DEADLY ROADS!!! as crap happens

So Woody,
that’s a no?
You don’t have the research for the ACT?

Look,
as I said before, the speed cameras obviously make a big difference when properly sited in dangerous locations. Mobile cameras are better because they can cause deterrence even when they’re not operating in that exact area as shown in the Queensland study.

My point is, if they are so effective in the ACT, why hasn’t the ACT government paid for a study to prove as much or released the ones they have paid for. I’ve seen one report here:

http://www.monash.edu.au/cemo/roadsafety/abstracts_and_papers/081/edgara11.pdf

but it only looks at the 18months after implementation through to 2001. The paper suggests that the study should be continued to cover at least three years after implementation.

And fig 2 in this report shows the ACT deaths/100000 people:
http://www.tams.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/161338/Strategy_2007-2010_and_Action_Plan_2007-2008.pdf

Take one graduate, the crash statistics, a GIS system and they should be able to produce a report in a few months. Or if they have done the report, release it (or make it more accessible to the public) so everyone can see the difference.

Because as it stands now, there is a lot of cynicism in the community every time Stanhope announces another speed camera initiative.

“When politicians manipulate figures to justify their cause”

They’d never do that, would they?

Judging from comments @#31-33, it is unlikely that research would find that “common sense” chews his or her finger nails…

You know what? I figured it out, Woody is ranting and raving about speed camera’s working, others are saying they may work, but not the way the ACT Government has implemented them, others are saying they just don’t work.

They should do a study, on the north side of Canberra have every single road with a speed camera on it, at least 1 km apart. In the south side have no speed camera’s. If there are no fatalities on the north side, but some on the south side, we have an answer, if there are some one the north side we get another answer.

I’m gonna go with the whole, an accident is a random thing that occurs at random places at random times. There are hundreds of different factors that cause accidents and fatalities- yes speed camera’s may stop one of the factors, but they do not stop them all.

I understand where Woody is coming from, because he can read a website, it makes him feel akin to the boffins that write the report. This makes him feel as though he is superior to others. As he feels superior he attempts to force his opinions onto other’s while not listening to their opinions. If he did in fact attempt to understand others opinions, and not start attacking them in a personal manner it would show that he wasn’t ignorant, which of course is not going to happen.

But I am able to say –
a) Speed camera’s do reduce accidents and fatalities at sites where they are;
b) The ACT Government has not placed Speed Camera’s in areas where these sites exist;
c) You can never precisely gauge how well a Speed Camera works (A site is selected because it is apparently unsafe, if you don’t put a camera there and people die just to see if it does work, well that’s just plan bad);
d) Accidents are random events that can not be predicted;
e) The ACT is to small of a jurisdiction for the yearly road toll to make any real difference (if it gets above 40 then maybe it’s a time to start thinking about some new ideas);
f) The only way to stop fatalities is to stop people driving;
g) The only way to reduce accidents is to reduce the amount of cars on the road.

In conclusion, accidents happen, they will continue to happen and they will remain around the same number they are now. There is always going to be a street where someone is speeding, someone is not paying attention, there is black ice on the road, someone is unfamiliar with the road, someone is drunk, someone is high etc.

Be happy, live life and don’t drive like a tool.

You’ve come up with very little substance in your posts

Apart from all those inconvenient studies and their statistics? I guess bolding them wasn’t enough for some.

When politicians manipulate figures to justify their cause

Do they use neuro linguistic programming? Or do you think it’s the flouride? When you walk down the cereal aisle do you think that toucan is mocking you?

You say Buzz819 is wrong.

No – I asked buzz819 a question. I said I should have bolded it, and you’ve confirmed that, because you seem to have missed it as well. I’d ask if you want to answer as well, though as I recall I asked you the exact same question in a previous thread and you ran. Maybe if I could mark it up in Comic Sans, then trace it with crayon…

I love watching everyone bait the Wood.

I love how whenever I post links to actual evidence the best anybody can ever do is try to make it all about me. It’d be sad if it wasn’t so pathetic. Oh wait – it can be both. My bad.

To Woody Mann-Caruso

“What was not reported was the number of vehicles passing the camera in that period.”

