If you are going to look at these trends, surely it's important to consider them against the levels of vehicle use over this time.

I agree, i was going to include those stats but didnt want the post to be too long (@ Avant, i cut it down by 260 words before i posted it, happy now?) but we do know there were around 25million vehicles on our roads in 1995 and thats risen to around 32 million now and yet in that time road deaths has continued to come down rapidly which makes it look even better.

It may well be that accidents are not now falling , but in the light of increased traffic that might still be an accomplishment.

I would imagine the drop in the 80s would refelct more widespread use of seat-belts.

I think it is an accomplishment, the stats show individual amounts of road deaths are going down constantly while population and traffic levels are increasing. Seat belts probably do have alot to do with it cars of the 80s were much safer than ones of even 15 years before and obviously the safety levels in modern cars are almost lightyears ahead of what we had 30 years ago, that will have something to do with it (accidents might be rising but due to safer cars, deaths and injuries arent). I never said accidents were going down, thats hard to quantify but we can confirm deaths and injuries are down.

As far as speed is conerned, it's important to understand the arguments. I don't think any serious campaigner re limits is arguing that excess speed in itself is a promary cause

Perhaps, but the problem is its the unreasonable hysterical campaigners who get airtime and coverage. The likes of Brake with encouraging people to drive at 20 in a 30 limit regardless of conditions, the 'Speed Kills' campaign when clearly thats not true. We know most accidents happen at low speeds in congestion urban areas in 20 limits. And we know our fastest roads are statistically our safest with fewer accidents (although more of them are likely to be fatal if there is one). Too many campaigns centre around making people drive slower rather than safer. When you get people in the Police like Brunstrom state 'nobody has the right to drift over the speed limit anymore than they have the right to drift a knife into somebody' you see the hysterical madness we're up against. Incidentally his obsession with speeding and attacking the motorist led to all his resources going into that and his forces cleanup rates for proper crimes was among the worst in the country.

Edited by jamie745 on 18/09/2011 at 14:26

The fact is someone could go past a speed camera drunk, on drugs, without a licence, no insurance, no tax, no mot with a boot full of cocaine, plastic explosives and AK47's but so long as they dont exceed the speed limit they'll get away with it.

We also know speed cameras dont prevent accidents or deaths, statistics show deaths were on their way down until the early 90s when fixed speed camera's came in and since then its been hovering around the same number, it stopped dead. You could argue that with traffic levels increasing in the same time for deaths to remain at the same level thats good enough, some might argue if it werent for speed camera's it wouldve gotten worse rather than stay the same.

But the fact people have been taken to court for warning oncoming motorists theres a speed trap ahead is what makes me doubt the true motives for cameras. Surely if it makes the motorist slow down then the Police would be delighted. If all they wanted was for people to slow down they'd have no problem with people flashing their lights to warn of a speed camera ahead. It proves what they really want is for you to slow down - after they've made money out of you but not a second before. I view speed camera's as a job creation scheme, part of a communistical policy of taxing every part of life possible and they're worth too much money and too many pensions to people for it to be entirely about 'safety'. If your entire £60 fine went to the RSPCA or something instead of lining someones pocket i might change my view on it.

The fact local authorities and people like Brake consistently resist in publishing speed camera data tells you there must be something going on. We can find out how many fines were given out by fixed camera's, but i want to know how many of those instances of speeding resulted in an accident because if its any less than 50% surely its an ineffective, expensive policy.

Edited by jamie745 on 18/09/2011 at 14:50

Well the statistics that ive read stated road deaths have been around 3,500 for the last 10-15 years. I dont know where that figure of 1,857 has come from there has to be some sort of bizarre mistake there. Typo or something. Or is that leaving out some categories perhaps? Is that leaving out pedestrians, cyclists etc?

Edited by jamie745 on 18/09/2011 at 16:50

The 1940's should be ignored statistically because conditions in WW2 were very different - building and street lighting all blacked out, headlights restricted to a narrow slit and the likelihood of unmarked bomb craters - plus hundreds of thousands of GI's who couldn't remember to drive on the left!

The introduction of the 70mph limit (temporarily in 1965 and permanently in 1967) will have had very little impact initially on the accident statistics - because few cars could do more than 70 in those days.

Successive oil crises and big increases in fuel prices kept speeds down for quite some time even after the 70 limit was introduced.