Thursday 30th June 2005

ESP not speed cameras: report

Autocar finds stability systems saves more lives

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ESP not scameras

Compulsory car safety systems costing as little as £300 could save 2,500 lives per year on British roads, according to a report in Autocar magazine. It would make a much bigger impact on road safety than all the money wasted on speed cameras, said magazine editor, Rob Aherne.

Safety levels could be dramatically improved with sophisticated stability control systems - dubbed ESP – which control speed and braking when a car starts to skid. If every new car in Europe were fitted with such systems as many as 20,000 people could be saved from dying in accidents between now and 2010.

However, ESP is only supplied as standard to upmarket models -- most cars don't have it. "ESP has the potential to save as many lives as the seatbelt" said Aherne. "It's already saved lives on cars that have it fitted. But if the government campaigned for it to be standard equipment on cars, it could save thousands more lives."

A recent US study concluded that stability control could cut accidents by 37 per cent and car manufacturers Toyota believe the system will cut accidents by 35 per cent and head-on collisions by 30 per cent.

Mercedes Benz reported 15 per cent accident reduction rate when it became the first car company to fit it to models. Anti-lock brakes (ABS) were made compulsory in a bid to improve safety levels but, in its latest issue, Autocar reveals that ESP is a more complete and effective system.

Road crashes are the leading cause of deaths and disability in the UK for people aged five to 40 and 33,000 children are killed or injured in traffic accidents every year. More than 3,500 people die on British roads each year – the equivalent of ten deaths each day.

"The Government has been wasting taxpayers' money by throwing cash at speed cameras that are ineffective," said Aherne. "Now they have a golden opportunity to make a massive contribution to the safety of British people by insisting ESP is fitted to all cars.”

[Sgt^Roc]

I but driver paying manufacturers for safety improvements aint the the same as speeding fines is it

[r988]

They will just find another way of extracting money from us via a toilet tax or something.

[ubergreg]

Not a bad idea, though it's another layer of active safety which adds further weight, complexity and cost to every car.

If it were made compulsory equipment, perhaps drivers with Advanced Driving or Racing qualifications could have the option of switching it out? For the track days of course

[joephandango]

The govt. could easily encourage car makers and buyers to make/buy cars with ESP by reducing road tax/VRT/VAT by the same amount it costs to fit it. Simple, effective and life-saving. The fact that that won't happen draws a big red line under the s actual intentions regarding road "safety" policy.

[catso]

ubergreg said:

If it were made compulsory equipment, perhaps drivers with Advanced Driving or Racing qualifications could have the option of switching it out? For the track days of course

On my Audi the ESP can be switched off, indeed it needs to be switched off to use the DSG 'launch control' facility, although it always defaults to on when starting.

The only thing it won't switch off is the ABS.

[fonoq35]

For discussion:

Instead of all this tech to protect you from making mistakes why not just try to improve driving standards?

1. Make people retake their test after ?15? years
2. Compulsory advanced drivers training for high powered/ sports cars
3. More cops on the road to watch for bullsh*t driving

[bunglist]

Speed camaras are not ineffective so the government think, they love them because they make millions every year, out of the driver.

How come it is just the driver that has been targeted, the truvelo camara which seems to be the favorite at the moment, does not catch motorcycles as they do not have number plates on the front.

So as we can see the government are puting these boxes in to make money, no other reason.

Labourite Scum should be shot!!!!!!!!!!!

[jamiet]

fonoq35 said:

For discussion: Instead of all this tech to protect you from making mistakes why not just try to improve driving standards? 1. Make people retake their test after ?15? years 2. Compulsory advanced drivers training for high powered/ sports cars 3. More cops on the road to watch for bullsh*t driving

Hear bloody hear! Although I would say 'as well as' rather than 'instead of'. Improvements in driving standards should be the primary concern. That way the driver can rely on their skills rather than the technology thus the technolgy is used as a last resort rather than to prop up poor driving ability.

>> Edited by jamiet on Thursday 30th June 13:33

[huge]

"The Government has been wasting taxpayers' money by throwing cash at speed cameras that are ineffective," said Aherne. "
HMMM....seems hes missed the point of speed cameras...theyre quite blatantly revenue collectors and have nothing whatsoever to do with safety,and I can hardly agree with "throwing cash" and "wasting taxpayers money"....It would appear to me theyre very effective at what theyre designed for !

