What's mileage got to do with it? Time travelled is a better measurement of your exposure to risk, surely?
Lies, damn lies and statistics.
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NW - don't go flying off at the deep end and making me look like an insensitive moron...although admittedly, you didn't need much help. Of course they're sombre figures. I was referring to such parts as:
"the term s************s is much broader and better suited to explaining why the cameras are in place."
Yes ok because they measure all safety aspects - course they do.
Sorry - I'll disengage my sarcastic mode now.
--
Adam
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What's mileage got to do with it? Time travelled is a better measurement of your exposure to risk, surely?
If you were right, then 10 miles travelled at 10mph carries the same risk as 60 miles travelled at 60mph? I think not.
In any case, the figures point in tne same direction whether you count time or mileage: walking carries a greater serious risk of a KSI than being in a car or on a bike.
Bus and rail users usually spend only a relatively small proportion of their journey as pedestrians. (Those such as who walk several milkes to work are a rarity).
My regular journey across town takes 25 minutes by car, but I usually do it as a bus-journey with a 5-minute walk home at the end. So the car was exposed to risk as a driverfor 50 minutes on the round trip, whereas I was exposed as a pedestrian for ten.
That's a 20% of the time exposure, and maybe 5% of the miles.
Of course, the car driver probably makes more journeys, and longer ones. That's still more of the drivers' time exposed to risk -- maybe ten times as much.
The point being made on that website is perfectly accurate: those who make least use of the roads (whether in time or miles) are suffering a disproportionate share of the injuries.
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I wonder how many are attributable to their own actions?
Of course if you hit a pedestrian with a lump of metal the pedestrian comes of worse. But if it is due to them stepping in front of said piece of metal then I fail to see how penalising the driver in some way helps.
Rights....
and responsibilities.
We live in a big nasty world where not so long ago neither of us would be here to have any kind of discussion as the odds on getting past childhood were next to nil. If we remove risk, we as a species will die of our own complacency. No statistics, just a cold, hard look at where we are as a genetic blip on the face of this cold, hard planet.
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I wonder how many are attributable to their own actions?
My five-minute walk home takes me across a busy main road: no crossing in sight. At peak hours, heavy traffic.
How do people cross? Well, there's only one way to do it: walk out into the line of traffic and pray that the cars will stop.
Of course, some of them are going too fast to stop in time, and if I don't spot one of them, I a goner.
Many drivers are responsible enough to at least stick within the 30mph; some are even responsible enough to slow down further. But when the police stick up a camera to catch the irresponsible ones, you can hear the yowls for weeks.
As you say, rights and responsibilities. The right to drive a car, and the responsibility to stick to the rules and recognise the huge dangers it poses to other types of road user.
We can't remove risk, but we can meaningfully reduce some of the unnecesary risks. Failing to enforce 30mph limits in urban areas is a wholly unnecessary risk, and the statistics show that the people who carry the risk are not those who create it.
If it was, there wouldn't be much debate about speed cameras.
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Many drivers are responsible enough to at least stick within the 30mph; some are even responsible enough to slow down further. But when the police stick up a camera to catch the irresponsible ones, you can hear the yowls for weeks.
Now you know I'm one of the biggest advocates of 30 and 20 mph limits in town and agree that people need to be shown the error of their ways in this respect.
As you say, rights and responsibilities. The right to drive a car, and the responsibility to stick to the rules and recognise the huge dangers it poses to other types of road user.
And the right of a pedestrian to safe passage provided they are responsible enough not to step out in front of a car in a situation where the driver is unable to stop in time whilst travelling at an appropriate speed.
We can't remove risk, but we can meaningfully reduce some of the unnecesary risks. Failing to enforce 30mph limits in urban areas is a wholly unnecessary risk,
I agree.
and the statistics show that the people who carry the risk are not those who create it.
Ah, but then you are assuming that all accidents in 30 limits are due to speed and not pedestrian or driver error. Pretty wide assumption.
This one is off to the speeding thread I'm afraid.
No Do$h - Alfa-driving Backroom Moderator
mailto:moderators@honestjohn.co.uk
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If you were right, then 10 miles travelled at 10mph carries the same risk as 60 miles travelled at 60mph? I think not.
I think... it depends where the 10 and the 60mph are being done... but there's no need for them to make life difficult for themselves by having to take complicated things like that into account.
And before you ask, yes I have spoken to a "safer roads partnership" to enquire about the statistical basis for their decisions. And no, I wasn't impressed. If an infinite number of monkeys takes an infinite time to produce Shakespeare, their stuff was 20 monkeys, 10 minutes.
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>> If you were right, then 10 miles travelled at 10mph carries >> the same risk as 60 miles travelled at 60mph? I think not. I think... it depends where the 10 and the 60mph are being done... but there's no need for them to make life difficult for themselves by having to take complicated things like that into account.
I know you intended to be sarcastic, but actually you are mostly right.
It's quite possible to spends years picking over the statistics, if that's what interests you: Paul Smith does lots of it on his website. But whether the risk to pedestrians is 5 times greeter in one place, and 17 times greater in another, the fact remains that it is much greater.
That's why that website is right to make the case for redressing the balance. As they put it, "Much wider use of 20mph speed limits is needed to ensure that danger is reduced and risk more fairly distributed."
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Agreed, NW, but I'm still usually unimpressed by the quality of analysis. And, if your job relies on the use of statistics, you should be interested enough to actually do it.
Anyway, I have to be off now to catch a flight home. See you soon! ;-)
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Anyway, I have to be off now to catch a flight home. See you soon! ;-)
I'll put the kettle on ;-)
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No it's not funny, NW.
What is sad is that, as ND points out, the quality of the statistics and their interpretation is so appalling that there is little prospect of that changing. As if anyone would consider comparing the mileage achieved by a 3mph pedestrian and a 70 (+?) mph car and think it valid.
What are they suggesting? That pedestrians run everywhere? Or that cars drop to 3mph?
Oh, hang on.....
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Not only the misuse of statistics, but "safety" campaigns that misuse emotion and give entirely wrong impressions.
Countless people have been brainwashed into thinking that the greatest danger on the road is to children being mown down on pedestrian crossings.
If I recall correctly, total child fatalities are around 180 per year, around five percent of the total, and kids on crossings are only a small proportion of that, so if you absolutely eliminated the type of accident portrayed in road safety adverts the effect on statistics and total road deaths would be un-noticeable.
Meanwhile the other 95% plus accidents go on, unchecked.
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Actually, the interesting thing is that just having a quick leaf thru this thread as part of my duties as a moderator, that the best way to make sure you're on the right side of the stats is to get a car, the bigger the better.
H
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Actually, the interesting thing is that just having a quick leaf thru this thread as part of my duties as a moderator, that the best way to make sure you're on the right side of the stats is to get a car, the bigger the better.
Usual laws of the jungle apply. Small car does better than bike, so cyclist gets mini car. Mini cars do less well than bigger ones, so pressure to upgrade. Big heavy SUV does better than both ...
So unless folks exercise some self-restraint, the end result is an arms race, with everyone trying to get a bigger box than the next driver.
Without driver self-restraint, thw law will eventually step in, as in other areas.
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Unless you're a pedestrian, in which case the 4x4 is a far better choice of accident than the supermini. Although admittedly worse than the cyclist...
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Unless you're a pedestrian, in which case the 4x4 is a far better choice of accident than the supermini.
Huh? Are you really saying that being rolled under a 4X4 is better than being bounced on top of a small car?
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