OT: Paul Smith down

"Dan Holdsworth" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Paul Smith did this, at one remove, by compelling the Ministery of
Transport to tell him what the accident rates were in different sorts of
motorway roadworks (the Ministry had quietly done the statistics already
by themselves, and said nothing about it).

It turns out that there is a statistically provable difference between
roadworks with Gatso units in, those with SPECS units in, those with no
cameras in and those which were more actively police patrolled.

Of the different types, as compared to no enforcement as a baseline, the
Gatso increases accidents markedly, the SPECS increases accidents
slightly, and the police patrols decrease accidents markedly.

If Paul hadn't asked, we wouldn't know this now.

Fascinating data, can you point to your source?

"Speed cameras are a good thing because common sense says the must force
drivers to slow down"

has the same logical ring to it as:

"Cycle helmets are a good thing because common sense they must give some
protection"

pk

Dan Holdsworth said:

On Sat, 15 Dec 2007 19:28:54 -0000, Adam Lea
<[email hidden]>

was popularly supposed to have said:

Unfortunatly, there will be someone equally nasty and dangerous to take his
place (assuming he was nasty and dangerous).

All he did was to point out the actual figures for road deaths as
opposed to the hype which the Government had been touting up to that
time.

He also pointed out that no study had been performed to test the degree
to which the regression to the mean phenomenon (that is to say, the
tendency for rare events not to recur in specific areas for a long time)
was affecting the spread of traffic casualties.

To summarise, the Government stance was that if a few accidents occurred
on a stretch of road, then a speed camera installation would cure the
problem.

The problem is, road accidents don't happen very often, and two or three
happening on one stretch of road in six months may be just a
coincidence; pure freak chance, nothing more, and you could then go for
several years without another accident.

So, at that juncture you don't know if any treatment you're applying is
doing anything to help or hinder the problem or if it is doing
absolutely nothing.

The only way you can sort this out is to take candidate sections of road
which meet the criteria for speed cameras, and randomly (flip a coin)
put cameras on some, and no cameras on others. You need to do this a lot
of times, and you need to monitor for a couple of years or so to see if
there's any statistical difference between the two groups of sites.

Paul Smith did this, at one remove, by compelling the Ministery of
Transport to tell him what the accident rates were in different sorts of
motorway roadworks (the Ministry had quietly done the statistics already
by themselves, and said nothing about it).

It turns out that there is a statistically provable difference between
roadworks with Gatso units in, those with SPECS units in, those with no
cameras in and those which were more actively police patrolled.

Of the different types, as compared to no enforcement as a baseline, the
Gatso increases accidents markedly, the SPECS increases accidents
slightly, and the police patrols decrease accidents markedly.

If Paul hadn't asked, we wouldn't know this now.

Do we know this? Has anyone apart from you or Paul proved a causal effect?

Quoted message said:

To date, no statistical comparison of speedcam to no-speedcam sites has
been undertaken, although the two police areas (Durham and North Yorks)
which don't use many fixed cameras are not reporting hugely increased or
decreased road accident rates, which suggests that speed cameras do not
actually do very much at all.

This is a misrepresentation of reality worthy of Paul himself.

The effectiveness of cameras is cannot be measured soley in terms of
accident rates. It is similar to stating that a helmet law is a success
because it lowers total accident rates purely because it reduces the
number of cyclists.

Nick said:

The effectiveness of cameras is cannot be measured soley in terms of
accident rates.

What measures would you suggest appropriate for determining the
effectiveness of "safety" cameras?

--
Matt B

In news:[email hidden],
Tom Jeffs <[email hidden]> tweaked the Babbage-Engine to
tell us:

Quoted message said:

My sincere condolences Spindrift. Paul Smith's death will no doubt
leave you without a purpose in life. No longer will you be able to
spout such vitriolic nonsense and hateful abuse over a man whose
passion was to improve road safety for all.

Not while Jeremy Clarkson is still alive :-(

--
Dave Larrington
<http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk>
Ernesto, give me that Kit-Kat, or I will kill you.

Matt B said:

Nick said:

The effectiveness of cameras is cannot be measured soley in terms of
accident rates.

What measures would you suggest appropriate for determining the
effectiveness of "safety" cameras?

This depends on the circumstances. However an obvious goal of road
safety should be to encourage more pedestrian usage such as children
walking to school.

If reducing traffic accidents is your sole aim it would be sensible to
discourage children going anywhere near the road, discourage cycling
etc. Or of course you could go the other way and ban all cars.

The trouble with overly simplistic targets and measures is that people
seem to lose track of the bigger picture.

Nick said:

Matt B said:

Nick said:

The effectiveness of cameras is cannot be measured soley in terms of
accident rates.

What measures would you suggest appropriate for determining the
effectiveness of "safety" cameras?

This depends on the circumstances.

The honest measure would be against the benefits that were asserted
would accrue from their use in the CBA used to justify their deployment.

Quoted message said:

However an obvious goal of road
safety should be to encourage more pedestrian usage such as children
walking to school.

