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While road safety organisations have expressed concern and disappointment that road deaths and serious injuries rose in 2011, the Association of British Drivers (ABD) has cautioned against a ‘knee-jerk reaction’.
The DfT report, ‘Reported Road Casualties 2011’, shows that the number of people killed in road collisions increased by 3%, from 1,850 in 2010 to 1,901 in 2011. The number of people killed or seriously injured (KSI) also increased by 2%, from 24,510 in 2010 to 25,023 in 2011.
Simon Best, IAM chief executive, said: “It is unacceptable that road deaths and serious injuries rose last year, particularly for pedestrians and cyclists who saw the greatest rises. Road accidents usually drop during an economic recession, so this rise after continuous reductions over the last 10 years, is particularly concerning.
“Ministers should take this as a serious warning. Cutting road safety education, scrapping casualty targets, and reductions in local authority spending all suggest that road safety isn’t a major priority for this Government.”
DCC Suzette Davenport, ACPO lead for roads policing, said: “The rise in the number of those killed or seriously injured on our roads is disappointing (but) it should be remembered that the UK’s roads continue to be amongst the safest in Europe. A recent report by the European Transport Safety Council states that the UK is the safest EU country for road use.
“There is always work that can be done to make our roads safer. ACPO is looking to build on the approach already in place to continue to work with partners to use enforcement based on the professional judgment and discretion of police officers. We will focus on an intelligence lead approach to ensure appropriate enforcement, education and engineering which all help to influence driver behaviour, and help to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads."
Brian Gregory, ABD chairman, warned against a knee-jerk reaction, saying: “It is very easy to jump to conclusions that this is all about turning off cameras. However, all the evidence from areas where this has occurred has shown little overall change and in some cases less casualties.
“In a recession, many factors could be present. For example an increase in pedestrian and cycling casualties could simply be down to more people walking and cycling due to the cost of driving.
“Whilst we would welcome an increase in the road safety budget it is vital that it is spent in the most productive areas. We must have a proper and above board analysis before any decisions are made.”
Dr Joanne Marden, director of the Road Safety Foundation, said: “Now, as things stabilise, we must get safety policies back on track. For drivers, that means tackling hard core drinkers, excessive speeding and those not wearing seat belts.
“For vehicles, it means continuing the introduction of safety features in 4 and 5 star cars and accelerating the adoption of technologies such as electronic stability control and emergency brake assistance that help drivers avoid crashes.
“On the roads, it means persuading authorities to recognise the long term benefits of investing to bring single carriageway ‘A’ roads up to at least 3-star safety standards by 2020, following the lead of Sweden and the Netherlands.”
While ANY increase in road traffic casualties is of major concern and absolutely no laughing matter whatsoever; I had to suppress my mirth on a flight back from London when I read Transport Secretary Justine Greening’s rationale for it….’Bad Weather in the previous year’. Nothing to do with the decimation of road safety budgets and the culling of talented and passionate road safety professionals then eh?
Jan Deans CEO Dynamic (Good Egg Safety)
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Chris’s suggestion for a no blame reporting and analysis service is interesting. To follow the air and rail versions, it would need a separate reporting system that enables causations to be included – which happens with varying success and accuracy at present through police reports. It would also have to investigate a large number of individual incidents – far more than air and rail – so the complexity and costs could be very significant.
I am not sure that this would be feasible or even manageable but it would be worth an exploratory initial scoping study – just to see whether or not it could reasonably be achieved?
Honor Byford, North Yorkshire
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Dave Finney, thanks, but you are missing the point. The police also investigate air and sea accidents if it is necessary to make a prosecution. The focus of the police is to prosecute, not analyze the cause and publish their findings, with a view to stopping it happening again. There is no road equivalent of the AAIB/MAIB. Newspapers are only too happy to publish tales of death and destruction, but when did you last see any follow up articles that describe the analysis of the accident? The link you gave is an individual, not a formally established independent body — great that this person has done this, but there should be an official body doing it.
