RE: Crash Data
Discussion
The following Safe Speed PR went out about this yesterday:
AT LAST: THE TRUTH ABOUT ROAD ACCIDENT CAUSATION
Figures recently published by the Department for Transport confirm that exceeding the speed limit is not a large road accident causation factor.
Data from 13 Police forces for 2001 reveals the following most frequent accident contributory factors:
Inattention 25.8%
Failure to judge other person's path or speed 22.6%
Looked but did not see 19.7%
Behaviour: careless/thoughtless/reckless 18.4%
Failed to look 16.3%
Lack of judgement of own path 13.7%
Excessive speed 12.5%
"Excessive speed" includes both "speed in excess of the speed limit" and "inappropriate speed for the conditions". Data from Avon and Somerset - the only such data available in the UK - warns us that 70% of these "excessive speed accidents" take place entirely within the speed limit. We should therefore assume that in all probability only some 3.75% of our road accidents involve exceeding a speed limit.
The factor analysis presented includes coding for "definite, probable and possible" factors. It follows that within the 3.75% a significant percentage will only list "excessive speed" as a possible factor. Not only that, but in
many serious accidents where excessive speed is coded there is a cause in common for both the excessive speed and the accident - frequently the cause in common is drink, drugs or joyriding in stolen cars.
Even with these both sorts of "excessive speed" added together excessive speed is still only the 7th most frequently reported factor.
It is crystal clear that the real main causes of road accidents are carelessness, inattention and misjudgement.
Paul Smith, Founder of the Safe Speed campaign, comments: "When the main causes of accidents involve drivers failing to properly observe or react to road hazards it should be obvious that the modern emphasis on speed limit enforcement by camera risks INCREASING these common accident types as precious and vital driver attention is diverted to the speedometer, speed limits and the risk of speed enforcement operations."
Paul continues: "It is outrageous that we have had to wait many years to see this important road safety information. It turns out that certain Police forces have been supplying such data to the DfT since 1997, yet the DfT have failed to publish it and have failed to respond properly to requests to view the data. Our modern road safety policy is based on incomplete data and false assumptions. No wonder we have had the poorest road safety decade on record."
Paul continues: "Road safety is a complex matter involving all our road users in complex interactions. Mostly it works well. With some 30,000,000 drivers we only have about 300,000 road injuries each year. This implies that the average driver goes 100 years between injury accidents, 1,000 years between serious injury accidents and 10,000 years between fatal accidents. With DfT figures confirming that the majority of drivers in free flowing conditions exceed the speed limit every day it should be obvious that exceeding the speed limit in itself is unlikely to distinguish an event that only happens once in a hundred years."
Paul continues: "The authorities must now acknowledge that "speed kills" road safety policy backed with speed cameras is not benefiting road safety. The whole ethos must be scrapped immediately and we must instead borrow from the best practice in health and safety. Our road safety results - the best in the world - are simply the result of our superior road safety culture. Health and safety experts will tell us that feeding the safety culture is the only way to improve our national road safety performance."
Paul continues: "Speed cameras could only save lives and reduce accidents if we had a significant population of accidents where normal motorists exceeding the speed limit caused or contributed to road accidents. These new figures confirm that we have very few accidents of this type. The policy is wasted on attempting to solve a problem that simply does not exist."
<ends>
AT LAST: THE TRUTH ABOUT ROAD ACCIDENT CAUSATION
Figures recently published by the Department for Transport confirm that exceeding the speed limit is not a large road accident causation factor.
Data from 13 Police forces for 2001 reveals the following most frequent accident contributory factors:
Inattention 25.8%
Failure to judge other person's path or speed 22.6%
Looked but did not see 19.7%
Behaviour: careless/thoughtless/reckless 18.4%
Failed to look 16.3%
Lack of judgement of own path 13.7%
Excessive speed 12.5%
"Excessive speed" includes both "speed in excess of the speed limit" and "inappropriate speed for the conditions". Data from Avon and Somerset - the only such data available in the UK - warns us that 70% of these "excessive speed accidents" take place entirely within the speed limit. We should therefore assume that in all probability only some 3.75% of our road accidents involve exceeding a speed limit.
