At 44 years of age housewife Bridget Driscoll became the first person in Britain to be killed in a road traffic accident. What was truly unique about this accident was the fact the car that hit her was travelling at 4mph; apparently she froze with fear at the sight of a Roger-Benz car coming towards her. From that moment on road traffic accidents and their causes have raged on. But like most issues the answers are n
ever clear-cut and therefore the picture about the safety of Britain’s roads is at best a confusing one. According to the Department for Transport, in 1930 there were a mere 2.3 million motor vehicles in Great Britain, but more than 7,000 people were killed in road accidents. So when you contrast that with the situation today things do not se
em so bad. In Britain we have more than 27 million vehicles travelling up but far fewer deaths than in the 1930s. In 2006[1] 3,180 people were killed on our roads. From this it would seem that road safety has improved dramatically over recent decades.
But, as I said things are never quite what they seem. You only need to factor in the role of the emergency services and the picture changes. The emergency services which we now take for granted were in their infancy in the 1930s. Indeed hospitals of that period were generally nowhere near as effective in treating people as our contemporary ones are. Thus our relatively lower road deaths could be as much attributed to modern health treatments as road safety. Indeed just think of the network of emergency services we take for granted in saving lives, are something people of the 1930s could have never imagined. Add to this car design, seat belts, air bags and suddenly that figure of 3,180 road deaths is not so impressive, especially when 2006 saw 31,845 people being either killed or seriously injured in 2006[2].
However this figure of 31,845 would have been substantially higher if it wasn’t the installation of a distinct piece of equipment. The governments own figures show an almost 20% decline in the number of accidents causing death or serious injury after the installation of speed cameras. Therefore it is no accident that speed cameras have been identified by some members of society as having a positive effect on reducing accidents on UK roads. Though you wouldn’t believe this is your only window on the world was the BBC and The Sun newspaper. Jeremy Clarkson relentless vilification of speedcameras borders on the vitriol normally saved for those who perpetrate the most heinous of crimes. While we are all allowed our point of view why do two popular media companies allow him to incite criminal activity. His Top Gear programme and Sun newspaper column frequently discuss the variety of ways people can avoid being caught on camera. I guess it is all under the guise of entertainment but we can imagine the outcry if Islamic terrorists used the same platform to plot their attacks on innocent people.
Sadly Jeremy isn’t alone in thinking there is no relationship between speed and road traffic accidents plenty of other online pressure groups evangelise about the road to nivarna comes through speeding. The Association of British Drivers (ABD) amongst other opponents of speed cameras claim that ‘speed doesn’t kill’ and reject the relationship between speed and the frequency of road crashes. As any student of physics knows the injury severity increases the faster one is going. You only have to consider at what speed you the reader would like to be hit by a car at. Would you prefer 20, 40 or 60 mph, I’m sure you’d all agree the answer is a no-brainer. The dft’s own findings would agree with your answer. Their study based on the crash history of 300 sections of road, 2 million measurements of speed and the self reported crash history of 10,000 driver conclusively demonstrated the correlation between speed and crash frequency[3]. The evidence would seem to go some way to being conclusive about the relationship between speed and crashes.
Indeed New Labour’s Jim Fitzpatrick decision to double the penalty for drivers who break the speed limit by a wide margin can only be celebrated. Indeed more people are rejoicing over this clamp down than some sections of the media would have you believe. A recent RAC survey contradicts the media’s ‘public opinion’ as 82%[4] of British people in their survey approved of the proliferation of speed cameras. Though road deaths in the UK are one of the lowest in the developed world there are still too many deaths. Of those killed or seriously injured pedestrians make up a significant number. Pedestrian casualty figure fell to 30,982 in 2006, 7 per cent lower than 2005 with the number of children killed or seriously injured in the same period was 3,294 (down 5 per cent on 2005), of those, 2,025 were pedestrians[5].
Despite these figures and the laws of physics it seems almost impossible to avoid Clarksonism. Clarksonist organisations like Speedcameras.org argue against the growth of speed cameras. They argue that factors other than speed cause accidents and speedcameras real role is one of income generator for cash strapped police forces. Their argument comes from data gathered from 13 police forces from 2001 which shows excessive speed accounted for just 12.5% of accidents. This logic rests on the notion of driving at high-speed as being an absolute cause of accidents. Car A travelling at 70 mph drove into the back of car B travelling at the speed limit of 30 mph killing all occupants. Thus we might conclusively say this particular road traffic accident was caused by car A driving at high speed. Unfortunately such an approach ignores the potential of speed as a causal agent. For example a motorists ‘lack of judgement of own path’ and ‘looked but did not see’ are terms which Speedcameras.org believe abdicates the role of speed in road accidents. But upon closer examination things as ever are far more complicated.