It was not reported. I don’t know how many vehicles passed the camera and most likely neither do you. Any reasonable guess at the numbers of vehicles passing must exceed 100,000 given the fact that Barry Drive is an arterial road. That is 3.31 vehicles per minute which would have to be a gross underestimate at some times of day, probably an overestimate between say 11pm and 5am.

This guesstimate gives us about 1.5% of the vehicles exceeding posted limits.

A crude count of speeders places the vehicle travelling at less than 5kph over the posted limit in the same bucket as those travelling at 5kph or far more over the limit. Now while I agree that exceeding speed limits is illegal, I am asking whether exceeding them by less than 5 kph poses as much danger as exceeding tham by 10 or 20 kph. Yes, the laws of physics do apply.

Observations and research recorded in several places around the world at several times which can be found at the Association of British Drivers site (which I will admit is anti-speed camera) and elsewhere shows that the vast majority of traffic travels at about the same speed, give or take a few kph. This is generally near posted limits, as far as my experience shows.

http://www.abd.org.uk/

I surmise from this that the majority of traffic was travelling less than 5kph above the posted limit. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, and there was none available in Canberra Times article to which I referred, I feel that that is a reasonable estimate.

In other words, a large minority of the 1450 speeders detected, perhaps even a majority were probably travelling at less than 5kph over posted limits.

The fact remains that the general public of the ACT was not informed of any breakdown of the data gathered. This I regarded as suspicious and still do.

I will put my hand up and confess to running red lights quite deliberately. On the four or five times I have done this, it was either after 11pm or just before 6am and there was no traffic on the cross roads. That entailed slowing to a halt or near halt and looking either way. On seeing nothing, I proceeded without regard to the signal. Now if I have done it, just perhaps some others have done it too under similar conditions.

Three weeks is 21 days. Presuming the detector was operating at night when there was very little traffic on the roads, it would have detected such an action. If that happened once per night in the three weeks, then 21 of the approximately 45 red light runners would have done so without actual risk. If it happened twice per night, then the number of “unsafe” red light runners was around four of the 45. Any number of drivers from zero to 45 might have run the red light without actual risk.

The fact that any such information was not readily available I regarded as suspicious and still do.

Further to this, it is not as if there were no speeding detectors operating before the introduction of fixed cameras. I seem to recall police operating grey boxes on tripods in the 1960s and hand held “guns” in the 1970s and later. Drivers have been aware of the possible presence of these things at any place on any road at any time since they appeared 45 or more years ago.

My point is that on the material presented in the CT article at the time there was no justification in introducing these devices.

Now it is true from the that the presence of fixed speed cameras in certain locations has reduced crash frequency, injuries and fatalities at those locations from the MUARC study. However this was not reflected in fatality rates for large jurisdictions as a whole. I base this on an article in “Policy” magazine for November 2005 and other material seen elsewhere since then.

In general, there has been a decline in road fatalities per billion passenger kilometres, per 10,000 or 100,000 registered vehicles or per head of population since about 1970, even since 1935 or 1936 if some reports I have seen are correct, such as that in “A Technical History of the Motor Car” (1989) by T.P. Newcombe and R.T. Spurr and a paragraph in the RACQ’s “Road Ahead” magazine some 25 years ago.

This decline was measurable in the United Kingdom and in Australia, including Queensland. According to the “Policy” article, the decline in the United Kingdom levelled off around the time speed cameras were introduced in the late 1980s. Now it may be true that the decline has resumed since then, but I have no information either way right at present. If the decline had followed its historical trend, then there was an expectation of many fewer fatalities five or six years after the introduction of the cameras in the UK, whether they had any effect or not. This did not happen; relative to expectations from the historical trend, fatalities increased. Either there was some unidentified factor causing an increase in fatalities and masking the effect of the cameras, the cameras had no effect, or they actually contributed to fatalities.

A further section of the Policy article pointed out that in Victoria which led New South Wales by about 18 months – 2 years in the introduction of fixed speed cameras, there was a decline in road fatalities which the Victorian government attributed to the cameras. However the same decline occurred in New South Wales at the same time, yet speed cameras had not then been introduced. It is possible that another factor was influential then, perhaps the economic downturn of the late 1980s. I also read that crashes, injuries and fatalities tend to decrease in drought years, according to insurance companies.