In terms of road safety goals, I /almost/ agree with you. I would just
substitute the words "encourage more" with "remove one of the
disincentives for".

Quoted message said:

If reducing traffic accidents is your sole aim it would be sensible to
discourage children going anywhere near the road, discourage cycling
etc.

Yes. The aim should be to remove the fear of using the community
spaces, and to allow all users to share the spaces on an equal basis.

Quoted message said:

Or of course you could go the other way and ban all cars.

The trouble with overly simplistic targets and measures is that people
seem to lose track of the bigger picture.

That is also one of the symptoms of promoting the use of inappropriate
measures on the back of misrepresented statistics, and with false
promises (such as has happened with speed cameras). It leads to the
setting of unrealistic expectations, which cannot possibly be delivered.
This then leads to the original objective being forgotten, in the
desperate face-saving activities that follow. As is often (usually?)
the case with politically-based (rather than evidence-based) measures,
they then become subject to "scope creep", as politicians desperately
seek to find some quantifiable benefit which has resulted, or which
could result, or which at least could be claimed to have resulted from,
the failed scheme.

--
Matt B

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 01:35:43 -0000, PK
<[email hidden]>

was popularly supposed to have said:

"Speed cameras are a good thing because common sense says the must force
drivers to slow down"

has the same logical ring to it as:

"Cycle helmets are a good thing because common sense they must give some
protection"

The real problem here is the assumption that excessive speed is the main
cause of road traffic accidents, followed by the secondary assumption
that speed cameras are a good way of stopping people speeding.

People other than Paul have managed to get the Ministry of Transport to
admit that its own statistics demonstrate that excessive speed is the
principal cause of only around 10% of accidents at the outside; driver
inattention and failure to see things is the real cause.

So, if a speed control scheme is 100% effective and doesn't cause other
problems its self (fitting limiters to cars tends to result in people
"riding the limiter", which also causes accidents through bunching
behaviour), then you reduce accidents by 10%.

What about the other 90%?

How's about leaving all the rhetoric, all the name-calling about Mr
Smith aside, and actually thinking how to make roads safer?

Speed cameras do make roads safer, but only where people need to be
forced to obey the law at a set point such as outside a school; they do
not magically improve safety over large areas, and they are no
substitute for police patrols.

--
Dan Holdsworth PhD [email hidden]
By caffeine alone I set my mind in motion, By the beans of Java
do thoughts acquire speed, hands acquire shaking, the shaking
becomes a warning, By caffeine alone do I set my mind in motion

Quoted message said:

Speed cameras do make roads safer, but only where people need to be
forced to obey the law at a set point such as outside a school; they do
not magically improve safety over large areas, and they are no
substitute for police patrols.

You're preaching to the converted. I think the main difference between the
views of PS and the group is that most of URC were happy to have the
cameras and speed limits in addition to the extra policing and driver
education/training that is desperately needed. PS seemed to want extra
policing and driver education *instead of* the cameras and speed limits.

Mark T said:

Quoted message said:

Speed cameras do make roads safer, but only where people need to be
forced to obey the law at a set point such as outside a school; they do
not magically improve safety over large areas, and they are no
substitute for police patrols.

You're preaching to the converted.

I don't see any evidence of that. Most here still seem to cling to the
notion that the establishment's obsession with speed cameras has not
resulted in the roads now being more dangerous than they would otherwise
have been.

--
Matt B

cupra said:

David Damerell said:

Quoting cupra <[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

burtthebike wrote:
I am questioning the need to post his address and cause distress to
his partner and family who have lost a loved one.

If that causes them distress they should query why their loved one's
favourite technique causes them distress.

So it's acceptable to drop down to that level then? That's what I'm talking
about.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> Please feel free to disagree, but if I was you, I wouldn't bother on
> this forum.
Are you the spokesman then?

He certainly is saying what I would have said.

OK, straw poll then - who on urc agrees that it's accptable to cause
distress to relatives of the recently deceased, regardless of the views of
said deceased?

Bad question.

The views of the deceased must of course be taken into account.

Quoting Tom Jeffs <[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

My sincere condolences Spindrift. Paul Smith's death will no doubt leave
you without a purpose in life. No longer will you be able to spout such
vitriolic nonsense and hateful abuse over a man whose passion was to improve
road safety for all.

Sure it was - that's why it turned out, ever so conveniently, that road
safety could be improved for all by letting Mr Toad drive as fast as he
liked.
--
David Damerell <[email hidden]> flcl?
Today is Friday, December.

David Damerell said:

Quoting Tom Jeffs <[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

My sincere condolences Spindrift. Paul Smith's death will no doubt leave
you without a purpose in life. No longer will you be able to spout such
vitriolic nonsense and hateful abuse over a man whose passion was to improve
road safety for all.

Sure it was - that's why it turned out, ever so conveniently, that road
safety could be improved for all by letting Mr Toad drive as fast as he
liked.

You'd rather condemn us all to suffer dangerous, self-righteous,
automatons, driving at 10% plus 2 mph above the limit, content and
complacent that they are doing all that is legally required of them in
terms of their obligations to other road users, than allow the odd safe
driver to drift slightly above the limit in certain extenuating
circumstances?

