Friday 21st September 2001

Please do something!

The death toll on our roads isn't coming down as expected

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[jim3981]

"Pedestrian casualties fell by 2% between 1999 and 2000 and the number of killed or seriously injured casualties was down 3%. 13% of all road accident casualties and a quarter of those who died in road accidents were pedestrians." If you go to TRL (the traffic research laboratory), who are the goverment appointed group for research into all problems involving transport in the uk, you will find that in 84% of incidents involving a pedestrian and a vehicle the pedestrian was at fault. - Perhaps a greater degree of pedestrian training should be considered. The emphasis in the last few years has been almost soley on drivers - maybe it is time for a few graphic ''Green Cross Code'' adds.

[RichB]

We will all arrive at the obvious conclusion i.e. that the government’s stealth cameras aren't working - well they are if the intention is to collect revenue but certainly they are not saving lives. However one point that jumped at me from this release is that nearly 18% of people killed are bikers. Certainly they don’t constitute 18% of road users so what's going here? Are they that lethal? Rich...

[mel]

"are they that dangerous" Yes they are !!!! Along with the fact that high performance bikes are now reletively cheap (sub £10K for 190mph worth of bike, standing 1/4 sub 10sec) therefore avaliable to a wider % of the population. The growth in motorcyle use is massively up again this year, 2 reasons, 1 the roads are clogged with traffic so more and more people use bikes to commute etc, but 2 and sadly the biggest area of growth is in the 30+ age bracket with the weekend toys syndrome we all know it, most of us have it, its just these toys are bloody dangerous if not respected. Its really hard to admit but I do think that this is one time the inappropriate speed kills arguement is valid, its sad but true a hell of a lot these deaths are caused by the riders behaving like see you next tuesdays, The answer I don't know !!!! You can only educate those that want it and at the end of the day its their own lives they are playing with and if they don't appreciate them then let them get on with it, just please stay out the way of me and my family. Before someone launches at me for knocking bikers read my profile, and yes I also dare say a few deaths are caused by horse sh1t !

[smeagol]

I believe that we are reaching a plateau in deaths. Certainly more could be done with education to increase road safety but I still believe that it would not significantly reduce the number of deaths. The original reductions were massive because of changes to car safety (ie if a car hits something the driver walks away). As Mel has mentioned about Bikes, most bikes are as safe as they can be BUT the riders aren’t. Speed cameras were the governments “magic suit” which was going to reduce the number of accidents. Well if they were put in the right place ie crowded areas, outside schools etc. I would agree. Accidents happen, people die, I’m afraid it’s a fact of life/death.

[ATG]

It would be interesting to look at the distribution of accidents against age of driver, sex of driver and car model. The results would give you some idea of where further reduction was possible. If none of these factors were correlated with accidents, then you could be more confident that we'd reached some minimum accident level. But I'd be amazed if there wasn't still a spike showing young men were substantially riskier. I'd also be interested to see where white vans figured in the list.

[nmilton]

These stats also make interesting reading when compared to the accidents people have in other non-car related ways. By all accounts the home is a far more dangerous place to be than our roads. I'll see if I can find a link.