I confidently await further flames

Muttsybignuts said :

I love watching everyone bait the Wood. I like the fact that he rises to the occasion every single time

Getting the Wood to rise is definitely one of my more enjoyable pastimes.

Woody you lose credibility (if you started with any) when you attack the person rather than the person’s argument. You’ve come up with very little substance in your posts other than personal attacks.

When politicians manipulate figures to justify their cause I laugh because I think that everyone can see through them. Woody has just made me realise that their spin will work on some. I guess there are many gullible people in this world.

And that’s MY personal attack.

OK Woody, you carry on believing in the infallibility of focussed researchers and I’ll carry on believing that there’s a lot more to human behaviour than researchers in a different discipline can fully grasp.

Your single minded defence of the research, with ne’er the possibility that there may be other considerations, is reminiscent of a Catholic’s unshakeable belief in a book written 2000 years ago.

No Woody,
sometimes a question is just a question. It’s usually followed by a question mark. See?

Once again, I have no doubt that speed cameras have lowered the accident rate in the ACT.
How much though is questionable and unless you have the specific research then you’re just assuming. The Queensland study and figures are specific to the Queensland locations.

You say Buzz819 is wrong. Show with specific evidence to the ACT how?
A reference to crash statistics at the speed camera locations in the ACT would also be handy. Then we can all be as confident in their application as you.

georgesgenitals said :

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

‘Common sense’ sits in the corner and draws on the wall with its own faeces.

What does it draw?

Shit paintings I would imagine.

I love watching everyone bait the Wood. I like the fact that he rises to the occasion every single time and puts everyone down that isn’t him. Makes for a much more interesting RiotACT.

georgesgenitals said :

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

‘Common sense’ sits in the corner and draws on the wall with its own faeces.

What does it draw?

Unsupported conclusions, presumably.

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

‘Common sense’ sits in the corner and draws on the wall with its own faeces.

What does it draw?

I was simply asking a question.

No, you were trying to cast doubt on research using expertise you don’t possess. You can play the naive waif all you like. Your views on expert approaches to traffic management are well known, even if poorly substantiated.

Expecting the same results at sites with already lower accident rates would be being very optimistic.

There’s that ‘would’ word again. Would, could, should, gonna, I reckon – none of them are substitutes for actual research. That’s the thing about science. It doesn’t ‘expect’ anything, and it’s ‘optimistic’ about nothing. Data talks and walks. ‘Common sense’ sits in the corner and draws on the wall with its own faeces.

And you’ve shown that you can read an executive summary but not a report. Good for you.
I was simply asking a question. If you actually read my comment i was agreeing with the report.
I suppose reading what people write is still beyond you. Where did I try to “blow the research away”?
Reading the report they used 1992-1996 as the baseline data for the study.
My comment still stands, that by targetting the most dangerous locations they have reduced fatalities and accidents markedly at those sites.
Expecting the same results at sites with already lower accident rates would be being very optimistic.

troll-sniffer said :

Pschology at work. When you take away a community’s feeling of being responsible for their own actions (ever more stringent speed restrictions etc) a certain percentage toe the line and a certain percentage just as equally rebel. No amount of pointless draconian road laws, speed cameras, advertising campaigns etc is ever going to overcome this basic human behaviour.

Want an historic clue? In the 1700s you could be hung by the neck until dead or shipped off to the other side of the world for stealing a oaf of bread. Did the prospect of ever more fearsome punishments put a stop to these crimes? I rest my case.

It wasn’t lack of fear of punishment that drove people to stealing bread in the period of time you’re talking about, it was starvation.

That’s a world away from this strange talk of ‘community feeling of personal responsibility’.

I’ve never met anyone who regards speeding as a form of rebellion – and I live on the westside. The idea that ‘ever more stringent’ speed limits are driving a sector of the population to open rebellion is just … silly.

troll-sniffer said :

That’s what the boffins are good at.

…

they lack the lateral thinking required to bring their research into the real world

…

the perceived wisdom odf the academics

Ah, anti-intellectualism at work. Gotta love it: “These people specialise in individual fields and study particular factors over the course of their entire lives, utilising global networks of expertise and data. I’m going to disregard it all because they’re just f#cking smartasses”.