[greg2k]

fonoq35 said:

For discussion: Instead of all this tech to protect you from making mistakes why not just try to improve driving standards? 1. Make people retake their test after ?15? years 2. Compulsory advanced drivers training for high powered/ sports cars 3. More cops on the road to watch for bullsh*t driving

Or leave everything exactly as it is (minus the scameras of course).

As long as we have large pieces of metal on wheels capable of doing in excess off 100 mph they will at some point bump into each other/things/people.

We all have to go at sometime and despite how unpleasent it may seem IMHO road accidents are at acceptable levels. Discuss.

[harry miller]

Autocar said:

Compulsory car safety systems costing as little as £300 could save 2,500 lives per year on British roads

What a load of nonsense! So Autocar thinks that ESP could save over 75% of all the people killed on our roads. ESP would have no effect in preventing the vast majority of serious and fatal accidents, much like ABS.

In fact, if you believe in the theory of risk homeostasis, ESP may well cause more accidents due to drivers perceiving themselves to be more safe and as a consequence driving in a riskier manner. The famous Munich taxicab experiment demonstrated this effect very clearly. Half the taxi fleet of otherwise identical Mercedes had ABS, the other half didn't. Black boxes were fitted in a number of the cabs and after a year the results were analysed. It was found that the ABS equipped cabs had slightly more accidents and were driven in a faster and more aggressive manner. So much for increasing safety!

[Twincam16]

Sorry, I can't agree.

People should know more about cars before they get behind the wheel.

Simply saying 'ESP will stop you crashing' will make Joe and Jo numpty drive around like idiots until they have an even bigger crash.

Electronic systems do not inherently 'make a car safer', they alter a car's driving characteristics to reduce the likelyhood of certain vehicle dynamics creating a dangerous situation. You can still have a fatal crash with ESP turned on, especially if you don't know how it works.

Why not just group things like ESP, EBD and traction control under a single 'bad weather button', so that drivers know that when road conditions are a certain way, they can alter the way the car responds to their input accordingly. This, coupled with a more thorough driving test that deals with car control will produce safer drivers.

But just dumbing everything down new Labour style and saying 'ESP will stop you crashing' is as irresponsible as saying 'speed cameras save lives'.

[sook]

Did anyone see the 5th Gear where Tiff went arctic testing in the X-Type? He did a very good demo showing the effect of having ESP.

Only problem is until drivers are educated in what ESP can and can't do, people would rely on it too heavily, assuming it is some sort of magic system that will always get them out of trouble, which is blatantly can't.

[A57 HSV]

Yeah, watched Tiff with the Jag. Made me decide that when I replace the family estate car later this year (early model Saab 9-5 Aero), the new car must have ESP.
Generally speaking I like/enjoy cars with the min. of electronc drivers aids, but in the family car safety is important.

[dirkgently]

bunglist said:

How come it is just the driver that has been targeted, the truvelo camara which seems to be the favorite at the moment, does not catch motorcycles as they do not have number plates on the front.

Cos us motorcyclist are the safest drivers on the road so there

I think a four-inch spike on the steering wheel would do much more for safety.

[catso]

dirkgently said:

bunglist said: How come it is just the driver that has been targeted, the truvelo camara which seems to be the favorite at the moment, does not catch motorcycles as they do not have number plates on the front. Cos us motorcyclist are the safest drivers on the road so there

... but I can assure you all that Bikers get more than their fair share of harassment from the 'man'

[ed22]

If I was a millionaire then I'd pay for a full page ad in the papers with some little snippets..


1. ESP could cut road accidents by x%. For the price of a GATSO the government could fit 133 cars (£40k gatso) with the device, leading to savings in the NHS alone of £y per annum alone

(bound to be more than £40k; this is one of the reasons 'Brake' et al give for justifying speed cameras


2. Speed cameras don't work. Attention on the road ahead is cut by 40% in the immediate presence of a speed camera according to the RAC

3. road deaths up etc etc

4. and all the other factual indications which have been discussed here at length...

hope I get rich!

