A Dozen Facts

[miniman]

A dozen facts from Wilts Scamera Pratnership (sic) website:

1. The first ever pedestrian killed by a motor car was hit at only 4mph. She was Bridget Driscoll who died on 17 August 1896 at Crystal Palace, London

Speed kills, then?

2. An average family car travelling at 35mph will need an extra 21 feet to stop than one travelling at 30mph

An average driver will take an extra 21 feet to react when staring at his speedo.

3. It is not safer to drive faster at night. Casualty rates are double that during daylight hours due to higher speeds because of less traffic, higher alcohol consumption, tiredness and darkness

The only injuries caused by drunk or tired drivers are directly due to the fact that they are also speeding, then?

4. If you hit a cyclist or pedestrian at 35mph rather than 30mph, the force of the impact increases by more than a third

If you're concentrating on your speedo, you probably never saw them in the first place?

5. Traffic is the biggest single killer of 12-16 year olds. In 2002, 35 teenagers aged 12-15 were killed as pedestrians on the roads and statistics show that they are twice as likely to be knocked down as toddlers

So why are the latest cameras on a motorway where there are no pedestrians?

6. Motorcyclists represent 1% of traffic but suffer 19% of deaths and serious injuries

Truvelo and Specs cameras can't see motorcyclists so are their accidents not related to speed?

7. Pedestrians represent 13% of all road casualties and 23% of all road deaths

Are there any pedestrians on the M4?

8. A change in the mean speed of traffic will affect accident risk and each reduction in mean speed of 1mph will reduce accident frequency by about 5%

Removing dangerous, uninsured and unlicenced drivers from the road will probably achieve the same.

9. Seven out of 10 drivers admit to regularly breaking the 30mph speed limit

So why target the M4?

10. Around two thirds of all accidents in which people are killed or seriously injured happen on roads where the speed limit is 40mph or less

So why target the M4?

11. If a driver hits a pedestrian at 20 mph, the pedestrian has a 95% chance of survival. At 30 mph the survival chance is 80% and if a driver hits a pedestrian at 40 mph, the pedestrian's survival chances fall to just 10%

So why target the M4?

12. In 2003, 37,215 people were killed or seriously injured in road traffic collisions in Great Britain, of which 4,100 were children under 15 years of age

Of which around 5% were "caused" by speeding. How do cameras catch the other 95%?


Wonderfully thought-out propoganda, don't you think?

[Cooperman]

I hope you have copied that to the Wilts SCP.
Point 4 is interesting and completely erroneous.
Force of impact is the inertia (kinetic energy).
Inertia is mass x velocity.
Thus the inertia (force of impact) is 16% higher at 35 mph than at 30 mph.
Still, any lies to justify the cash-collection.
You know, they really are a bunch of w*nkers (sorry, Ted).

[Alex]

Actually, kinetic energy = 1/2 mass x velocity squared, so they are probably right.

[supraman2954]

Alex said:

Actually, kinetic energy = 1/2 mass x velocity squared, so they are probably right.

But they made no reference to energy, it only mentions force, so the statement is still wrong

[ATG]

The magnitude of the forces is a function of how springy or squidgy the materials involved at the contact point are. If you think of the body as a variable rate spring (flesh giving way to bone, for example) then the forces may well shoot up above some threshold impact speed.