Also – the world is 6000 years old, the world is flat, and the sun revolves around the earth. All those “so-called academics” have no idea what they’re talking about.

There is also no mention of why the road toll was on a downward trend in the previous year(s) before implementation. Was there other measures being implemented at the time?

*gasp*

You’ve totally blown that research away, chewie14! I’m totally sure nobody at MUARC ever heard of regression analysis, knows how to use it, or bothered to apply it when making claims like ‘direct result’! Why, I bet all those high falutin’ numbers are just plain’ ol’ made up, dang-nabbit! They should’ve called a real expert to do the numbers, someone what dun know important stuff like plantin’ by the moon an’ such. There’s no shortage of ’em round these here parts.

(Found that yellow brick road yet?)

So many questions, buzz819! But you missed the obvious one. Perhaps I should have bolded it as well:

What makes you an expert? Or, if you prefer: What makes you more of an expert than the people at places like MUARC?

(Here’s a clue – you’re not. Not even close. Not even close to close, or sorta close, or close-ish. If there’s an antonym for ‘expert’, that’s you when it comes to road safety.)

What has come to light over the last twenty-odd years is the divide between the theory and the facts. it’s not hard to come up with an equally valid (and demonstrated) set of real world figures that directly counter the perceived wisdom odf the academics

Sorry – I’ll just clear some space for your real world figures and their accompanying facts. How foolish of me to rely on expert analysis of objective observations by qualified individuals, when I could have helped myself to your highly esteemed, selectively received folk wisdom all along! Academics! Pah! Common sense from the common man, that’s what we need! Please, put your more honest, homegrown facts and figures right here, so we can all see them. Yes, yes, it’s a tight squeeze, but perhaps you can find some room next to the overwhelming scientific consensus on germ theory, gravity and global warming.

How fortunate that we live in a world where ‘Y’know, I don’t really know, and I didn’t really hear, and I didn’t really see, and I’m not really sure, but, like, I so totally reckon’ isn’t generally considered a sufficiently high bar for the development of public policy.

Woody,
you’ll note that report into Queensland road fatalities covers the period of the start of implementation of speed cameras. 1997-2001. There is also no mention of why the road toll was on a downward trend in the previous year(s) before implementation. Was there other measures being implemented at the time?
Since then the Queensland road toll has steadied (although per km driven is going down slightly).
There is no doubt that speed cameras reduced fatalities in the areas where Queensland initially implemented them, but it may have been a case of catching the low hanging fruit.
Once the most dangerous locations have been targetted with speed cameras (which they have been) it is very hard to get a similar corresponding drop in accidents and fatalities in areas that already have low accident rates. ie new camera sites, covert cameras.

I support the use of speed cameras as a revenue raising measure. It is a good tax on stupidity, if they save a life or two all the better.

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

What was not reported … This would almost cetainly account for … Also not reported …

In other words, you don’t know and you don’t have any evidence but you imagine that there’s secret evidence somewhere that just happens to support your agenda. Right.

There is very little evidence from anywhere in the world that speed cameras have had any effect on road deaths.

Are you a liar, or just ignorant?

“The effectiveness of speed enforcement programs in Victoria has been the subject of a significant volume of research conducted by the Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC)…The MUARC research reviewed in this report includes evaluations of the effectiveness of a range of enforcement technologies including mobile speed cameras, hand-held laser speed detection devices, mobile radar speed detectors and fixed speed cameras…Speed cameras are effective in reducing casualty crash frequency…These devices are also effective in reducing crash severity.

But waaah that’s just Victoria and surely it’s different in other sta…oh, hang on:

“An evaluation undertaken by the Monash University Accident Research Centre has found that the speed camera program is estimated to produce a reduction in fatal crashes of around 45% in areas within two kilometres of speed camera sites. This subsequently translates to an annual saving of approximately 110 fatal road crashes, statewide. The Monash University Accident Research Centre’s findings suggest that from the same two kilometer radius from a speed camera site, there is an annual saving of 1100 hospitalisations, 2200 medical treatments, 500 other injury and 1600 non-injury road crashes as a direct result of the Queensland Speed Camera Program.

