Government figures show 95% of accidents have nothing to do with speeding
Published: 29th September 2006
Category: Statistics & Research
Reader's Rage: [48votes]

From the start of 2005 all road traffic accidents had their contributory factors recorded by the police. This allowed the Department for Transport for the first time to compile comprehensive data on the causes of accidents. The results show that 5% of all accidents are attributed to exceeding the speed limit. This is pretty much what Speedcameras.org and other road safety campaigns had been saying for years, but the authorities continued to pump an overwhelmingly disproportionate amount of resources into trying to prevent just 5% of all accidents. Meanwhile, any attempts to prevent 95% of accidents maintained an exceedingly low profile.

The report reveals that speed cameras are totally ineffective at preventing the vast majority of accidents. Exceeding the speed limit was attributed to only 3% of cars involved in accidents. 97% of car crashes have nothing to do with breaking the speed limit.

The total number of fatalities on the road decreased marginally (1%) in 2005 to 3,201. Given that there are 2 million motorists prosecuted for speeding each year it begs the question - if speed cameras are the answer to saving lives, how come the 5000 speed cameras and 2 million annual prosecutions haven?t produced a significant drop in fatalities?

Accidents on motorways, the fastest of all road types, account for just 4% of accidents. This shows that travelling at higher speeds is not in itself dangerous ? far from it. It means that roads engineered to take faster moving traffic have an excellent safety record. Perhaps the answer to reducing accidents can be found in better road engineering on other types of roads.

The top contributory factors for accidents in 2005 were:

Failed to look properly: 32%
Bad behaviour or inexperience: 25%
Misjudged other drivers speed/path: 18%
Poor turn/manoeuvre: 15%
Going too fast for conditions: 12%
Loss of control: 14%
Vision affected: 10%
Slippery road: 10%
Following too close: 7%
Sudden braking: 7%
Disobeyed traffic signal or stop sign: 6%
Impaired by alcohol: 5%
Exceeding speed limit: 5%
Road layout: 3%
Vehicle defects: 2%

The DfT report also revealed that 8 times more male than female drivers involved in accidents were reported as exceeding the speed limit, and 4 times more male than female drivers involved in accidents were reported as going too fast for the conditions. Perhaps that helps to explain the popularity of female-only insurance companies!

So what can be done to help significantly reduce accidents? Instead of the government trying to reduce accidents caused by lesser factors (such as exceeding the speed limit (5%)), if they made a valiant effort to reduce accidents caused by greater factors like failing to look properly (32%) then many tens of thousands of accidents could be prevented. This could be accomplished through better driver education for example.

Unless someone invents a camera that can take photos of drivers failing to look properly it?s fair to conclude that there?s a limit on the number of accidents that could be prevented by the use of speed cameras and resources need to be moved into other areas that can help prevent the 95% of accidents that have nothing to do with exceeding the speed limit.

Our comment: Will they learn from their own research and move their resources to tackle the 95% of accidents rather than focusing solely on the 5%? If it can save lives then it's about time they found the courage to change direction.

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