Pedestrian Risk

[safespeed]

Some very surprising data on this new Safe Speed page:

www.safespeed.org.uk/pedrisk.html

The hero of the tale is White Van Man. No. REALLY!

[towman]

Could the Bus/Coach figures be misrepresented by accidents while alighting/disembarking?

Steve

[safespeed]

towman said:

Could the Bus/Coach figures be misrepresented by accidents while alighting/disembarking?

Good question!

The figures apply to pedestrians not passengers. Obviously there's a bit of a grey area there when a pedestrian transitions to become a passenger.

If I'd prepped the source data, I would have wished to classify anyone getting onto or off of a bus as a passenger.

I'll ask the DfT.

[gopher]

Interesting stuff Paul, one question about the dangers of motorcycles.

SafeSpeed said:

Why are motorbikes (relatively) so dangerous to pedestrians? They filter and pedestrians don't expect them to passing stationary traffic. (likely) In accidents, projections cause worse injuries. (likely) Motorbikes travel faster (unlikely) Pedestrians fail to observe approaching motorbikes (likely)

I would have thought that the fact the motorbikes travel faster (the worst for 40 mph limits, 3rd in 30's) in combination with projections and failure to observe would make this a likely contribution rather than unlikely. How did you decide on unlikely?

Cheers

Paul

[diesel ed]

towman said:

Could the Bus/Coach figures be misrepresented by accidents while alighting/disembarking?

Stationary traffic in lane two. You haven't seen a bus in ages. Step into lane one. And all of a sudden half a dozen turn up at once and flatten you as they speed down the bus lane.

And how many people get killed on car free roads. Because they forget they aren't bus free?

[safespeed]

gopher said:

SafeSpeed said: Why are motorbikes (relatively) so dangerous to pedestrians? Motorbikes travel faster (unlikely) I would have thought that the fact the motorbikes travel faster (the worst for 40 mph limits, 3rd in 30's) in combination with projections and failure to observe would make this a likely contribution rather than unlikely. How did you decide on unlikely?

Loads of reasons actually... here's a selection:

1) Light goods are fastest and they have the best ped fatality rate.

2) After 7,000 hours on the subject I have yet to see any data supporting the idea that risk is related to "speeding". [the two genuine "speed" risks are a) speed that is inappropriate and b) poor hazard recognition leading to failing to reduce speed when necessary]

3) Motorcyclists in general learn good speed awareness and hazard perception or they die. They are unlikely to use inappropriate speed in town.(Granted there's a small percentage of nutters, but there are nutters in vans, cars and buses too.)

4) Given the performance available, taking the 3rd position in 30mph zones is evidence of caution. And of course there are many more 30 zones than 40 zones.

We don't know, but I do regard it as unlikely that motorcycle speed is responsible for much of the pedestrian risk.

[gopher]

Sorry Paul I was reading out of context.

I was thinking of the Fatality risk once hit, not of course the reason for being hit in the first place, in which case I quite agree.

Cheers

Paul

[turbobloke]

Hmmm, enough to ban buses and make car ownership compulsory with tax breaks for PH subscribers. On a related note, we should always remember that an average diesel bus emits as much particulate pollution per year of use as 128 cars. Killer blow (literally) this includes the two most carcinogenic chemicals known to science, 3-nitrobenzanthrone and 1,9-dinitropyrene. Quite possibly you could get cancer just by saying their names...both belched out when good ole Prezza's buses pull away from a High Street bus stop. In tests 0.0000003 grams of these pollutants caused 6 and 5 million mutations respectively in standard AMES tests. Scary with a capital f.

[StressedDave]

Paul,

I was an accident investigator for the best part of ten years and I can tell you that in central London the bus was known as the "inner-city serial killer" for nothing. One of the reason for the relatively high fatality rate is due, especially in London, to tourists looking the wrong way and emerging into the path of the hapless bus driver. Since Cuddly Ken's congestion charge, travel speeds in the zone went up, increasing the injury rate still further.

[safespeed]

StressedDave said:

Paul, One of the reason for the relatively high fatality rate is due, especially in London, to tourists looking the wrong way and emerging into the path of the hapless bus driver.

Dave I quite understand how this happens, but why would it favour buses? Surely these folk walk out in front of any vehicle?

Thanks for your comments...

[turbobloke]

safespeed said:

Dave I quite understand how this happens, but why would it favour buses? Surely these folk walk out in front of any vehicle? Thanks for your comments...

