Shutterspeed
Now, normally I'm not one to defend speed cameras. In fact, I will usually point out to you that their introduction stopped a steady decrease in road deaths. But, I also cannot abide stupid reporting and conclusions.
Today the anti-speed camera brigade were cheering because last year the number of road fatalities went up, despite the number of speed cameras increasing.
Wanna know the figures? Ok. 2005 - 2913. 2006 - 2920.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a whopping increase of 7. Or, to put it another way, an increase of 0.24%.
This is hardly proof (or even statistically significant), and they are damaging their campaign by crowing about it, because they are showing themselves to have no grasp of mathematics at all.
The newspaper didn't actually specify whether this figure was the number of crashes in which a fatality occured, or whether it was the number of people killed in fatal smashes. If it was the latter, there could actually have been less crashes, but simply with more fatalities in each. If the former, there where obviously more crashes, but we don't know how many people actually died - it could have been less than 2005.
Either way, it doesn't actually prove anything.
But still, the fact remains that road deaths were decreasing until the introduction of speed cameras. I've never understood how driving whilst paying more attention to the needle on your dashboard is safer than paying attention to the road. The worst are the SPECS cameras that record your average speed over a distance. Cleverly, they often use these in roadworks. So, not only are you having to constantly look at your speed to check you don't accidentally slip over the temporary limit, but you are doing this is a part of the road where the lanes are half the width and you are about a foot away from the other cars, all of whom are also looking mainly at their speedometers.
On that basis, it's a miracle it only went up by such a small amount.
Today the anti-speed camera brigade were cheering because last year the number of road fatalities went up, despite the number of speed cameras increasing.
Wanna know the figures? Ok. 2005 - 2913. 2006 - 2920.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a whopping increase of 7. Or, to put it another way, an increase of 0.24%.
This is hardly proof (or even statistically significant), and they are damaging their campaign by crowing about it, because they are showing themselves to have no grasp of mathematics at all.
The newspaper didn't actually specify whether this figure was the number of crashes in which a fatality occured, or whether it was the number of people killed in fatal smashes. If it was the latter, there could actually have been less crashes, but simply with more fatalities in each. If the former, there where obviously more crashes, but we don't know how many people actually died - it could have been less than 2005.
Either way, it doesn't actually prove anything.
But still, the fact remains that road deaths were decreasing until the introduction of speed cameras. I've never understood how driving whilst paying more attention to the needle on your dashboard is safer than paying attention to the road. The worst are the SPECS cameras that record your average speed over a distance. Cleverly, they often use these in roadworks. So, not only are you having to constantly look at your speed to check you don't accidentally slip over the temporary limit, but you are doing this is a part of the road where the lanes are half the width and you are about a foot away from the other cars, all of whom are also looking mainly at their speedometers.
On that basis, it's a miracle it only went up by such a small amount.
posted by Nej at
4:04 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home