As an agent of cause speed could have precipitated all the other descriptors in the above data. We all know what it’s like to drive in the fast lane on the motorway. Even within the maximum speed limit all judgements become more critical and any errors more pronounced. Any diversion can drive a motorist to distraction. At high speed cognitive judgements become more critical to the extent it is easy to drive without due care and attention so you fail to judge another person’s path or speed. Therefore from this position, speed as a causal agent, is in itself hidden from police statistics and its significance not appreciated by all.
|
Cause of Accident |
% of Accidents |
| Inattention: | 25.8% |
| Failure to judge other person’s path or speed: | 22.6% |
| Looked but did not see: | 19.7% |
| Behaviour: careless/thoughtless/reckless: | 18.4% |
| Failed to look: | 16.3% |
| Lack of judgment of own path: | 13.7% |
| Excessive speed: | 12.5% |
However if the reader still remains sceptical regarding the causal relationship between speed and accidents then they only have to read a road safety report produced by Nottingham University. The report written on behalf of the dft in 2005[6] concluded that excessive speed was a causal factor in a number of road traffic accidents. But what is more important in the report was how the researchers found a high ratio of other factors causing road traffic accidents. At first sight this might offer a glimmer of hope to those who uphold Clarksonism and deny the causal agency of speed.
The report found people who drive for business purposes are more likely to cause RTAs than any other group of motorists. These findings support Lynn and Lockwoods 1998 study which found company car drivers in the UK are 49% more likely to be involved in an accident than ordinary motorists. Indeed the study’s focus was on the role of work in causing accidents. Factors such as time pressure, poor judgement, fatigue and poor manoeuvring played important parts. In many ways these findings support the police data mentioned earlier. However in the same way I argued improved hospital techniques undermine perceptions of improvement then maybe language undermines the role of speed in road safety.
Instead of focusing on speed in absolute terms other associated verbs, such as haste, rush, hurry could be used as causal descriptors in order to provide a different perspective on road accidents. The Nottingham researchers noted how time pressure increased motorists’ blameworthiness and yet we have no mechanisms to capture a driver’s mindset. In some respects this again adds weight to the Clarksonist model of road-safety, where speed is a minor causal agent. Nevertheless for the sake of argument let us invent a ‘haste’ detection camera to replace the traditional speedcameras. Such a device is capable of recording absolute speed as well as abstract speed what I call haste or hurried driving. Would this undermine Clarksonism? We only have to think of what the roads are like during peak periods. Most weekday mornings UK roads are congested with rush hour traffic to the extent that motorists are constrained in their ability to drive beyond the speed limit yet serious accidents still occur. Again this simply adds weight to the anti-camera lobby that speed isn’t the big issue it’s made out to be. But our ‘haste’ camera would contradict their logic. These cameras would be flashing incessantly capturing ‘speeding’ motorist up and down the country and this is what the university’s authors found. Their time of day analysis found peak times for accident involvement as cars are being driven within the speed limits but in an impatient or distracted manner. You only have to think of the school run to get an idea of what the report’s authors mean. By rushing to meet a deadline the driver rushes, makes flawed decisions within the speed limit of the road they are travelling and causes an accident.
Instead it’s our concept of speed which has been shown to have numerous shortcomings when trying to uncover causation and maybe this is no accident. For perhaps the reason we don’t see ‘hurried’ behaviour as instrumental in out blameworthiness is because of the very word accident. Numerous calamities are mitigated by the term accident. But when we scrutinise road collisions are they in fact accidents? A parked car is no danger to anyone, but in the same way an empty gun is transformed by the bullet so does the car when the driver turns on the ignition. Nevertheless, such transformations are harmless in themselves as armed police patrol our streets without shooting everyone in sight. Yet as the Mendez case illustrates things can so easily go wrong. Immerse the combination of the respectable copper and his loaded gun in a fluid situation and disaster is an inevitable consequence. Yet is it appropriate in such circumstances to describe such an outcome as an accident? In the same way when a respectable citizen routinely gets behind the wheel of their car to drive to work there is no issue. But if one morning they find themselves later than expected, and the only thing that halts their ‘rushing’ at 30 mph past the local school is a child coming from behind a parked car. Is that an accident? It wasn’t deliberate, but was the outcome preventable? If it was then like the Mendez case, it was no accident, for to be a true accident something must be unforeseen.
Part of the problem then is the use of the term accident to describe a motoring offence. The word accident acts as a mitigating mechanism as if something can happen without a preventable cause. And so describing a child splattered across the road after being hit by a car travelling at a speed likely to cause serious injury as an accident is the root of the whole problem. The word accident prises the culprit – the driver – away from any notion of culpable calculation. This context has the effect of dissolving, no abdicating any social stigma when a motorist kills someone while driving their car. This is surely what underpins the anti-camera lobby, they want to abdicate causal responsibility. It’s never the Clarksonists fault, it slippery roads, inattentive children, motorists driving too slow, it’s always someone else’s fault. Well modify cameras to measure all forms of ‘speeding’ and install them everywhere until they day comes that people accept responsibility for the inevitable outcomes.
After that serious piece a lighted hearted look at accident…..
[1] http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/accidents/casualtiesmr/rcgbmainresults2006
[2] http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/accidents/casualtiesmr/rcgbmainresults2006
[4] http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmtran/975/975.pdf
[5] http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/accidents/casualtiesmr/rcgbmainresults2006
[6] http://www.orsa.org.uk/guidance/pdfs/indepth_study_work_related_road_accidents.pdf
January 16, 2009 at 5:42 am |
Very huge work you’ve done… Inattention: 25.8% – this impressed much…