Thursday 21st July 2005

M4 camera untruths confirmed

New stats prove speed a minor factor in crashes

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The M4 (not the cameras)

Following Safe Speed's refutation of the Swindon and Wiltshire camera partnership's (SWCP) claims that speed cameras on the M4 had cut crashes (see link below), accident causation data obtained by the Association of British Drivers from Wiltshire Constabulary confirms that speeding was not a serious problem on the M4 Motorway.

Recently Wiltshire and Swindon Camera Partnership claimed that their camera vans had reduced crashes on the M4 by over 60 per cent -- yet examination of crash causation data reveals that excessive speed was a factor in just 14 per cent of crashes.

"Excessive speed" in these terms is not the same as exceeding a speed limit -- it includes speed inappropriate for the conditions as well as speed in excess of the speed limit, said the ABD. Sample data from Avon and Somerset, Durham and Canada (the only such data publicly available) all put the split at 70/30 with 30 per cent in excess of a speed limit. Safe Speed said its best estimate is that (30 per cent*14 per cent=) 4.2% of M4 crashes involved exceeding a speed limit.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign said: "I would very much like to hear the Camera Partnership explain exactly how it is supposed to be possible that their cameras reduced crashes by over 60 per cent when only about 4 per cent of crashes involved exceeding a speed limit. It does not make sense. There is absolutely no mechanism by which their claims could be true."

"Speed cameras create vested interests and the vested interests repeatedly mislead the public about the nature of road dangers. UK road safety cannot get back on track until the vested interests have been dismantled and the truth is admitted."

"The Government will now have to admit that they were entirely wrong about speed cameras - and the sooner the better. Far from making the roads safer they have damaged the foundations of British road safety by squandering massive resources on a minor safety factor."

Links

• Original story
• Safe Speed
• Association of British Drivers

[Hobbit123]

I really feel that the Government need to get a handle on what they are really trying to tell us vs. what is actually the case. This survey tells us that 4.2% of crashes involve driving beyond the speed limit, but how many of THOSE were directly attributable to breaking the speed limit? I would reckon on very few of even those 4.2% were CAUSED by excessive speed. The problem we have is that the Govt. have locked on to about the only part of bad driving which they can capture and prosecute easily and cheaply, so they do that while trying all the while to justify their stance. What they don't do is give any incentive to drivers to become BETTER, just to become slower. To my mind, someone who drives down the M4 at 40 is MORE dangerous than someone who drives at 70. It's time we woke up to driver training and expiring driving licences, so we have to re-test every 5 or 10 years. Why not offer training courses for the £60 fine, instead of it going back into Gordon Brown's pockets? Surely that would improve driving standards....

[JoolzB]

Hobbit123 said:

Why not offer training courses for the £60 fine, instead of it going back into Gordon Brown's pockets?

I don't see why it should, why should somebody exceeding a limit necessarily be the person who needs training and why should somebody driving sensibly pay for others training? As soon as we get more TrafPol and they focus on bad driving not just people who choose to travel at a faster safe speed then we may get safer roads.

[GreenV8S]

It would be very interesting to know how many of the people who received speeding tickets from these cameras were actually causing a danger due to excessive speed at the time. Would it be possible to estimate this from the accident figures?

[Peter Ward]

GreenV8S said:

It would be very interesting to know how many of the people who received speeding tickets from these cameras were actually causing a danger due to excessive speed at the time. Would it be possible to estimate this from the accident figures?

How many speed-related accidents occurred during the period that the speed cameras were active? If none, then none of the speeding drivers were causing a danger. If non-zero then we could calculate a percentage based on the number of speed-related accidents divided by the number of tickets. My guess is that it's pretty close to zero. Proof that speed cameras work, of course....

[cptsideways]

I do hope this makes national news

[ishaun]

"Speed said its best estimate is that (30 per cent*14 per cent=) 4.2% of M4 crashes involved exceeding a speed limit."

That means that 95.8% of crashes involved people doing the speed limit or less.

Reminds me of an old Jethro joke where Jethro says that 10% of accidents are caused by drink drivers, in other words 90% of accidents are caused by sober drivers

[james_j]

cptsideways said:

I do hope this makes national news

It would be a disgrace if it didn't.

[GreenV8S]

Peter Ward said:

How many speed-related accidents occurred during the period that the speed cameras were active? If none, then none of the speeding drivers were causing a danger.

I don't think you can conclude you were safe just because you didn't have an accident, I suspect it's rather more complex than that.

[deeps]

GreenV8S said:

Peter Ward said: How many speed-related accidents occurred during the period that the speed cameras were active? If none, then none of the speeding drivers were causing a danger. I don't think you can conclude you were safe just because you didn't have an accident, I suspect it's rather more complex than that.

Or perhaps we should be asking how many non speed- related accidents occurred and what action may have helped prevent them? Perhaps a more appropriate deployment of resources?
To state the obvious, a van parked on a bridge cannot and will not prevent an accident!

[apache]

deeps said:

GreenV8S said: Peter Ward said: How many speed-related accidents occurred during the period that the speed cameras were active? If none, then none of the speeding drivers were causing a danger. I don't think you can conclude you were safe just because you didn't have an accident, I suspect it's rather more complex than that. Or perhaps we should be asking how many non speed- related accidents occurred and what action may have helped prevent them? Perhaps a more appropriate deployment of resources? To state the obvious, a van parked on a bridge cannot and will not prevent an accident!

no, but I'll put money on it causing one or two (as seen on Anglia TV last night)

[GreenV8S]

The other things it would be interesting to know are:

How much does it cost to slow a motorway down by 10 mph? In terms of lost time for tens or hundreds of thousands of people. We're talking about saving lives (or rather, extending them by reducing accidental deaths; you can't stop people dying) so you can trade off wasted time directly against saved lives I would have thought.

And what will the total cost of those tickets be, by the time you add up increased insurance, some proportion losing their driving license, having to spend more time and/or money travelling on public transport, some losing their job due to lack of transport, mortgage foreclosures etc. I guess the indirect costs could be too high.

Now remind me why we're doing this?

[Hoover33]

Peter... like you line of thinking.... it might been seen a hard, caleous, un sympathetic.... but it's the reality.

As for the deaths... they are a minor bit in the equation... and as mentioned previously deaths are minor at speed, and imho alot deaths are for not concentrating and would have occcured at lower speeds as well ..... some are caused by speed which i can not defend)

[timmy30]

Okay at anything other than lunatic speeds, how can speed cause an accident on a motorway?

Tailgating, fiddleing with the stereo, using your mobile whilst driving ( non hands free mob ), tiredness, undertaking, a blown tyre all of these can cause accidents.....but the speed that your going at doesn't cause the accident. You have to be going bloody fast for the speed that you are going to literally drive the car off the road.