Safe Speed presents...Why and how speed cameras cost lives
Safe Speed presents...
Why and how speed cameras cost lives
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Section 1
What is happening on our roads? Why is this happening? How do we fix it?
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Our road safety disaster
Since 1993, we have lost a 50 year beneficial trend in fatal accidents. Road deaths are "stuck" at over 3,400. But projections of pre-199trends lead to present road death estimates of 1,800 to 2,200 per annum Over 5,500 people have died on our roads to date due to this loss of trend
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What changed in 1993?
We began to base our national road safety policy on "speed kills", backed by speed cameras. We also ran national campaigns about the dangers of speeding And the Police began to leave the safety of the roads to "PC Gatso"
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Is this happening worldwide?
No. We have noted that many countries continue to show road safety improvements at the previous rate. Germany, France and Italy for example have clear ongoing improvements Sweden and Australia are showing a similar loss of trend to ours These effects demand proper scientific study
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A system supported by lies
It isn’t true that speed causes many accidents (Only about 5%) It isn’t true that slowing traffic alone will reduce the number of accidents Claims of accident reductions at speed camera sites are normally due to statistical errors. The lies are generally mistaken beliefs based on over-simplification
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Faith and facts
It’s easy to believe that "speed kills" Flawed and limited research appears to support the idea The modern road safety establishment tends to accept the flawed research But looking just a little deeper reveals no supporting substantial facts "Speed kills" is a matter of faith not fact
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Speed
is easy to measure But we’re not measuring the right sort of speed (more on that later!) The attraction of easy measurement and the hope of a road safety quick fix is deluding a generation But after a decade of speed limit reductions and ever-increasing speed enforcement the results are awful
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Information control
The road safety information from the DfT and the so-called safety camera partnerships is very tightly controlled to make the modern road safety policy sound reasonable and successful It’s highly immoral and dangerous to feed false road safety information to the public
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Section 2
What is happening on our roads? Why is this happening? How do we fix it?
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Does speed kill?
Of course it does. The faster you go the harder you crash, and the less time you have to avoid a crash. Of course it doesn’t. The most careful analysis of UK road safety shows a very limited connection between speeding and accidents. What’s the reason for this conflict?
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Speed kills?
There is much confusion over the exact meaning of the word "speed" It is true that inappropriate speed for the conditions is extremely dangerous It isn’t true that exceeding a speed limit in itself is dangerous "Speed" can still kill just as effectively with high degrees of speed limit enforcement
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Is faster more dangerous?
In the real world faster roads are safer. Most accidents take place in town on 30mph roads Our Motorways are the fastest roads and also by far the safest. Faster roads are safer is true as a sound general principle
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Excessive Speed Accidents
Gross examples are not generally caused by "normal motorists" Most are probably entirely within the speed limit anyway No degree of speed limit enforcement will prevent all of them In fact very few are potentially within reach of speed enforcement
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Dangerous Speeders?
Joyriders in stolen cars, drunks, police drivers on call and reckless drivers are not normally curtailed by speed enforcement Normal responsible motorists a few miles per hour over the speed limit are rarely dangerous Reckless behaviors sometimes mislead us about the dangers of speeding
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Speed limits and Speed enforcement
Are both good… We need them But we do not need high levels of speed enforcement directed at purely technical infringements Worthwhile speed enforcement must be targeted at safety infringements Has greatest effect on open roads away from hazards - exactly where it’s needed least
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Real accident causes
The vast majority of accidents are caused by road user error A small but important proportion of accidents are caused by road user violations The vast majority of road user errors that cause accidents are carelessness, inattention or misjudgement
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Carelessness and Inattention
Cause probably 75% of all road accidents And probably 30 million near misses each year - (but only 2 million accidents and only about 2,000 fatalities) We should be very afraid of those 30 million near misses - the wrong policy could turn some of them into dangerous accidents very easily
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Driver attention
Tiny changes in average driver attention can make accidents out of near misses "Speed kills" road safety policy is making quite large changes in the things that drivers pay attention to We should not be surprised that fear of speed enforcement is causing lower average driver attention to important safety factors
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