In terms of annual road trauma in Queensland, these savings represent a 32% reduction in fatal crashes, a 26% reduction in fatal and medical treatment crashes combined and a 1% reduction in all reported casualty crashes.“

Feel free to explain why you’re smarter or better informed than the nice experts at MUARC. Try not to slip into any ‘oh, but the ACT’s special, see, because the laws of physics are different here and special waves from Telstrayama affect our psychology and just because they work in almost every other jurisdiction in the Western world doesn’t mean theyy’ll work here’ – it just makes you look sillier.

Over the past few years I’ve taken a keen interest in where road fatalities are taking place. The general spikes in the trend and what not.

WMC if Speed Camera’s reduced fatalities by so much, (I personally don’t see how they can, maybe they are magic?), why is it that in 2006 there were 13 fatalities in the ACT, then in 2007 there was… 17! Wow that is an increase of nearly 25%, why do I bring up 2006 & 2007 you may ask? That’s when fixed speed camera’s were introduced.

So then I think, that’s not fair, maybe it takes 12 months for them to work, so 2008, 14 – Umm well it’s gone down from 2007 but it isn’t the 45% you were making a fuss about, last year was 12 there we go we’re getting somewhere, maybe these camera’s are working!

Damn I forgot, we have 5 months to go, we are averaging a fatality a fortnight at the moment and are already at 18… I don’t think your speed camera’s are working WMC… Or is it over like a 45 year period?

The other thing to consider might also be, if speed camera’s reduce the number of fatalities, why aren’t they placed where fatalities happen? How many crashes have there been on Kuringa Drive? Is there a speed camera there? How many fatalities have there been at the Cotter Road over pass? How many fatalities have there been at the intersection of Marcus Clarke and Barry Drive?

I’m not sure how many … I’m not sure what they did … I have noticed … I firmly believe

You’ll be pleased to know that there’s a name for your disorder. Apparently it’s not at all uncommon for people to think their amateur opinions, subjective observations and cognitive biases make them experts, so maybe you can all form a club. Just make sure you get a tradie to build your club house or you might forget the door and some windows.

No, just helping those with limited time, accommodating those with limited attention and making the findings really, really, easy to find for those who seem to think they don’t exist ‘anywhere in the world’.

Thanks for contributing though. You tried really hard. I know a special boy who gets a smiley stamp!

(:

Woody Mann-Caruso…

What has come to light over the last twenty-odd years is the divide between the theory and the facts. Of course the research has shown the technical reductions of death and injury in the study areas, the controlled trials and the campaigns. That’s what the boffins are good at. They excel at demonstrating direct links between speed, crashes, the road toll, and extrapolate the figures to show that continued campaigns MUST by definition have continuing effect.

Sadly, they lack the lateral thinking required to bring their research into the real world, where human psychology is a far more potent force than any legislated campaign.

If the bigger picture is studied and understood, it’s not hard to come up with an equally valid (and demonstrated) set of real world figures that directly counter the perceived wisdom odf the academics, other factors become increasingly evident.

Increased drowsiness amongst long distance drivers forced to drive at a pace unsuitable for the wide straight roads. Increased aggressiveness from drivers who rebel against the over-imposition of rules, many of them seemingly pointless or ill-judged. An increasing epidemic of the ‘Volvo effect’, drivers more complacent because they believe the traffic environment is safer. And so on.

A high percentage of the fatal accidents that I read about these days are caused by a driver outside any normal measure of the law. Late night pissheads, people taking their anger out on the roadways, and bogans out for a thrill are over-represented in the statistics. No amount of speed cameras and expensive campaigns will prevent these Darwinian candidates form their natural fates.

There are several reputable studies around that indicate that almost all the improvement in the road toll over the last twenty years can be explained by better crash protection in modern vehicles and the evolution of road design.

@ #16 that’s great Woody. I’m not sure how many speed cameras there are in Canberra but if it’s about 25 then that research shows that we have about 100km of safer roads in Canberra. I’m not sure what they did in Queensland but the introduction of speed cameras in Canberra coincided with a reduction of police patrols. So we have about 100kms of safer roads (although some speed camera placements are at locations with no history of serious crashes) and thousands of kilometres of unsafer roads due to the lack of other road rule enforcement. Do you get the picture?