The factor analysis presented includes coding for "definite, probable and possible" factors. It follows that within the 3.75% a significant percentage will only list "excessive speed" as a possible factor. Not only that, but in
many serious accidents where excessive speed is coded there is a cause in common for both the excessive speed and the accident - frequently the cause in common is drink, drugs or joyriding in stolen cars.
Even with these both sorts of "excessive speed" added together excessive speed is still only the 7th most frequently reported factor.
It is crystal clear that the real main causes of road accidents are carelessness, inattention and misjudgement.
Paul Smith, Founder of the Safe Speed campaign, comments: "When the main causes of accidents involve drivers failing to properly observe or react to road hazards it should be obvious that the modern emphasis on speed limit enforcement by camera risks INCREASING these common accident types as precious and vital driver attention is diverted to the speedometer, speed limits and the risk of speed enforcement operations."
Paul continues: "It is outrageous that we have had to wait many years to see this important road safety information. It turns out that certain Police forces have been supplying such data to the DfT since 1997, yet the DfT have failed to publish it and have failed to respond properly to requests to view the data. Our modern road safety policy is based on incomplete data and false assumptions. No wonder we have had the poorest road safety decade on record."
Paul continues: "Road safety is a complex matter involving all our road users in complex interactions. Mostly it works well. With some 30,000,000 drivers we only have about 300,000 road injuries each year. This implies that the average driver goes 100 years between injury accidents, 1,000 years between serious injury accidents and 10,000 years between fatal accidents. With DfT figures confirming that the majority of drivers in free flowing conditions exceed the speed limit every day it should be obvious that exceeding the speed limit in itself is unlikely to distinguish an event that only happens once in a hundred years."
Paul continues: "The authorities must now acknowledge that "speed kills" road safety policy backed with speed cameras is not benefiting road safety. The whole ethos must be scrapped immediately and we must instead borrow from the best practice in health and safety. Our road safety results - the best in the world - are simply the result of our superior road safety culture. Health and safety experts will tell us that feeding the safety culture is the only way to improve our national road safety performance."
Paul continues: "Speed cameras could only save lives and reduce accidents if we had a significant population of accidents where normal motorists exceeding the speed limit caused or contributed to road accidents. These new figures confirm that we have very few accidents of this type. The policy is wasted on attempting to solve a problem that simply does not exist."
<ends>
mondeoman 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.
I didn't say they were exclusively linked to speed.
I agree that attention is also a contributory factor. I agreed this in www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?p=4&f=10&t=60546, just as in the same thread your first question was, "What was the speed limit in force, how fast was he going?".
Neither of us is 100% correct, neither of us is 100% incorrect.
My point (made later) was that separating out the causes can be misleading and that misleading statistics are then quoted by whichever side of the debate they appear to support.
Streaky
FastShow said:
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!
Yes, but... Since all the traffic cops have been withdrawn, there is no-one left to chase criminals, so this is a VERY small part of the problem...
BUT: without experienced traffic cops, when there is an incident to rush to/ ciminal to chase, the driving is done by relatively untrained police officers, who then crash a lot - at excessive speed. Ummm
safespeed said:
Data from Avon and Somerset - the only such data available in the UK - warns us that 70% of these "excessive speed accidents" take place entirely within the speed limit. We should therefore assume that in all probability only some 3.75% of our road accidents involve exceeding a speed limit.
Paul, this is great. Well done for finding and publicising this information. It will be very interesting to see how the press picks it up, and whether the Partnerships respond or ignore it.
Regarding the above quote, IIRC Durham also stated something similar in regard to speed being a very small factor in accidents? It looks like we have a pattern emerging wherever the data is assessed objectively. Not surprising, but it could be explosive if it gets the right publicity.....
>> Edited by Peter Ward on Saturday 3rd April 08:23
This is what A&SSCP say
thank you for your feedback and request.
The 32% is from the DfT and the government. I refer you to the DfT website
(www.dft.gov.uk) and the document "Safety Cameras - Frequently Asked Questions".