Chris, Birmingham
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Unfortunately, I am not surprised that the number of people killed in road traffic incidents rose in 2011. Just as I am sure, speaking from bitter experience, that the bereaved parents and families of innocent victims killed by motorists who were in the commission of committing one or more criminal motoring offences will be appalled by the comment made by DCC Suzette Davenport, ACPO lead for roads policing, “the rise in the number of those killed or seriously injured on our roads is disappointing (but) it should be remembered that the UK’s roads continue to be amongst the safest in Europe.” One innocent death is one too many and should not be accepted just because in occurred on the road.
Would everyone take the same views if the number of other violent killings and injuries rose? No they would not! These crashes do not just happen. In most cases the law has been broken.
Judith – Norfolk
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Chris, are you aware the Police already investigate RTAs and in-depth analysis is also performed on smaller samples by other bodies that largely confirm the Police analysis?
The results of their analysis can be found here:
http://speedcamerareport.co.uk/01_speeding.htm
The Police do appear to be doing a very competent job, if only the authorities would act on their findings.
Dave Finney – Slough
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Time and statistics will tell whether 2011 was a rise going against a downward trend or the beginning of a new, rising trend. Right now none of us is in a position to say either way. What we cannot do is simply stall and wait to see what transpires – we need to take a measured, informed judgement as to where the significant changes lie both nationally and in each local area. Then decide whether and, if so, how, we adjust what we are doing in all the disciplines.
Which is what should be happening anyway – to take account of emerging trends and issues before they acquire the 3 years casualty data. But this has to take account of the work that is planned or underway to address already identified problems. It is a balance and we should be using the available data to inform balanced judgements. Data is not the whole story and nor is human (or political) judgement – it’s a mix of these within available resources.
Honor Byford, North Yorkshire
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Until all fatal road accidents are investigated and reported upon (in the public domain) by an independent body in the same way that aeronautical accidents are by the AAIB, and maritime accidents are by the MAIB; we will continue to suffer endless speculation about the causes of road accidents. It is absolutely deplorable that the government, by failing to set a body equivalent to the AAIB/MAIB for roads, regards people who die on our roads as less important than those who die in aircraft crashes or maritime accidents.
Chris, Birmingham
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I would like to put the figures given by Peter of Manchester – who gives the impression of being involved in road safety – in a rather different perspective:
Transport related deaths in Britain are now lower per head of population than they were in 1850, when few travelled anywhere and those who died fell off horses, into canals and under trains.
The extraordinary increase in mobility provided by motor cars has made possible the extraordinary increase not just in living standards and quality of life but also expectation of life we now enjoy. One example will have to suffice – in 1900 some 250,000 children died by the age of 5, now some 5,000 do, of whom about 150 die on the roads.
Why do so many forget that every ledger has two sides?
Making reasonable assumptions and estimates, the risk of dying an accidental death in the next hour as a hospital in-patient is between 200 and 500 times greater than in a 70mph car on a motorway.
Idris Francis Petersfield
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A picture is worth a 1,000 words so the graph updated to 2011 at http://www.fightbackwithfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/GB-1972-2011-K-SI-SLIGHT.pdf should help put the 20111 results in context.
I am pleased to see that others agree that small increases in a single year, after 4 years of steep falls are not necessarily significant – for example the graphs show many examples of year-on-year increases that were, in retrospect just statistical blips of precisely the sort we would expect, and so the odds are, in my opinion, very much on 2011 having been the same.
Now that I have the detailed figures it is clear that there are wide variations in the year-on-year changes for different categories of road users, as where the total SI increases for pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists is double the fall in SI for car occupants – at a time when many drivers are reportedly giving up their cars and switching to these noticeably more risky modes of transport. This is just one example of “confounding factors” tbat lead to counter-intuitive results.
Idris Francis Petersfield
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I’m not sure why Paul Withrington suddenly refers to 95% confidence levels. That’s an irrelevance with regard to deaths reported by the police and checked to ensure that those arising from a medical condition are ruled out. This is not a statistical exercise. That said, I accept entirely the point that 2010 could just have been a “good” year with the trend returning to its normal course. The point is that, as Eric Bridgstock knows from his work in aviation, a safety culture does not develop over night but is assisted over a long period of time.