I drive over 70,000 kms per year on Canberras streets and I have noticed that over the last 10 years the application of skills and driver attitudes have deteriorated significantly. I firmly believe this decline is as a result of the ACT Governments road safety policy and fixation with speed cameras and lack of enforcement of ALL other road rules. One off blitzes do nothing to encourage enforcement. A prolonged, low tolerence, 24hour, 7 days per week mobile police presence (marked and unmarked) is the answer to improving road safety. It will take about 5 years and will cost $ but that is what needs to be done to save lives in Canberra.

ooo bold letters make the point so much bolder

What was not reported … This would almost cetainly account for … Also not reported …

In other words, you don’t know and you don’t have any evidence but you imagine that there’s secret evidence somewhere that just happens to support your agenda. Right.

There is very little evidence from anywhere in the world that speed cameras have had any effect on road deaths.

Are you a liar, or just ignorant?

“The effectiveness of speed enforcement programs in Victoria has been the subject of a significant volume of research conducted by the Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC)…The MUARC research reviewed in this report includes evaluations of the effectiveness of a range of enforcement technologies including mobile speed cameras, hand-held laser speed detection devices, mobile radar speed detectors and fixed speed cameras…Speed cameras are effective in reducing casualty crash frequency…These devices are also effective in reducing crash severity.

But waaah that’s just Victoria and surely it’s different in other sta…oh, hang on:

“An evaluation undertaken by the Monash University Accident Research Centre has found that the speed camera program is estimated to produce a reduction in fatal crashes of around 45% in areas within two kilometres of speed camera sites. This subsequently translates to an annual saving of approximately 110 fatal road crashes, statewide. The Monash University Accident Research Centre’s findings suggest that from the same two kilometer radius from a speed camera site, there is an annual saving of 1100 hospitalisations, 2200 medical treatments, 500 other injury and 1600 non-injury road crashes as a direct result of the Queensland Speed Camera Program.

In terms of annual road trauma in Queensland, these savings represent a 32% reduction in fatal crashes, a 26% reduction in fatal and medical treatment crashes combined and a 1% reduction in all reported casualty crashes.“

Feel free to explain why you’re smarter or better informed than the nice experts at MUARC. Try not to slip into any ‘oh, but the ACT’s special, see, because the laws of physics are different here and special waves from Telstrayama affect our psychology and just because they work in almost every other jurisdiction in the Western world doesn’t mean theyy’ll work here’ – it just makes you look sillier.

Speed and red light cameras were introduced on specious grounds, after a “trial” on Barry Drive which detected about 1450 speeders and about 45 red light runners in three weeks. Those were about the numbers reported in the Canberra Times several years ago.

What was not reported was the number of vehicles passing the camera in that period. I don’t wonder why.

Also not reported were the times at which the red lights were run. One or two drivers running a red light every morning between 1 am and 4 am when there was no traffic on the cross road would account for a large minority or the majority of the 45.

As for the speeders, there was no indication of the numbers exceeding posted limits by less than 5kph. This would almost cetainly account for a large minority of them, perhaps the majority.

There is very little evidence from anywhere in the world that speed cameras have had any effect on road deaths. In fact, in some large jurisdictions like the United Kingdom the introduction of speed cameras has coincided with a levelling off of road deaths to a fairly constant year to year figure, in comparison to a time averaged decline before their introduction. Thus it could be argued that they have contributed to road deaths in the UK. This appears to be true of some Australian states too.

The ACT, being a small jusrisdiction will have fluctuating total number of road deaths every year. No single measure can affect it when it is highly sensitive to the numbers killed in any particular crash.

By the way, my only speeding ticket was in 1978.

I agree with Trollsniffer lets bring the in death penalty (or deportation to a hellish island). That should keep the road toll down.

Growling Ferret, 4Chan called and asked if you could try harder.

