Another morbid topic.
I regularly drive on a Red Route (A631/A46) and hence am regularly reminded of the deaths that have occured on that route. Unfortunately I don't know how long the route is so the figures tend to lose a bit of their impact. Wouldn't it be better if the figures were quoted as deaths per mile as well as total deaths?
--
L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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It doesn't say if they deserve it either, probably 'joyriders' with no seatbelts on and no regards for the lives of others.
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Sorry. ST, just seen your post. I'm not sure even a joyrider deserves death, unless they kill other people.
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I don't think that Joe Public would think about it in that much depth. Knowing that people have died on the road would make me take extra extra care, even without knowing the length.
There is a sign on the B5147 road near me where you have to strain your eyes to read the number of fatalities as you pass, even at well under the NSL. Surely that's counter-productive?!
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A little ghoulish, ST, to what to know all the details!
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Irish roads have big signs saying "XX people killed on the roads in County zzzzzzz in the last three years"
The place that really terrifies me is Donegal, where the figure is well over 100: most counties only manage somewhere in the twenties.
We could do with that sort of sign in the UK
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The A41 between Bicester and Aylesbury has this.
At the beginning of the road it says "n people injured* in the last 3 years on this road". And then as you drive along it says "n people on this corner" "n people at this junction" etc.
And its a little surprising which junctions/corners seem to be the most dangerous.
M.
* I can't actually remember if it reports about deaths, serious injuries, or just injuries.
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Why do they never say who wasn't wearing a seatbelt when they report deaths in the news, when often it is quite likely from the relatively minor damage to the vehicle that they weren't. Why do they report people being thrown from vehicles, but not dare say they couldn't be bothered to put their seatbelt on? Like they do when there's a fire and they had no smoke alarms, they always tell you that. Maybe it's the data protection act?
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In Lincolnshire a couple of years ago I noticed there were regular reminders of the number of fatalities that year prominently displayed by the side of the road - it was a pretty sobering number. Maybe something to do with the long straight roads and too much overtaking "chicken"? Whilst I was there I spoke to a member of Lincolnshire's finest (socially, of course...) who explained that it was their latest attempt to cut the number of deaths - they had personally been to a lot of very nasty crashes and felt any tactics to make people think were worthwhile. I must admit, I did hold myself back a bit having looked at the numbers: I think there had been 63 deaths by August the year I went. That's pretty much a whole street!!
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There's a mountain of statistics on road deaths on the DfT website, in "Road Casualties in Great Britain 2002: Annual Report" at www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_control/documen...3
e.g. in 2001, 3,311 registered road deaths (28% of all accidental deaths). That's much like my entire village being wiped out.
for people aged 15-19, road deaths were a staggering 75% of all accidental deaths
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"For people aged 15-19, road deaths were a staggering 75% of all accidental deaths"
This statistic often comes up when traffic accidents are debated, but to put it in perspective people of this age rarely die of natural causes, so the road death percentage is always going to be much higher than in any other age group.
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for this age group road accidents were the cause of 75% of accidental deaths. So natural causes don't count...
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While statistically younger drivers may be involved in more accidents, I think the reason they have a far higher fatality rate is either because they don't have their seat belts on, (20-30% of people where I went to school didn't wear seat belts, and this was last year.) or simply because their cars don't protect them in an accident.
Who do you think is going to come off worse if you crash a beaten up Nova into a new Ford Mondeo with all the safety features?
And, finally, many young drivers have friends in the back seat, and they never wear seatbelts.
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for this age group road accidents were the cause of 75% of accidental deaths. So natural causes don't count...
yes, for 15-19yo ppl: 27% of all deaths, 75% of accidental deaths
for 20-29yo, 16% of all deaths, 61% of accidental deaths
(the relevant table is at www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_transstats/docu...f )
The gender gap is interesting. In most age groups there's not much gender difference by percentage of accidental death, but that's because women have far fewer accidental deaths overall, and far fewer road deaths. In the 15-50 age group, there are about five times as many men killed on the roads as there are women. The percentages don't reflect it because we women seem to be less accident-prone all round ...
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Isn't that because you ask the nearest man to do all the heavy or dangerous jobs?
[duck for cover]
(TIC, btw!)
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Isn't that because you ask the nearest man to do all the heavy or dangerous jobs?
Can't remember who it was that said "if you want the job done, get an old broad to do it". The exception to that rule is that it's easier to get men to do the jobs which they think let 'em show their strength or or fearlessnes. So by letting men do the dangerous stuff, we're really only giving them what they want ;-)
[also t-i-c!]
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Didn't they also say "if you want a job done well, do it yourself"?
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Didn't they also say "if you want a job done well, do it yourself"?
I think they did, but I'd hate to make men think they were completely useless ;-)
[sorry, tic again!]
Mind you, one of my schoolteachers used to say "if it's worth doing at all, its worth doing badly". Very wise words: don't faff around waiting for perfection
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