Robert Gifford
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Unlike the other debaters I’m not going to try and debate what the trends and quirks are. Instead I’m going to look at the simple numbers and ask:
– Is it acceptable that deaths should be around 1900 per year (something like 3 times the number of murders)?
– Is it acceptable that around 200,000 are injured this year, next year, every year (that’s Wembley stadium filled about 3 times with casualties)?
These ludicrously high numbers (people!) are why road safety professionals are passionate and beause they know that sensible investment is proven to work in absolute terms and in cost-benefit terms, yet policy makers prefer to invest more heavily in other non-life saving, vote-winning initiatives.
Peter, Manchester
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The 95% confidence limits on the presumed average of 1850 deaths in 2010 has the range 1760 to 1936, meaning that the 1901 deaths in 2011 are in the expected range. The lesser injuries are subject to inconsistencies in reporting e.g. the ratio of Killed and seriously injured, KSI, to Killed has changed very significantly over the years. Even deaths leave some uncertainty since the definition of dead is dead within 30 days. Hence improved emergency response times and A and E procedures would reduce the numbers so making it difficult to tell whether or not road safety policy had been effective.
Paul Withrington (Transport Watch) Northampton
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Have any of these figures been assessed as to the cause(s)? It seems to be that every RTC is blamed on the driver and the actual cause(s) never disclosed.
Reg Oliver, Derbyshire
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While an increase in casualties is disappointing, it must not be forgotten that the decrease in 2010 was exceptionally large. In addition to recessionary factors, 2010 experienced severe winter weather at both ends of the year, which would have suppressed traffic levels – and discouraged cycling – and encouraged road users to take greater than normal care. It is probable that the 2011 figures are more representative of the general trend and 2010 something of an aberration. Only time will tell.
The road safety establishment seems to think that all falls in casualties are the result of its interventions and any increases represent a failure of road safety policies. In reality, similar casualty trends occur in most developed countries, regardless of different road safety policies. The 2011 figures are no cause for panic but should be analysed carefully to see where and why casualties have increased, if at all, in relation to the trend to 2009.
Malcolm Heymer, Dereham, Norfolk
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In reality fatalities fell unusually slowly from 1994 to 2006 (the main speed camera era, as it happens) only two of those years showing statistically significant falls.
2007/8/9/10 showed unusually steep falls, not least due to the severe recession, falling traffic and – importantly – the changed mood of drivers (like everyone else – more cautious, more concerned and more careful). After 4 years of unusually steep falls it was inevitable that sooner or later there would be a hiccup, as in 2011, but it is far too soon to know whether it is just a hiccup or a significant change in trend.
Nor, for the same reason, is it sensible or appropriate to try to relate the entirely modest increases to any particular changes of policy or funding – surely everyone here understands that it takes at least 3 years, even with national figures, for changes of trend to be recognisable as such?
Idris Francis Petersfeld
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Cannot disagree and saw it coming like most of us. Irrespective of public money we also have to worry about motorists choice of spending the pound in their pockets:
Do drivers drive more slowly to conserve fuel?
Do motorists share vehicles making occupancy numbers higher therefore raising potential for higher injuries per accident?
Do vehicle owners cut corners on vehicle servicing making them less safe?
Are these messages we will have to add to our already underfunded service?
Nick Ross told it like it is and we need to keep shouting about it.
Peter Westminster
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You’re not going to like this but …
Road safety has put much reliance on “speed management” in recent years, with a huge roll-out of 20mph schemes. My assessment of 20mph, as presented to the 20mph Places Conference in May, is that they lead to increased injuries to cyclists and pedestrians, despite decreases in traffic volume.
I have also presented arguments and evidence that speed management interventions, such as bumps and cameras, cause more collisions than they could ever prevent. No one has proved me wrong.
Until road safety professionals acknowledge that enforcing the law and trying to force drivers to comply can be detrimental to road safety, reports such as this will tragically become the norm.
Eric Bridgstock, Independent Road Safety Research, St Albans
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It’s not good news that road deaths and serious injuries went up in 2011 and we must strive to halt this, but just as in my earlier comment to another story, we need to look for the long term trends and patterns in road casualties.
Rebecca, Leeds
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