The claim is 32% of accidents that are SPEED RELATED, the 7% is PURELY FROM SPEED ALONE. This 7% is commonly taken out of context.
All our data regarding thge 32% comes from the DfT and should you wish to contact them direct i have furnished you with their website address. Perhaps they may be able to give you a thorough breakdown of these statistics that you require. Please contact us again should you require any further clarification after talking to the DfT and we shall try to assist.
thank you for your feedback and request.
The 32% is from the DfT and the government. I refer you to the DfT website
(www.dft.gov.uk) and the document "Safety Cameras - Frequently Asked Questions".
The claim is 32% of accidents that are SPEED RELATED, the 7% is PURELY FROM SPEED ALONE. This 7% is commonly taken out of context.
All our data regarding thge 32% comes from the DfT and should you wish to contact them direct i have furnished you with their website address. Perhaps they may be able to give you a thorough breakdown of these statistics that you require. Please contact us again should you require any further clarification after talking to the DfT and we shall try to assist.
As I said, they stick other causations under 'speed related' and then add up the percentages until they reach ~33%.
Under the current system I believe it is possible to record several different factors that contributed to the accident. If excess speed was a factor, you'd think the officer would record excess speed?
The DfT and SCPs say that no, some of the other factors imply excess speed, so excess speed itself would not be recorded. Following too close is one example, according to the SCPs all accidents with following too close as a cause are speed related, so they just add those accidents to the excess speed ones. Add in some more poor observation / bad driving causes (eg failure to judge other vehicles speed and path) and you end up at 33%.
Under the current system I believe it is possible to record several different factors that contributed to the accident. If excess speed was a factor, you'd think the officer would record excess speed?
The DfT and SCPs say that no, some of the other factors imply excess speed, so excess speed itself would not be recorded. Following too close is one example, according to the SCPs all accidents with following too close as a cause are speed related, so they just add those accidents to the excess speed ones. Add in some more poor observation / bad driving causes (eg failure to judge other vehicles speed and path) and you end up at 33%.
"failure to avoid a vehicle or object in the carriageway (27.9%)" is a cause of accidents - what a revelation that is. Keep collecting those scamera taxes so you can do more surveys like this chaps! Surely the other 72.1% weren't actually accidents then, if the object was avoided?!
This does not reflect the seriousness of accidents. They would be slower and less serious if the speed was lower in the first place.
However, failure to look (16.3%), looking but not seeing (19.7%), innattention (25.8%) are all ways of saying 'without due care' (=61.8%) and yet there is only one catch-all speeding category (12.5%), and even that can include speed below the posted limit. How many of us aren't paying attention when we're standing on 200 horses?
Section 3.6.1 sounds suspiciously like the statistics aren't delivering the message they want, so they are thinking how to manipluate them. Oh, and it's a really easy way to collect extra taxes, which makes reasoned debate pointless.
This does not reflect the seriousness of accidents. They would be slower and less serious if the speed was lower in the first place.
However, failure to look (16.3%), looking but not seeing (19.7%), innattention (25.8%) are all ways of saying 'without due care' (=61.8%) and yet there is only one catch-all speeding category (12.5%), and even that can include speed below the posted limit. How many of us aren't paying attention when we're standing on 200 horses?
Section 3.6.1 sounds suspiciously like the statistics aren't delivering the message they want, so they are thinking how to manipluate them. Oh, and it's a really easy way to collect extra taxes, which makes reasoned debate pointless.
rat said:
"failure to avoid a vehicle or object in the carriageway (27.9%)" is a cause of accidents - what a revelation that is. Keep collecting those scamera taxes so you can do more surveys like this chaps! Surely the other 72.1% weren't actually accidents then, if the object was avoided?!
To be fair, I think this category is used when opportunities to avoid something stationary are not taken. It can also be well applied to accidents caused by debris.
rat said:
This does not reflect the seriousness of accidents. They would be slower and less serious if the speed was lower in the first place.
This is too simple a view to illuminate the debate. The vast majority of accidents take place after speed has been adjusted and reflect problems with awareness or hazard perception. At a lower free travelling speed we might have a lower awareness and a higher impact speed. This MUST be taken into account.