--
Matt B

_ said:

cupra said:

David Damerell said:

Quoting cupra <[email hidden]>:
> burtthebike wrote:
> I am questioning the need to post his address and cause distress to
> his partner and family who have lost a loved one.

If that causes them distress they should query why their loved one's
favourite technique causes them distress.

So it's acceptable to drop down to that level then? That's what I'm
talking about.

Quoted message said:

>> Please feel free to disagree, but if I was you, I wouldn't bother
>> on this forum.
> Are you the spokesman then?

He certainly is saying what I would have said.

OK, straw poll then - who on urc agrees that it's accptable to cause
distress to relatives of the recently deceased, regardless of the
views of said deceased?

Bad question.

The views of the deceased must of course be taken into account.

Bad answer.

The feelings of the living must of course be taken into account.

Matt B said:

David Damerell wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Sure it was - that's why it turned out, ever so conveniently, that road
safety could be improved for all by letting Mr Toad drive as fast as he
liked.

You'd rather condemn us all to suffer dangerous, self-righteous,
automatons, driving at 10% plus 2 mph above the limit, content and
complacent that they are doing all that is legally required of them in
terms of their obligations to other road users, than allow the odd safe
driver to drift slightly above the limit in certain extenuating
circumstances?

10% +2 is not "slightly above the limit".

Luke

--
Red Rose Ramblings, the diary of an Essex boy in
exile in Lancashire <http://www.shrimper.org.uk>

Ekul Namsob said:

Matt B said:

David Damerell wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Sure it was - that's why it turned out, ever so conveniently, that road
safety could be improved for all by letting Mr Toad drive as fast as he
liked.

You'd rather condemn us all to suffer dangerous, self-righteous,
automatons, driving at 10% plus 2 mph above the limit, content and
complacent that they are doing all that is legally required of them in
terms of their obligations to other road users, than allow the odd safe
driver to drift slightly above the limit in certain extenuating
circumstances?

10% +2 is not "slightly above the limit".

Precisely, yet accepted by our "speed camera" rooted safety policy. Who
said speed limits have any bearing on what is a safe speed to drive at?
I'd rather allow a safe conscientious driver to drift slightly above
the limit any day, than accept the systematic mass 10% + 2 automatons
that we condone, even encourage, /even/ promote as *safe*, today.

--
Matt B

cupra said:

_ said:

cupra said:

David Damerell wrote:
> Quoting cupra <[email hidden]>:
>> burtthebike wrote:
>> I am questioning the need to post his address and cause distress to
>> his partner and family who have lost a loved one.
>
> If that causes them distress they should query why their loved one's
> favourite technique causes them distress.

So it's acceptable to drop down to that level then? That's what I'm
talking about.

>
>>> Please feel free to disagree, but if I was you, I wouldn't bother
>>> on this forum.
>> Are you the spokesman then?
>
> He certainly is saying what I would have said.

OK, straw poll then - who on urc agrees that it's accptable to cause
distress to relatives of the recently deceased, regardless of the
views of said deceased?

Bad question.

The views of the deceased must of course be taken into account.

Bad answer.

The feelings of the living must of course be taken into account.

True enough - and if they match the views of the deceased (as is claimed)
then they should make no difference.

"Matt B" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

You'd rather condemn us all to suffer dangerous, self-righteous,
automatons, driving at 10% plus 2 mph above the limit, content and
complacent that they are doing all that is legally required of them in
terms of their obligations to other road users, than allow the odd safe
driver to drift slightly above the limit in certain extenuating
circumstances?

Why do people only ever offer two permutations in their argument?

Quoted message said:

Why do people only ever offer two permutations in their argument?

'Cos they're trolls.

_ said:

cupra said:

_ said:

On Sat, 15 Dec 2007 11:41:48 -0000, cupra wrote:

> David Damerell wrote:
>> Quoting cupra <[email hidden]>:
>>> burtthebike wrote:
>>> I am questioning the need to post his address and cause distress
>>> to his partner and family who have lost a loved one.
>>
>> If that causes them distress they should query why their loved
>> one's favourite technique causes them distress.
>
> So it's acceptable to drop down to that level then? That's what I'm
> talking about.
>
>>
>>>> Please feel free to disagree, but if I was you, I wouldn't
>>>> bother on this forum.
>>> Are you the spokesman then?
>>
>> He certainly is saying what I would have said.
>
> OK, straw poll then - who on urc agrees that it's accptable to
> cause distress to relatives of the recently deceased, regardless
> of the views of said deceased?

Bad question.

The views of the deceased must of course be taken into account.

Bad answer.

The feelings of the living must of course be taken into account.

True enough - and if they match the views of the deceased (as is
claimed) then they should make no difference.

'As is claimed' - not good enough until public statements are made.

"Mark T" wrote in message

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Why do people only ever offer two permutations in their argument?

'Cos they're trolls.

Quite. I doubt he will provide a plausible answer.