In London the lane nearest the path is invariably a bus lane so it'll be a double decker or black cab they get to inspect from below

>> Edited by turbobloke on Saturday 16th October 13:45

[safespeed]

turbobloke said:

safespeed said: Dave I quite understand how this happens, but why would it favour buses? Surely these folk walk out in front of any vehicle? Thanks for your comments... In London the lane nearest the path is invariably a bus lane so it'll be a double decker or black cab they get to inspect from below

Yep. Several answers to this one...

a) That's one of the reasons I'm chasing earlier copies of RAGB.

b) The risk figures we're looking at are national, and although bus lanes will play a part, I bet it's a small part of the national picture.

[turbobloke]

StressedDave said:

Paul, One of the reason for the relatively high fatality rate is due, especially in London...

That's why I mentioned London not the national picture! Maybe the weighting is high due to London buses picking up pedestrians unconventionally?

>> Edited by turbobloke on Saturday 16th October 14:04

[safespeed]

turbobloke said:

That's why I mentioned London not the national picture! Maybe the weighting is high due to London buses picking up pedestrians unconventionally?

Oh yes, and what a great stick to beat Red Ken with if we can find the evidence.

[turbobloke]

safespeed said:

what a great stick to beat Red Ken with if we can find the evidence.

well, personally, I think there's plenty to be going on with...

[gute_fahrt]

I didn't see a way of attaching a spreadsheet so I've just pasted this in. It's a table of the raw numbers of pedestrian accidents by vehicle type for the UK in 2003 back calculated from the rates given for each 100 billion vehicle km.

It looks pretty bad. Sorry. But I thought the probability of being killed if hit was interesting.

LGVs kill a higher percentage of the pedestrians they hit (2.74%) than do cars or taxis (1.79%).

Amazingly, Pedal Cyclists (PCs) apparently kill 1.54% of the pedestrians they hit. A pedestrian hit by a PC is only slightly less likely to die than if hit by a Car, und, naturlich, Taxi (C??T).

Pedestrian.Accidents.......................................
by.Vehicle.Type............................................
2003.......................................................
.........................................Probability.if.Hit
...............Hit.By......SI.....K..........SI..........K.
...........................................................
Pedal.Cycle.......259......45.....4.......17.37%......1.54%

Motorbike........1543.....314....27.......20.35%......1.75%

Car.or.Taxi.....29809....5886...533.......19.75%......1.79%

Bus..............1985.....343....57.......17.28%......2.87%

LGV..............1754.....332....48.......18.93%......2.74%

HGV...............721.....179....91.......24.83%.....12.62%

Unidentified
Vehicle...........335......60....14.......17.91%......4.18%

Any.............36406....7159...774........................


BTW, SafeSpeed mentioned on another thread that he was preparing a response pack for the consultation on speeding fines and points that closes on the 31st. I've been working on a response of my own, but it's still not all that good.

[StressedDave]

safespeed said:

Dave I quite understand how this happens, but why would it favour buses? Surely these folk walk out in front of any vehicle? Thanks for your comments...

Buses have restricted vision (driver sits in front of the front wheels and doesn't see the peds step off), restricted mobility (they don't turn that quick) and the driver doesn't like to hit the brakes very quickly (not to mention the rise time of the air brake system). You could also factor in the fact that buses are significantly quieter than cars, vans and lorries 'cause the engine is at the back and quite a few feet away from the blunt end.

In short, while ignorant pedestrians walk out in front of anything, although the look left, step routine seems to happen a lot more in London, the bus is least adapted to avoiding them compared with White Van Man (who is normally the other person using the bus lanes ).

[safespeed]

gute_fahrt said:

BTW, SafeSpeed mentioned on another thread that he was preparing a response pack for the consultation on speeding fines and points that closes on the 31st. I've been working on a response of my own, but it's still not all that good.

Bugger bugger bugger! You're right, that's IMPORTANT, and I've forgotten it. I've got far too much to do, obviously.

I'll pick it up again tomorrrow. Sorry Guys.

[safespeed]

gute_fahrt said:

But I thought the probability of being killed if hit was interesting.

Yep. Interesting indeed. I've added two more charts to the page showing the killed/all and serious/all severity rations.

Thanks for the idea. I've looked at severity ratios previously (see www.safespeed.org.uk/serious.html ), but not i this "by vehicle" context.

[Mr2Mike]

Paul, probably being a bit thick, but could you explain how the "All vehicles" data is derived on the charts?