[LongQ]

A57 HSV said:

Yeah, watched Tiff with the Jag. Made me decide that when I replace the family estate car later this year (early model Saab 9-5 Aero), the new car must have ESP. Generally speaking I like/enjoy cars with the min. of electronc drivers aids, but in the family car safety is important.

Agreed. But you have reminded me that I don't recall trying my '02 Aero on any serious stuff with the ESP off. Hmm, now there's a project ...

Mind you it probably explains how I got round a rather tight and bumpy 180 (+) bend on a country lane a couple of weeks after I bought the car.

Early morning, sun, GPS systems doing odd things so a little distracting and I had not really got used to the feel (or rather lack of feel) of speed in the thing. The low end torque makes for remarkable progress on country lanes without any apparent change in engine note - but I digress.

I had used the road before a few times and thought the next bend was a tight 90 ish degree left - not the very tight 180 + that it turned out to be! So entering the bend at about 40 ish instead of about 25-30 (it's bumpy and the visibility ain't great). 40 would be OK in terms of staying on the black stuff but likely to end up on the wrong side so not good if anything was coming the other way. So realising the problem I eased off the throttle and turned on more lock and hoped to stay to the left of the white line despite the bumpiness - and it just went round as if on rails. I was genuinely amazed and of course rather delighted.

All of which means I tend to agree with the idea that ESP could be very helpful and effective but I doubt tha numbers quoted - I don't think they come close to stacking up. In fact I suspect that much of the effective benefit would simply be making up for the diabolical condition of the roads we have and the truly dreadful maintentance that so many local authorities seem to accept from their contractors.

As for the Govt. policy for revenue - if you work the numbers - and especially if you accept the 'cost' figures quoted by official sources and therefore the potential savings - there would surely be as much to gain from the added safety factor as there would be from speed taxes. Plus is it guaranteed as long as the price of the kit does not fall too far if subject to economies of scale.

So if the market is something like 1.5 million vehicles p.a. (to take and example) at 300 quid a pop that ads 450 million to the costs of vehicles. 17.5% VAT and the added take from any other duties and benefit in kind income taxes should produce a reliable revenue stream to equal or exceed the annual income from scameras. Better still there would be no costs, so nothing to share with the scamera partnerships - the Chancer of the Exchequer keeps it all.

Of course it the cars were safer there ought to be fewer accidents and lower costs for many of those that still occur. So insurance costs ought to decline (yeah, right) which wouold mean some loss from the Insurance tax scam. But still a net gain overall I fell sure.

So will they do it?

No chance, it might encourage car use and right now thay are all too busy trying to put one over on the Americans and their own public by bleating on about how they are going to manage climate change. So cars are a no no.

The Austrian Taxi story was a new one to me. I understand that it proves that providing a car with ABS means that it is likely to be driven more productively (as a taxi at least) with little or no change in accident rate. That's impressive really.

I wonder if the differences in accident rates between the vehicles with and without ABS were statistically significant, given the other variables?

[8Pack]

huge said:

"The Government has been wasting taxpayers' money by throwing cash at speed cameras that are ineffective," said Aherne. " HMMM....seems hes missed the point of speed cameras...theyre quite blatantly revenue collectors and have nothing whatsoever to do with safety,and I can hardly agree with "throwing cash" and "wasting taxpayers money"....It would appear to me theyre very effective at what theyre designed for !

This point struck me too, who's money is being thrown at speed cameras did they say? Speed cameras are a PFI (private finance initiative) a road policing system designed to be payed for by the motorist.

Apart from the initial outlay, the government has put very little money in, indeed they have recieved a nice healthy bonus from it. speed cameras are designed to be a self funding road policing system which conforms to the "polluter must pay" principle and is the MAIN reason for the the demise of Trafpol. Nothing less than the virtual privatisation of road policing.

It therefore follows that those who proclaim speed cameras as the great panacea are responible for this outcome. I'm never quite sure whether they are doing this knowingly, or have they too been used, and decieved?

[8Pack]

As for ESP, the Jag has it. I think it's a good idea personnaly, after all, you've got to have lost it first for it to kick in. Good drivers don't loose it to start with! Better that than Kodaks on sticks etc.