This is the first of many such challenges to CPOs
if anyone wants the graphs and text, let me know
Idris
Attention of the Chief Constable, Essex Police
Dear Sir,
I am unable to reconcile the press release on road casualties issued by your force with the figures I now have. I attach a graph showing the figures for the last 12 years, and a copy of the press release in question. I attach also graphs showing casualties and fatalities over past decades.
I would be obliged if you would explain how you were able to make the following statements in the context of the figures shown on the graphs. In replying please remember that, prior to the introduction of speed cameras to Britain in 1992, from 1972:
Fatalities per annum fell by 50%
Serious injuries fell by 50%
Slight injuries hardly changed overall.
1/ "There was a year-on increase in road deaths in Essex during 2001, but overall the casualty rate is declining"
2001 Figures:
Fatalities - up from 86 to 123, a 42% increase
(oddly, reported in the media as 30%)
Serious injuries down from 1240 to 1203, a 3% fall
KSI (above combined) 1326 to 1326,
ie the same total but 37 K instead SI
Slight injuries down from 8824 to 7785, a fall of 12%
As you know, slight injuries are usually about 50 times greater than fatal injuries and of the order of 10 times greater than serious injuries.
Is it not extraordinarily misleading to claim in a formal statement that "overall the casualty rate is declining" on the basis that slight inuries have fallen, when 37 more people have died compared to 2000?
2/ "And there is strong evidence to show that safety cameras - designed to keep motorists to the speed limit - made an important contribution to saving life and limb."
Is this not an even more extraordinary statement, given that deaths rose by 42%?
3/ "A combination of these deaths (full year) and injuries (to end of November) gives a current total casualty toll of 8,108 for 2001 - a decrease of eight per cent on the same periods for 2000."
Given the full-year figures I quote above, that the Killed and Seriously Injured figure did not change at all, other than 37 seriously injured becoming 37 fatalities, was it not clear (even in January, let alone now) that the 8% improvement you claimed was entirely due to a decrease in the much more numerous slight injury total and that the claim was seriously misleading?
4/ "One key factor to emerge from the statistics is that during 2001 there was only one fatality within a quarter-mile of a speed-reduction camera."
I have heard a number of police spokesmen make this sort of claim, and my only reaction is astonishment. Why does it matter where people are killed? Is it not more important how many are killed?
The other extraordinary aspect of this and similar statements is that the spokesmen appear eager to claim the localised reductions as being due to speed (or now, weasel-wordedly 'safety') cameras but quite unwilling to accept that the increases elsewhere could be in any way due to them.
But is it not self-evident that driver behaviour is changed by the existence of speed cameras, and the possibility of there being cameras ahead, and not just by the knowledge that they are actually present ahead? After all, if all motorists knew where all cameras were, there would be no camera revenue!
I have attached a long list of the ways that the existence of speed cameras can affect driver behaviour adversely. Will you accept that many, if not most or even all, of these factors can indeed lead to the results we are now seeing?
5/ "Essex Police casualty reduction manager Brian Ladd said: "While the increase in road deaths is extremely disappointing, the downward trend in injuries is encouraging. "
To be kind to Mr. Ladd, he must be one of Nature's optimists! The KSI figure did not change at all, and the only improvements were in slight - and as I understand the definitions - quite trivial.
6/ "Speed is a major cause of crashes and injuries, whether as a result of loss of control on major roads or failure to stop in time in areas where there are pedestrians. Safety cameras have played an important part in bringing about the reduction in casualties in Essex"
By far the most significant change is 37 people who died instead of being seriously injured - how can this reasonably be described as a 'reduction in casualties'?
And if it is not, what does that say for the effect of speed cameras overall?
7/ "and although a vociferous minority may find this hard to accept, I believe that most people support the efforts being made to keep drivers within the clearly-marked speed limits. "
Could it perhaps be that the "vociferous minority" have actually read and understood the real figures and have every reason to be be 'vociferous' in the face not only of the failure of camera policy but of such blatant misrepresenation of failure as 'success'?
8/ "A recent survey of 1,500 Essex motorists showed that 72 per cent of them felt fewer accidents were likely to occur in the vicinity of a safety camera."
You are of course aware that the vast majority of motorists have neither the time nor the inclination to examine the figures or assess trends, and that the responses you quote are therefore primarily your own propaganda and that of other official bodies', boucing back - not least because you refer sneeringly to those who disagree and who have chosen to examine the reality of what is happening in terms such as 'a vociferous minority'.
As the attached graphs show, UK fatalities and serious injuries fell steadily from 1972 to the early 90s and it would be reasonable to assume that the same happened in Essex.
Yet from 1992 to 1997 fatalities 'flatlined' and since 1997 (the 3 year trend curve is significant) have been rising again for the first time for 30 years.
Serious injuries are no lower in 2001 than 1991, and have been falling less fast than 1972 to 1992, and it is only in the numerically greater but nevertheless less significant slight injuries that the trend is less worrying.
I would like you to explain how recent figures prove anything other than that, at best, speed camera policy is not achieving its objectives, and at worst is leading to more casualties than would otherwise occur.
Please bear in mind that, as reported on the relevant web site, average traffic speeds (measured at 130 sites across the country) have not fallen at all in recent years, thus tending to confirm the failure of policy.
Is it not now time, as the Daily Mail suggested on Tuesday, for a review of camera policy and results before yet more millions of pounds are spent on them?
I await your prompt reply.
Yours sincerely,
Idris Francis
|
