An investigation by the RAC has found that on average deaths and serious injuries were down by a quarter in sites where speed cameras were located.
An investigation by the RAC has found that on average deaths and serious injuries were down by a quarter in sites where speed cameras were located.
Analysis of data from 551 fixed speed cameras in nine areas found that on average the number of fatal and serious collisions in the vicinity fell by 27 per cent after the installation of cameras.
There was also an average reduction of 15 per cent in personal injury collisions in the vicinity of the 551 cameras.
The research also found, however, that in 21 camera sites the number of collisions appears to have risen – risen enough, according to the RAC, to warrant an investigation in case the installation of cameras has contributed to the increases.
In sum, then, in an analysis of 551 camera sites, the average number of serious collisions decreased by a quarter. In just 21 sites (four per cent of the total), collisions went up, whether because of the installation of speed cameras or not – we don’t yet know
How would any responsible, let alone honest, person interpret such data, then? Would they, as the director of the RAC has done, conclude that “without speed cameras there would be around 800 more people killed or seriously injured each year“?
Or would they instead single out the four per cent of camera sites where accidents did go up and make that the story – ignoring the 800 lives saved across the other 96 per cent of camera sites?
Here’s how today’s Daily Mail interpreted the RAC data.
What an absolute disgrace.
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15 Responses to “Speed cameras save 800 lives a year. The Daily Mail still doesn’t care”
LB
The NHS kills 40,000 plus a year, and Labour doesn’t care.
Gareth Millward
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=deaths-from-avoidable-medical-error-2009-08-10
Around the same (proportionately) as a private system. The problem is poor management and low standards, not whether or not the evil, nasty, communist state is involved.
LB
Much less than the US.
US has 225 million people in their health set up, and that causes 75,000 avoidable deaths.
UK has 63 million with 40,000 avoidable deaths.
That’s if you want to treat it as some sort of Jeu sans Frontier game as to who can kill most.
Still Labour doesn’t care. It will winge about the road deaths but keep quite about the slaughter in the NHS.
The telling figure is UCH in London compared to Birmingham. The death rate in Birmingham is 500% of UCH.
That shows the scale of the deaths. All avoidable.
Hence Stafford, where NHS campaigners are more keen on hounding a whistle blower out of town, and descecrating her mother’s grave.
Labour? Not a peep.
Julian
“How would any responsible, let alone honest, person interpret such data, then?”
Perhaps they would take into account the well known effect of regression to the mean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean) and not attribute the reduction solely to the cameras.
Gareth Millward
That report said 200,000. But, hey, take the lower figure from the earlier report to push your own agenda, by all means.
Those people hounding the whistleblowers are scum. But don’t pretend you want to help other people. You just want your tax bill lowered.