Road deaths increase for the first time in a decade

[simonp]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18623072

Is this the result of ending the "war on the motorist"?

[hellymedic]

Yes.
Motorists can drive with greater impunity, damaging the soft non-motorists rather more.

[David Martin]

post hoc ergo propter hoc. But in this case effect appears to follow cause.

[Tom B]

Linked article says that pedestrian deaths are up +12% to 453, cyclist deaths down -4% to 107

[red marley]

A linked article by the BBC also suggests deaths are down by 11% in Scotland. Maybe the war on motorists persists north of the border.

Annual figures are quite noisy and so care is needed when accounting for a single change in a year. Not to mention all the usual stuff about standardising by numbers of people out on the road etc.

[Cudzoziemiec]

That's what I would have thought - assumed - that figures like +3% and -4% are likely to be random fluctuations. The 12% rise in pedestrian casualties, on the other hand, seems too large for that, and I wouldn't have thought pedestrian numbers varied much. So less traffic means higher speeds - but in towns? Could it be due to an increase in motorised rlj?

[simonp]

And/or increased mobile phone use. But also maybe ptw numbers have increased, and they have been allowed in bus lanes in London. PTWs have a much higher ped ksi rate per mile travelled than cars.

[jogler]

ptw?
ped ksi rate?

[Cudzoziemiec]

PTW death rate is down 10% according to the BBC's chart, surely if there were many more of them you'd expect an increase, or certainly not such a decrease.

And why do they have ahigher ped ksi rate? I wasn't aware of this. I can only imagine it's mainly due to lane-splitting, which there would actually be less of where they are allowed in bus lanes (as, for instance, they have been in Bristol for twenty years or more).

[simonp]

ptw?
ped ksi rate?

PTW = powered two wheeler (motorcycle)
PED KSI = pedestrians killed or seriously injured

[simonp]

PTW death rate is down 10% according to the BBC's chart, surely if there were many more of them you'd expect an increase, or certainly not such a decrease.

And why do they have ahigher ped ksi rate? I wasn't aware of this. I can only imagine it's mainly due to lane-splitting, which there would actually be less of where they are allowed in bus lanes (as, for instance, they have been in Bristol for twenty years or more).

Access to bus lanes results in faster speeds when traffic is stationary c.f. lane splitting.

However, the 2010 data show only 11 fatals of peds hit by m/cycles so despite the risk the number is too small to have caused the increase.

BTW, road traffic fell substantially between 2007 and 2010 and killed fell at the same time - at a faster rate - so I don't think it's arguable that this reversal of trend is down to a fall in road traffic.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yes, a m/c in a bus lane is likely to be going faster than one lane-splitting, but it's just another vehicle in a lane, like a bus or a taxi or a cyclist or indeed a m/c in an ordinary lane, rather than in an unexpected place going the 'wrong' direction. Anyway, as you say whatever the rate, 11 doesn't account for the increase. I wonder if it could be an increase in bus and coach traffic? There do seem to be more coaches around nowadays.

Bizarrely, the only thing I ever hit when I rode a motorbike (that was my fault!) was another motorbike. 

[andygates]

Surely ptw-in-bus-lane stats should show up?

[JonBoy]

It's still well below the 2.000 per year mark; IIRC not so long ago about 3,000 per year was "the norm" so maybe it is just a blip.  One year is not enough to comment; it could be a one-off blip.

[simonp]

I'd call that complacency.

[Jaded]

If one year is not enough to comment, why the hell have they been trumpeting the reduction each year?

[Wowbagger]

An indefatigable campaigner friend of mine was responsible for Blair's decision to cut road deaths by n%.

This pal has always been a great believer in hitting politicians very, very hard when necessary. Blair did something to do with roads that upset my pal, so he went to Sedgefield with a load of leaflets and, singlehandedly leafletted the entire constituency with a vitriolic personal attack on Blair for being so callous as to endanger the lives of school children by his transport policy. I believe that it was in this leaflet that the term "speedophile" was coined.

Within a week, Blair had announced a new initiative to cut road deaths to below whatever-figure-it-was. It was probably the most effective bit of target-setting that the Blair government ever did.

Hard-hitting, personal campaigning works.

[Cudzoziemiec]

So, where is Mike Penning's constituency and when are we sending the YACF posse round?

[clarion]

Hemel Bloody Hempstead.  And I don't know, but keep me posted.

[Bledlow]

It's still well below the 2.000 per year mark; IIRC not so long ago about 3,000 per year was "the norm" so maybe it is just a blip.  One year is not enough to comment; it could be a one-off blip.

Long term, it's down a lot. I remember when it was over 7000, & it's currently less than half the 1926 figure.

Long-term, it's dropped because vehicles are safer (& not just for those in them), & there are fewer pedestrians & cyclists on the roads for them to kill. The huge drop in child road deaths since the 1990s (down by 80%) has mostly been achieved by keeping children indoors, as far as I can see.

[Steph]

And/or increased mobile phone use. But also maybe ptw numbers have increased, and they have been allowed in bus lanes in London. PTWs have a much higher ped ksi rate per mile travelled than cars.

Yebbut, referring to a real incident: Car ploughs into bus queue: ksi attributed to cars.
Bike ploughs into bus queue after being smashed off the road by a car: ksi attributed to ptw.

[jogler]

The huge drop in child road deaths since the 1980s (down by 80%) has mostly been achieved by keeping children indoors, as far as I can see.

& being conveyed to&from school by motorised transport.

[alexb]

Deaths on bikes and motorbikes are down, but serious injuries are up, so not really good news.

[spindrift]

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-pedestrian-deaths-and-cycle-injuries-soar-7899270.html

Campaigners demanded a change in road safety policies today after a 33 per cent increase in pedestrian deaths in a year and the highest number of cycling injuries for a decade.

Transport for London admitted the figures were “an area of concern” for itself and the Mayor but critics questioned whether his policies of removing traffic lights and “smoothing traffic flow” were to blame.

Official statistics showed 77 pedestrians were killed last year, 19 more than in 2010, while 16 cyclists lost their lives — nine the victims of turning lorries.

The number of cycling fatalities was the biggest since 2006. There were 555 serious injuries to cyclists — up 21 per cent on last year and the highest figure since TfL records began in 2002 — and an 11 per cent rise to 3,926 in slight injuries reported by bike riders.

Jenny Jones, a Green member of the London Assembly, said that since 2008 Boris Johnson had reversed a nine-year downward trend in road casualties.

“The Mayor more than halved the road safety budget, re-phased traffic lights and told his road engineers to prioritise motorists’ journey times over the safety of vulnerable road users, so an increase was inevitable,” she said.

[rogerzilla]

The odds must be improving for cyclists outside London, then - or is it a reduction in miles travelled?  Most of the UK is completely unlike London, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is just lower usage.