't imagine there would be support from officialdom for the project, as it would not generate the sort of statistics they would like.
just a thought...............
Philthy
Here's an idea, how about a national organisation with an interest (press, TV, radio, national newspaper AA etc etc) conducting their own surveys. It could be completely voluntary, not like the official ones that pull you over to ask you how long you've been sat in the 5 mile tailback they've created. A series of signs saying something like "traffic survey in next layby, please stop if you have an opinion". Alternatively, motorway services would seem to be a safe place to question motorists. This way the sample numbers could be greatly increased (and therefore supposedly more acccurate). Another thing about questioning people this way, is you get the whole spectrum of drivers, not just the "angry from Manchester" types whose kneejerk responses are predictable.
I'd be interested to see the figures, even though a lot of drivers don't know their arse from their elbow. I wouldn't imagine there would be support from officialdom for the project, as it would not generate the sort of statistics they would like.
just a thought...............
Philthy
philthy said:
Here's an idea, how about a national organisation with an interest (press, TV, radio, national newspaper AA etc etc) conducting their own surveys.
There's a straight survey from last year by Admiral Insurance. Download it here:
www.safespeed.org.uk/admiral.doc
The official surveys are seriously twisted:
www.safespeed.org.uk/survey.html
And let's not forget that the government has by LYING to the public for years and has willfully distorted public opinion with bad science and twisted facts.
Best Regards,
Paul Smith
Safe Speed
www.safespeed.org.uk
philthy said:
Keep getting a malicious script warning with that link.
What was the gist of the Admiral survey?
Phil
I promise that it's as clean as a whistle. It's a 46 page report and I hesitate to do much in the way of creating headlines from it. It does contain this:
Speed limits and speed cameras – Commentary
Speed cameras have become the bete noire of drivers in the last five years; there are currently over 5,000 permanent speed cameras in place on British road. So just when it looks like police forces across the UK are going to put up more, we asked what UK drivers thought about them and about speed limits generally.
Over two-thirds admitted they do break the speed limit, but less than a quarter have been caught. There was barely any difference between the sexes when it came to admitting speeding, although 28.9% of men have been caught compared with 17.1% of women.
Most drivers believe that the authorities should be lenient on speeders, if they are only just over the limit. We asked what is a reasonable fine for someone caught speeding 10 mph over the limit. 66.2% of the people we surveyed said a fine of £100 was fair, only 6.1% thought a fine more than £250 was justified.
There was a split when it came to speed limits though. 33.2% of drivers think it should be lowered to 20 mph in residential areas while 5.8% think it should be raised to 40 mph. Perhaps surprisingly men were more in favour of a speed reduction than women. A reduction in the residential speed limit was most popular in Scotland (44.1%) and the North East (40.7%).
On motorways 55.4% think it should be raised to 80 mph and 23.3% to more than 80 mph. More men favour an increase in the motorway speed limit than women. Drivers in the North West (84.6%) and East Anglia (83.6%) were most in favour of raising the speed limit on our motorways.
Drivers are split when it comes to speed cameras. 47.4% saying they improve road safety while 44.2% say they don’t. More than half all drivers think the police should not install more speed cameras and only 35.6% think they should. Again women take a more favourable view of speed cameras than men. 53.6% think they improve safety, compared with 43.4% of men and 45.2% of women are in favour of more speed cameras compared with just 29.5% of men.
Best Regards,
Paul Smith
Safe Speed
www.safespeed.org.uk
Pigeon said:
Paul: I would recommend converting it to a .pdf file (a) to avoid this problem and (b) so that people are not dependent on Microshite Word.
Sorry - I got permission to distribute it only on the basis that it was "unaltered" save the addition of the "distributed by Safe Speed" notice at the end.
Linux/unix users can open it in Star Office. Modern Macs apparently have a very odd built in Word to PDF translator.
Best Regards,
Paul Smith
Safe Speed
www.safespeed.org.uk
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