Road Safety

I mused here:
http://darrylbeckford.blogspot.com/2008/12/professional-reporting.html
on the standard of some of the reporting today and this was leading me into a rant about road safety. It occurred to me that I should really do it justice on another day.

So here I am...back to the point about the Cat and Fiddle.

Most specifically it's not the speed the bikes travel that's the big issue, it's the contravention of the white lines on the road which are there to make clear when it is and isn't safe to overtake.

We have a major problem now in that 90% of road safety work is targeted towards speed. This isn't because it's the most effective way to save lives, it's because it allows the council to do something *visible*. I asked one of our road safety officers the other day what we were doing as well as speed / drink driving - and he was a bit lost for words.

This is what has lead to thousands of speed cameras and less police on the roads. It's what means you'll get away with "active" offenses like tailgating, driving aggressively and recklessly overtaking - but you'll get a ticket for not fixating your eyes on your speedo and accidentally drifting up to 34mph.

There's this myth that x% of accidents are caused by speed. The actual statistic is that x% have speed as a contributing factor. Quite obviously, if you'd not been moving you couldn't have crashed into anyone - so you can tick that box on nearly every accident report form.

We need to look at the real factors for these accidents and focus on them - because that is the how we will save more lives on the road in the most effective manner.

I say 90% is focused on speed, because the county is finally starting to focus elsewhere. An excellent leaflet was produced about the A41 detailing the causes of crashes in different places as one of the "red route" initiatives. Reasons listed were:

* Right turn collisions
* Poor driver perception
* Lack of hazard awareness
* Driver impatience
* Poor lane discipline
* Misjudgment of gaps
* Rear end collisions
* Poor use of mirrors
* Following too close
* Amber gambling (nice phrase)

There is not one mention of speed.

I can't think of many skills you use on a professional basis that don't need you to be re-assess or topped up at any point. On this basis, it seems remarkable that you can take a driving test when you 17 and then happily drive like a fool for the rest of your life safe in the knowledge that there's never a copper around to pull you over.

We need to seriously consider life long learning for drivers, combined with thorough assessment of judgment / hazard awareness. Having to take a driving test every 5 years might seem like a faff, but it's a much more rounded way of reducing fatalities on the road than having us all drive round at 5 mph.