Scamera partnership not lying: ASA
Inattention and tailgating are speed-related
Tailgating is speed-related: official
The text stated as fact that "speeding is the largest contributory factor in road collisions and casualties". The complainant, quoted two Government studies which showed "failure to judge the other person''s path or speed" and "inattention" to be the most common contributory factors in road accidents, challenged the claim.
The ASA didn't uphold the claim because it agreed with the DSCP's wide interpretation of speed's contribution to accidents -- that inattention and tailgating for example were included in the definition of speed-related factors.
In detail
The DSCP argued the speeding claim was taken from reliable sources, quoting a Department of Transport report published in March 2000, "Tomorrow''s Roads - Safer for Everyone", which stated "research has shown that speed is a major contributory factor in about one-third of all road accidents. This means that each year excessive and inappropriate speed helps kill around 1,200 people and to injure over 100,000 more. This is far more than any other single contributor to casualties on our roads".
It said that a report published in 2003 by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) and the Slower Speeds Initiative Briefing, "Speed Cameras - 10 Criticisms and Why They Are Flawed", stated "road safety literature overwhelmingly supports the relationship between speed and both the frequency and severity of crashes. Crash investigations have established that excessive or inappropriate speed is a major contributory factor in at least one-third of all road crashes, making it the single most important contributory factor to casualties on our roads".
The DSCP said one of the reports referred to by the complainant, the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) Report 323, was frequently misunderstood. It claimed that the TRL had issued a statement in a newsletter in September 2002 that stated that the contribution of speed to road collisions and fatalities had been widely misinterpreted, and that a more relevant report, TRL Report 421, was available.
The DSCP said that report examined the relationship between speed and accidents and in its opinion showed that the contribution of speed was likely to be much greater than the 15 per cent stated in TRL Report 323, if allowance was made for all speed-related factors, such as failure to judge another person's path or speed and following too close.
The ASA reckoned that readers would understand the claim "speeding is the largest contributory factor in road collisions and casualties" to mean that inappropriate or excessive speed was the largest contributory factor in road collisions and casualties, and not breaking the speed limit only.
It understood that some Government reports had identified excessive or inappropriate speed as a major contributory factor in one-third of road crashes and the largest single contributory factor to road casualties. It noted the Department for Transport and the TRL had acknowledged that the total contribution of speed-related factors to road collisions was likely to be greater than that shown in existing reports.
The ASA agreed that there was debate over whether speed was a "major" or the "largest" contributory factor to collisions, but considered that, on balance, research supported the advertisers'' claim. The ASA agreed that the advertisers had sent sufficient evidence to show that speeding was the largest contributory factor in road collisions and casualties, and concluded that the claim had been substantiated and was not misleading.
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