Crash Data
Department for Transport reveals what really causes crashes - PAY ATTENTION!
The Department for Transport has published its review of the way it categorises road crashes. System for analysing crash data date back to 1949 and in recent years different forces have collected data in different ways making collation of the facts on a national scale very difficult.
The DfT is seeking to standardise the methods used by police when reporting on accidents and to come up with a single set of categories to define the precipitating factor and then the contributory factors associated with road crashes.
The review that the DfT has published now details the different factors that it would like to see used in reporting.
Within the report though are some interesting items drawing from data collected by 13 forces in 2001. It shows the precipitating and contributory factors in over 60,000 crashes.
The key precipitating factors in crashes were failure to give way (14.6%), failure to avoid a vehicle or object in the carriageway (27.9%) and loss of control (19%).
Poor observation is key when it comes to the driver's personal contributory factors. Failure to judge another vehicle's speed (22.6%), failure to look (16.3%), looking but not seeing (19.7%) and innattention (25.8%) are the most significant factors recorded.
When it comes to driving technique, excessive speed (inappropriate speed for the situation/conditions and exceeding the speed limit) accounts for just 12.5% of recorded observations.
We recommend a browse of the stats for yourself (See page 43 of this report ). It makes interesting reading.
Thanks to Paul Smith of Safespeed for alerting us to this report
[/sarcasm]"When it comes to driving technique, excessive speed (inappropriate speed for the situation/conditions and exceeding the speed limit) accounts for just 12.5% of the total."
and
"The key precipitating factors in crashes ..., failure to avoid a vehicle or object in the carriageway (27.9%) and loss of control (19%)."
So, "excessive speed" (as defined above) is not material in "failure to avoid ..." or in "loss of control"? I rather think that they are directly linked to speed.
Interesting isn't it, how "excessive speed" can be viewed when dealing with statistics? There is a danger in selective quoting, but I guess that the scamera partnerships will be ignoring this report as they have ignored other reports in similar vein.
Streaky
streaky said:
.........
So, "excessive speed" (as defined above) is not material in "failure to avoid ..." or in "loss of control"? I rather think that they are directly linked to speed.
Ermm nope - stupid innattentive twat not looking WILL cause both of these, every single time. Speed is NOT the issue at all, all speed defines is the severity of the ensuing accident, the precipitating cause being inattention.
Now since Avon and Somerset state that ~33% of all excess speed accidents are in excess of the posted limit, that leaves appromixately 4% of all accidents caused by speeding alone; and that still includes all of those criminals attempting to escape!
However, it's surprising to see just how many drivers crash simply because they are not looking properly, or not at all.
It wouldn't surprise me if the people who cause the accidents through lack of observation are also those who use speed inappropriately.
Seems observation is the key, but the government can't stealth tax that!!!
Dave
Mr Whippy said:
Either way, cutting back speeds will make the accidents that happen a bit less leathal, which ultimately is good.
Cutting back the speed at the time of impact will make the collision less leathal. This has very little to do with the speed of the vehicle(s) involved before the incident started though.
Mr Whippy said:
Either way, cutting back speeds will make the accidents that happen a bit less leathal, which ultimately is good.
However, it's surprising to see just how many drivers crash simply because they are not looking properly, or not at all.
It wouldn't surprise me if the people who cause the accidents through lack of observation are also those who use speed inappropriately.
Seems observation is the key, but the government can't stealth tax that!!!
Dave
You can't have 'less lethal' - dead is dead, you can't be more or less dead can you?
Personally I would prefer my child to be killed outright than have to spend months, years or the rest of their life blind, paralysed, in a persistant vegetative state or with amputated limbs!
If you hit someone and kill them then they are not likely to do it again are they
stackmonkey said:
Hmm, I wonder how the scamera partnerships are deal with the fact that the 'one third lie' has now been proved to be just that, by the Dept of Transport.
Simple - they will ignore it!
The following instructions ar given to scamera partnerships regarding any facts that disagree with what they say.
1. Put head in sand
2. Say "I can't see it, so it's not real"
3. Repeat 2 until people go away
But yeah d-man, it is down to the impact speed. I could go 90mph, see a hazard and get down to 15mph before impact for example. But another driver at 50mph may not even be looking and slam right into the hazard at 50mph!
But the fact remains, increasing speed is "potentially" more dangerous.
But I'd rather drive on the road with observant speeders than slow drivers who drift and weave and don't pay attention!!
Dave
Mr Whippy said:
I meant less bad really, to the point of not being leathal in some cases
But yeah d-man, it is down to the impact speed. I could go 90mph, see a hazard and get down to 15mph before impact for example. But another driver at 50mph may not even be looking and slam right into the hazard at 50mph!
But the fact remains, increasing speed is "potentially" more dangerous.
But I'd rather drive on the road with observant speeders than slow drivers who drift and weave and don't pay attention!!
Dave
Then we're in agreement The 1/3 of accidents caused by excess speed stat has already been shown to be false by other studies. The response is to just add other accident causations (like following too close) to the figure until it reaches 1/3 and then stick them all under the 'speed' banner. I expect a similar thing will happen here.
Mr Whippy said:
Either way, cutting back speeds will make the accidents that happen a bit less leathal, which ultimately is good.
However, it's surprising to see just how many drivers crash simply because they are not looking properly, or not at all.
But but but... If poor observation is causing crashes and we force drivers to look at their speedos more to avoid the crashes that they're not having, won't they have more of the crashes that they are having?
Best Regards,
Paul Smith
Safe Speed
www.safespeed.org.uk
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