"Paul Mc Cann" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 10:16:07 +0100, Richard
wrote:

snipped


Ahh, but it's that comon sense thing again which is so sadly lacking.
What's
the statistic?
90% of pedestrians involved in an accident with a vehicle after the
hours of
darkness are drunk?

Even if it were attributed, this statistic is meaningless unless you can
show that there is a causal connection between pedestrians being drunk
and being involved in an accident with a vehicle. And don't appeal to
"common sense", please - "common sense" tells us that the introduction
of compulsory front seat belts saved lives, when in fact it increased
the death rate: see eg Adams, "Risk", UCL Press; and Harvey and Durbin,
RSSJ 149(3), 1986.


I seem to have missed Richards reply to this..
However, the mention of common sense came froma rply by someone called
Richard to Laurence Paynes post. and I was merely pointing out that it was
bollox.
The pedestrian stat was from The Speedtrap bible
http://www.speed-trap.co.uk/Facts&Figures/Facts&Figures_Home.htm referring
to the TRL report 323:

"Incidence of commonest precipitating factors, by type of accident.
This is perhaps a more telling chunk of information which aims to show the
most common factors involved in different types of accident, such as
vehicle-pedestrian, single-vehicle etc. Excessive speed doesn't feature
directly in this information because it is considered to be a subcategory of
"loss of control" (see above). The government and road safety campaigners
will always tell us that pedestrians are killed because of speeding
motorists. This simply is not the case. Would you believe a staggering 84%
of pedestrians involved in accidents are killed or seriously injured due to
their own incompetance? In the TRL report, the prime factors involved in
pedestrian fatalities are listed as:
a.. Pedestrian entered carriageway without due care (84%)
b.. Vehicle unable to avoid pedestrian in carriageway (12%)
c.. "Other" (4%)

So in the real world, it's not motorists tearing up and down town centre
roads at speed that is to blame for pedestrian fatalities, but pedestrians
stepping in front of moving vehicles without bothering to look where they're
going.
An amusing little sub-note for you here - another report further
subcategorises "entering the carriageway without due care", and shows that
after dark, 77% of all adult pedestrian fatalities are caused when the
pedestrian is above the legal drink-drive limit - ie. is technically
classified as drunk - and staggered into the path of an oncoming vehicle."



So it was a mere 77%. The point was that speeding is blamed for the deaths
of lots of peds when the reality is that they die because they don't look
where they are going.



people driving who are on the phone, reading the paper, seemingly have
no
indicators or fog light off switches, who will change lanes and open
doors
with no thought whatsoever for the consequences, is astounding. But
hey,
none of them are speeding ,so that's alright.

Just where did this discussion go from doing all you can to avoid a
collision, to speeding?

R.

Not sure, I just jumped in at the tail end. I suspect it was certain peoples
venting about reckless speeders tailgating and driving like maniacs that
provoked it. I was merely attempting to point out that there are many things
far worse than speeding form a causing accidents perspective that don't get
addressed because it's difficult to police and there isn't as much revenue
to be gained...




When helmets were introduced during the first world war there was in
immediate jump in head injuries prompting speculation that they were
more harm than good.

Reality was that the increased head injuries would previously have
been recorded as deaths.

Which, depending on the final state of the victim, may not have been a bad
thing.

Paul