A Fast Buck

[james_j]

Saw this in a newspaper today: "...Transport Research Laboratory report no. 323 says excessive speed has been identified as a "definite casual factor" in 126 accidents out of a total of 2,897.

Compare this with 412 cases of inattentiveness and 428 cases of carelessness or lack of judgement of situations involving other road users.

Police spin doctors would have us believe speed is the one factor that saves lives.

What they really mean is that speed is the one factor that makes money for them..." and so on

It's interesting to see facts coming from a TRL study that reinforce what some of us have been saying based on common sense.

[Peter Ward]

Which newspaper? Is the author an "expert" or a journalist? Can we make some use of this unintended leak of truth?

[james_j]

It was in the letters column of today's Daily Mail.

I should think that the Transport Research Laboratory's research results were fairly easy to obtain.

[blueyes]

Peter Ward said:

Can we make some use of this unintended leak of truth?

You could have it from a Tony Bliar in black and white that "speed doesn't kill" and it won't change a damn thing because THEY are in charge and speeding fines make THEM money.

[deltaf]

Itll cost you 25 sovs from TRL. (323 that is)

[CarZee]

I'm sure there are people with a copy of 323 here - or try Paul at Safespeed.co.uk.

Either way this is old news - 323 (and I think 427) have been used for some time in debunking the 1/3rd myth.

AFAIK, the problem is that 323 was commissioned by the government as an investigation into new ways of recording accident data - thus it was never meant as a straightforward study of accident cauasation as such - hence the govt bought a report for one purpose then used it for another (ie to justify cameras.) Equally, in using 323 to debunk the 1/3rd myth, it's also being misapplied.

>> Edited by CarZee (moderator) on Thursday 21st August 16:52