I get the issue of variance, low numbers and spikes. But as a motorcyclist, and having been subjected to the particularly mindless manner of some drivers on the road, I would say that dismissing motorcyclists, or cyclists, or pedestrians from the road toll is to not hold car drivers accountable for their deaths, which is often the case.

and to take issue with troll sniffer and ck, you may refer to motorcyclists as ‘temporary australians’ or other glib epithets, but they are legitimate road users (i wonder, do these figures include cyclists and pedestrians?) and shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand to show that the road toll is actually quite low…

mully’s folly taking his own life one might excise from the toll, but the three others he took were legitimately on the road with legitimate expectations that no other road user would simply wipe them out. to suggest they be excised from the tally is sick and thoughtless.

and i still wonder why the government enforces double demerit points for long weekends when, statistically, these weekends rarely differ in their road tolls from any other given weekend (ok, the cynic’s reply aside, ‘revenue’)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Australia_road_toll_graph.svg

since 1980 the toll nationally has halved – in the same time to population has increased by some 45%. not sure of the increased number of vehicles ont he road, but assume it has near doubled?

I didn’t see it as a troll Postalgeek.

If you look at the figures, the Mully Williams incident amounted to pouring some chlorine into the shallow end of the gene pool.

Likewise, motor cyclists are commonly refered to as “Temporary Australians” or “Organ Donors” simply because of the inherant risk of riding a bike means that they are far more likely to be show up in any consideration of road fatality statistics.

I believe though that the issue is that the ACT road toll has considerable potential to show a fair degree of variance year-to-year so there’s little to be gained from comparimng the score this year with what happened last year.

Growling Ferret said :

From a media release

‘The Territory’s road toll for 2009 was 12 – two less than in 2007 and 2008.’

Let me get this straight. Its 17 at the moment.
Canberra’s population is probably 370,000 ish.

Mully killed 4 in one hit. Takes it down to 13.
Maybe 6 motor cyclists have died this year?

So 7 people have died in accidents. Sounds about right.

Just another beat up.

If this a troll then you get a golf clap, but in case it isn’t, stats are not your forte. Where do you derive the logic to subtract a family from the road toll because the collision is linked to car thieves? And subtracting motorcyclists? Wtf? The fact that you believe in ‘accidents’ pretty much says it all.

Pschology at work. When you take away a community’s feeling of being responsible for their own actions (ever more stringent speed restrictions etc) a certain percentage toe the line and a certain percentage just as equally rebel. No amount of pointless draconian road laws, speed cameras, advertising campaigns etc is ever going to overcome this basic human behaviour.

Want an historic clue? In the 1700s you could be hung by the neck until dead or shipped off to the other side of the world for stealing a oaf of bread. Did the prospect of ever more fearsome punishments put a stop to these crimes? I rest my case.

From a media release

‘The Territory’s road toll for 2009 was 12 – two less than in 2007 and 2008.’

Let me get this straight. Its 17 at the moment.
Canberra’s population is probably 370,000 ish.

Mully killed 4 in one hit. Takes it down to 13.
Maybe 6 motor cyclists have died this year?

So 7 people have died in accidents. Sounds about right.

Just another beat up.

“And the award for Most Original Thread goes to…”

If the road toll goes down the government want praise.
If the road toll goes up the people get blamed.

Completely agree! Canberra’s road toll is always blown out of proportion. NSW have just re-introduced a total of SIX mobile speed cameras for the whole state! Stanhope etc were happy to take credit for speed cameras saving lives while the small and variable toll was going downwards – but what will they say now, especially when the ACT surely has more fixed and mobile cameras per head than anywhere else in the country.

While any death (or serious injury) on the road is a very tragic and traumatic thing, I think the toll is about as low as it’s going to get – even with double points every long weekend etc. I’m not endorsing speeding and I haven’t had a single traffic fine since cameras were introduced in the ACT but I’m tired of being told speed cameras save lives when they’re clearly very little relationship between fines and deaths.

I still recall a few years ago as a newsreader breathlessly reported that our road toll for some holiday period or other was “4 times that of the same period last year!”. Clearly, we were facing a crisis in road safety and drastic action needed to be taken. The fact that the numbers in question were 1 and 4, and that all 4 had been in the one (tragic, of course) accident, didn’t seem to factor into the question of how to report this “statistic”.

Lies, damn lies, statistics, and road safety statistics.