Average impact speeds in the real world are a tiny fraction of free travelling speed, indicating that driver response is (at the very least) 500 times more important as a predictor of accident outcome compared with free travelling speed.
As one simple illustration, if we take one collision at free travelling speed and 9 near misses from the same free travelling speed we can immediately see thatthe average incident impact speed is 10% of the free travelling speed. These proportions are realistic, and the physics of the situation can be identical in each case - the difference is in driver response.
Best Regards,
Paul Smith
Safe Speed
www.safespeed.org.uk
Well, WHATEVER anyone says, the speed kills fraternity will always relate 33% or more of accidents to excessive speed...
Come on, look at it.... if there was an accident, that means one, or more, of the Vehicles was actually moving, wether that be 1MPH or 100MPH, the moving car was, of course not stationary, therefore it was going at some sort of speed.... now, if that person caused an accident, wether on a motorway at 100MPH, or reversing out of a driveway they were obviously going too fast....(not even the "excess speed" lobby try to keep the figures semi-believable)
It's all Spin.... Lobby groups do it, Polititians do it... manipulation... propaganda... use mother of child that went playing "chicken" on the motorway, got spread over a HGV, the HGV driver is now, and probably for the rest of his life suffering trauma that i can only hope i will never have. oh, where was i... oh yes... blame nasty truck driver, not the scrote who was playing chicken.... oh, and make the mother cry, so that the question is not raised how her child tragically died.
I'm in no way saying that in a stab at individuals, i.e. parents of deceased/injured children, BUT don't they realise they are being used, used as a tool, not for their help, but in feeding someones ego in getting the "speed kills" message across (which we knew all along its actually numptiness, as the report states)
Death is always a sad state of affairs, however you look at it, and i'm sure if there was a PROVEN, half-decent way of bringing down road deaths (perhaps driver training day by professionals a LEGAL requirement for a D/L?) Most of us here at PH, if not ALL, would welcome it into our lives with open arms (need i mention most people here drive their vehicles at appropriate speeds for the road conditions)
All in MY opinion though.
anyone think the same?
Jeff
Come on, look at it.... if there was an accident, that means one, or more, of the Vehicles was actually moving, wether that be 1MPH or 100MPH, the moving car was, of course not stationary, therefore it was going at some sort of speed.... now, if that person caused an accident, wether on a motorway at 100MPH, or reversing out of a driveway they were obviously going too fast....(not even the "excess speed" lobby try to keep the figures semi-believable)
It's all Spin.... Lobby groups do it, Polititians do it... manipulation... propaganda... use mother of child that went playing "chicken" on the motorway, got spread over a HGV, the HGV driver is now, and probably for the rest of his life suffering trauma that i can only hope i will never have. oh, where was i... oh yes... blame nasty truck driver, not the scrote who was playing chicken.... oh, and make the mother cry, so that the question is not raised how her child tragically died.
I'm in no way saying that in a stab at individuals, i.e. parents of deceased/injured children, BUT don't they realise they are being used, used as a tool, not for their help, but in feeding someones ego in getting the "speed kills" message across (which we knew all along its actually numptiness, as the report states)
Death is always a sad state of affairs, however you look at it, and i'm sure if there was a PROVEN, half-decent way of bringing down road deaths (perhaps driver training day by professionals a LEGAL requirement for a D/L?) Most of us here at PH, if not ALL, would welcome it into our lives with open arms (need i mention most people here drive their vehicles at appropriate speeds for the road conditions)
All in MY opinion though.
anyone think the same?
Jeff
I have always been in favour of regular driver assessment...I would suggest every five years, those failing to reach the required standard would have to attend training. Failure to 'pass' the assessment after that would require a formal re-test with a failure resulting in a withdrawal of your licence.
You can always compensate for deterriorating driving standards by reducing speed limits, but that is not addressing the real cause of all accidents - lack of skill and abililty coupled with the selfish attitude of a growing number of drivers.
You can always compensate for deterriorating driving standards by reducing speed limits, but that is not addressing the real cause of all accidents - lack of skill and abililty coupled with the selfish attitude of a growing number of drivers.
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