Accident causes
Author
Discussion

cuneus

Original Poster:

5,963 posts

264 months

Monday 7th June 2004
quotequote all
What are the most common reason for road crashes ?

cptsideways

13,817 posts

274 months

Monday 7th June 2004
quotequote all
T junctions & not looking/did'nt see are about 65% of all fatalities I think.

stackmonkey

5,083 posts

271 months

Monday 7th June 2004
quotequote all
People (ie pedestrians as well as drivers) not paying enough attention to:

a)their own driving / riding /walking etc
b) other people's driving etc
c) their surroundings

Apache

39,731 posts

306 months

Monday 7th June 2004
quotequote all
[redacted]

Dwight VanDriver

6,583 posts

266 months

Tuesday 8th June 2004
quotequote all
The nut behind the steering wheel.

DVD

towman

14,938 posts

261 months

Tuesday 8th June 2004
quotequote all
roads!

futie

655 posts

298 months

Tuesday 8th June 2004
quotequote all
I must say that i'm amazed that the results of the investigations into each accident aren't published somewhere. Whenever I see an accident and plod is investigating I always think: wonder what caused that one ..

How come we can't see these results? I'd really like to know what I *shouldn't* be doing on the road, etc. Rather than aggregated, summarised, tweaked statistics, the results of each individual accidents would be really interesting and useful.

Marc
sitememory.com

cptsideways

13,817 posts

274 months

Tuesday 8th June 2004
quotequote all
All you have to do to avoid an accident is watch your speedo

BliarOut

72,863 posts

261 months

Tuesday 8th June 2004
quotequote all
cuneus said:
What are the most common reason for road crashes ?


I've never actually seen a road crash.... Vehicles by the hundred, but never a road

tootler

89 posts

262 months

Tuesday 8th June 2004
quotequote all
There are a number of surveys. Can't remember figures off the top of my head, but most RTCs occur at road junctions = driving without due care and attention etc.

The vast majority of RTCs involving pedestrians are the fault of the pedestrian = keep them off the road with proper pavements/crossings/barriers at junctions, and jay walking legislation enforced as strongly as speeding.

In the vast majority of RTCs involving pedestrians late at night the pedestrians have a blood alcohol level that is above the limit for driving.

Statistically, speed is acontributory factor in about 7/8% of RTCs but in fact it's higher because people always deny they were speeding and therefore it's difficult to get accurate figures.

Brunstrom says in 33/35% RTCs, speed is a contributory factor, but has yet to produce any statistical evidence to support this, and got annoyed and would not speak to me when I quoted the figures to him in a meeting.

Peter Ward

2,097 posts

278 months

Tuesday 8th June 2004
quotequote all
tootler said:
Brunstrom says in 33/35% RTCs, speed is a contributory factor, but has yet to produce any statistical evidence to support this, and got annoyed and would not speak to me when I quoted the figures to him in a meeting.

I thought the PC quote was that speed was the cause of 35% of KSIs, not RTCs? As there are more RTCs than KSIs, I assume the figures cannot be identical for both. So if it's 35% of RTCs it must be a lot less for KSIs....

danger mouse

3,828 posts

283 months

Tuesday 8th June 2004
quotequote all
IIRC Dropping cigarettes into laps was meant to be a big cause of accidents where the driver was at fault.

Stoopid/unobservant foriegn students, usually far eastern, seem to constantly try to cause accidents here in Cambridge these day, with or without a bicycle underneath them.

God* only knows how they didn't come to grief back home and live long enough get get here and reek havock


DM


*which, as far as I am concerned, only goes to prove there is no rational explanation.


safespeed

2,983 posts

296 months

Tuesday 8th June 2004
quotequote all
I've been gathering accident cause / contirintory factor data for some time.

The largest survey ever published was recent, and had "excessive speed" at number 7 and inattention at number 1. See these links: (link to official report included.)

www.safespeed.org.uk/pr110.html
www.safespeed.org.uk/pr112.html

More or less every other contributory factor report or dataset is linked from this page:

www.safespeed.org.uk/lie.html (the first section).

More fatal accidents have "excessive speed" listed as an accident cause than other accident types. This is a serious problem for the authorities, because cameras should clearly have their greatest effects on fatal accidents:

www.safespeed.org.uk/problem.html

Best Regards,
Paul Smith
Safe Speed
www.safespeed.org.uk

tootler

89 posts

262 months

Tuesday 8th June 2004
quotequote all
Peter Ward said:


tootler said:
Brunstrom says in 33/35% RTCs, speed is a contributory factor, but has yet to produce any statistical evidence to support this, and got annoyed and would not speak to me when I quoted the figures to him in a meeting.



I thought the PC quote was that speed was the cause of 35% of KSIs, not RTCs? As there are more RTCs than KSIs, I assume the figures cannot be identical for both. So if it's 35% of RTCs it must be a lot less for KSIs....



For speed to be a cause or a contributory factor in an RTC a 'causal connection' needs to be established between the speed of the vehicle, and numerous other contributory factors. Brunstrom's philosophy is to ignore the causal connection aspect and simply argue that the speed of a vehicle is always a factor in an RTC (because the vehicle always has velocity) and thus a blanket reduction in all road speeds is the answer.
This is a simplistic approach to say the least.

Brunstrom assumed (wrongly) that my intention was to argue against his speeding policy. My real intention was to point out that the reasons for most RTCs (road junction errors, driving without due care and attention etc) would not be addressed by simply reducing speeds, and to ask him how he intended to address these other problems.

That opportunity didn't arise because as soon as he knew I was familiar with the research, he didn't want to speak to me.

>> Edited by tootler on Tuesday 8th June 12:15