PR372: Road safety culture shock stage two. Not enough dead children.

news: for immediate release

It is perfectly clear that people all over the country are re-evaluating their
opinions about road safety policy following revelations yesterday and today.

But we have only just begun back on the road to real road safety.

Television advertisements tells us (quite correctly, as it happens) "If you hit
me at 30 there's a 20% chance that I will die. If you hit me at 40 there's a
20% chance that I will live."

Department for Transport data published yesterday [1] tells us that 11,000
child pedestrians were injured in built up areas (30mph AND 40mph speed limits)
in 2005. We we should expect that more than 20% of those child pedestrians were
killed. Right? That's 2,200 dead children.

But reality is entirely different. 47 child pedestrians were killed in built up
areas, amounting to 0.47% of the total. That's one fiftieth of the implied
claim.

The real world behaviour that saves the children isn't 'sticking to the speed
limit' if it was we would have killed thousands. The real world life saving
behaviour is drivers slowing down in areas of danger and braking before impact.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. In the real world, many minor crashes
are unreported, many more take place with no injury and are unreported and
countless thousands of incidents take place where appropriate driver behaviour
ensures that the child isn't hit at all. So we end up with something like:

Built up areas:

11,000 Child pedestrians injured and reported
20,000 Child pedestrians injured and unreported (estimate)
20,000 Child pedestrians hit but not injured (estimate)
200,000 Child pedestrians involved in 'near misses'. (estimate)
-----------------------------------------------
250,000 total incidents resulting in 47 deaths.

It doesn't even matter if the estimates are not very accurate. It is OBVIOUS
that a great many incidents take place with very few deaths because of drivers
responding to the situation ahead. This 'driver response' is at the true core
of road safety.

But if the DfT implied claim were true we would have 50,000 dead child
pedestrians, not 47.

And it doesn't even stop there, because a significant but unknown proportion of
the deaths are due to 'rogue drivers' - possibly disqualified, in stolen cars,
blind drunk, unlicenced, underage or whatever. The risk mitigation behaviour of
an 'ordinary' driver is even more effective.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "The Department for Transport calls it their
'20,30,40 message' I call it deliberately misleading. They think it justifies
speed camera policy, I think it damages road safety by forcing road users to
concentrate on the wrong safety factor."

"They trot out this rubbish because they are welded to a false belief system.
Let me tell them right now that false beliefs will not save lives."

"Department for Transport is not fit for purpose."

<ends>

Notes for editors
=================

[1] RCGB 2005 published yesterday (see table 24):
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_transstats/documents/downloadable/dft_\
transstats_612588.pdf



About Safe Speed
================

The Safe Speed road safety campaign is primarily the work of engineer-turned
road safety analyst Paul Smith.

Since setting up Safe Speed in 2001, Paul Smith, 51, an advanced motorist and
road safety enthusiast, and a professional engineer of 25 years UK experience,
has carried out over 10,000 hours working on the campaign with well over 5,000
of those hours researching the overall effects of speed camera policy on UK
road safety. In addition to those 10,000 hours, Paul has funded to campaign to
the tune of £10,000.

We believe that this is more work in more detail than anything carried out by
any other organisation. Paul's surprising conclusion is that overall speed
cameras make our roads more dangerous. Paul has identified and reported a
number of major flaws and false assumptions in the claims made for speed
cameras, and the whole "speed kills" system of road safety.

The inescapable conclusion is that we should urgently return to the excellent
road safety policies that gave us in the UK the safest roads in the World in
the first place. Far from saving lives, speed cameras are a dangerous
distraction.

Safe Speed does not campaign against speed limits or appropriate enforcement
of motoring laws, but argues vigorously that automated speed enforcement is
neither safe nor appropriate.

Safe Speed is very slimly funded by voluntary contributions to the web site.
We are urgently seeking improved funding.

The Safe Speed web site contains more than 350,000 words of road safety
analysis and information. We are seeking publishers for 'the book of the web
site'.

It has turned out to be quite an amazing story and there are opportunities for
journalists and broadcasters to explore how all this came about, what it
means, and where road safety has gone so badly wrong.



Contact Safe Speed - We have moved
==================================

description: Safe Speed road safety campaign
web: http://www.safespeed.org.uk
email: psmith@...
telephone: > 01862 893030 < Primary number
ISDN Audio: 01862 894772
mobile: 07799 045553

Location: North Scotland

We are always available for further comment on your road safety story.

To be added to our PR distribution list send an email to
psmith@... or visit our press pages at:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/prindex.html

Recent press releases (since November 2004) are automatically and immediately
uploaded to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR

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Note new address and telephone numbers
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