Speed Awareness
Consider the following statements and suggest how the reasoning could be challenged:
1. Fact: One in three road deaths are speed-related.
2. It is true that many Premiership footballers have successfully had their speeding convictions quashed by hiring good lawyers but that's not unfair because anyone can hire a lawyer, so this is a choice that is available to everyone.
3. It cannot be said that speed cameras are a money making scam because the revenue that they generate is invested in speeding-related initiatives, such as the recent TV advertisements.
4. Cars are more dangerous than aeroplanes because you have much more chance of being killed in a car than a plane.
5. Motorways are much safer than other roads because only 3% of road deaths occur on motorways.
6. The following figures "prove beyond doubt" that speed cameras do not save lives (according to the Association of British Drivers):
7. It is clear that speed cameras do not work because road deaths dropped more in a single year from 1992 to 1993 than they did from the whole of 1993 to 2002.
8. It is clear that speed cameras do not work because Britain is the slowest improving country in Europe, in terms of road fatalities.
9. It is true that pedestrians are much more likely to die as impact speed increases from about 20mph to 40mph. But in the real world the proportion of pedestrians dying in injury accidents with motor vehicles points to an average impact speed of just 11mph (At 40mph 90% die, at 30mph 50% die, at 20mph 10% die, but in the real world, in 30mph AND 40mph speed limits just 1.5% of pedestrians injured die).
10. Despite what the safety campaigners might say, the most common cause of road accidents is driver inattention rather than excessive speed. The "safety culture" of speed cameras and safety features in cars, lead to reduced driver attention because drivers become complacent, having been lulled into a false sense of security. Consequently, speed cameras might lead to more inattentive drivers. An attentive speeding driver might actually be less dangerous than a slow but inattentive driver. Therefore, the authorities should focus on driver inattention instead of persecuting speeding motorists.
11. Speed cameras are only placed in locations where someone has died or suffered a life-changing injury. Placing a camera in such a location results in a 40% fall in people being killed or seriously injured.
1. What is meant by "speed-related"? Are these cases where excessive speed was found to be the only cause of the death, or the main cause or are we simply counting every death where the driver was deemed to be driving too fast? Although the official line is that "one in three" (i.e. 33.3%) of road deaths are "speed-related", other sources put the figure at 7.5% or even lower. Most people agree that excessive speed is a contributory factor in many fatal accidents but there are clearly other common causes such as driver inattention, pulling out without looking, looking but not seeing, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, mobile phones, not keeping a safe distance, etc. Another interesting question to ask is how road crash investigators can tell whether or not the driver was speeding in cases where there are no neutral eye-witnesses and where tyre tracks cannot be measured.
2. Such lawyers are usually very expensive and are not a realistic option for people on average incomes.
3. This simply means that road safety initiatives such as TV advertisements are funded by fine income. If money were not raised by fines, presumably such initiatives would have to be funded from other sources. Therefore, it could be concluded that speed cameras are economically beneficial to the treasury.
4. Most people spend much more time in a car than in a plane. A more useful statistic would be the chance of being killed per hour on a plane journey compared to a car journey.
5. Motorways are probably safer than other roads because, thanks to the central reservation, there is much less chance of a head-on collision and because of the absence of pedestrians. However, it does not automatically follow that motorways are safer, since most car journeys do not involve the use of a motorway. Again, we would need to look at the per-hour figure to get a true impression of relative safety.
6. These figures do not prove that speed cameras save lives, nor are they proof that speed cameras have not saved lives. This is a fallacy of correlation and causation. There may have been (and probably were) other factors influencing the number of road deaths.
7. Thankfully, there has been a significant long-term decline in the number of fatal road accidents from a peak in the 1930s. There are many causes of this decline such as safety features in cars, safer road layout, more rigorous driving tests, drink driving legislation and enforcement and, arguably, speed limits and speed enforcement. It is true that the statistics would seem to suggest that, after the introduction of speed cameras, the annual figure has stopped falling at the previous rate. However, it cannot be automatically be concluded that speed cameras have caused this change and it is even possible that the number of road deaths would have been higher were it not for the cameras. It is also worth noting that, after a long period of rapid decline (or increase) a slowing or a stabilisation of the trend would be expected.
8. Britain may be the slowest improving country because it already has the best figures. If a country has a very high number of road deaths, it is easier for that country to make a significant improvement than a country that has a relatively low number.
9. The average impact speed in a fatal accident is probably less than the speed the driver was doing when he first noticed the danger, since drivers will usually brake when they notice a pedestrian. The problem is, consequently, their stopping distance which is further for a faster driver. Thus, a 30MPH driver may impact at 11MPH where a 20MPH driver could impact at a lower speed or may stop with no impact. Thus, the author has not successfully addressed the main point, which is that increased speed increases the likelihood of killing pedestrians who suddenly appear in the road.
10. There is a restriction of the options here, since what the safety campaigners really want is drivers who are attentive while driving at low speeds. It may be true that faster drivers concentrate more but, to successfully make his point, the author needs to show that the increased attention of the faster drivers compensates for their greater stopping distances.
11. The term "life-changing injury" can mean anything from paralysis to concussion or a broken arm. The 40% fall has been challenged by some critics using the statistical phenomenon known as "regression to mean". Any extreme in one year will probably be less extreme the following year. Thus, if there is an unusually high number of accidents in a particular location in a period of time, we would expect the number of accidents to fall significantly in the period that follows, whether or not a camera is installed.
Association of British Drivers