2017 Road casualties annual report

[The utility cyclist]

Usual guff, patting on the back from various quarters because we are the 4th 'safest' nation per million population head.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... t-2017.pdf
A supposed 5% decrease in cycling compared to 2016 sees a static fatality rate actually become a 5% increase in real terms, also cycling injuries of all levels are 18,321 which should come as a surprise but really isn't. Car drivers apparently are safer still and as per usual this comes at the expense of everyone else

There were 15,721 child casualties, 46 deaths which came from 22 pedestrians, 20 car occupants and 4 others (not mentioned)
One sentence that does annoy me "There is no single underlying factor that drives road casualties. Instead, there are a number of influences." Behaviour is by far the biggest single factor that has a bearing on casualties, how can it not be!

[danhopgood]

Road Safety group comments on this:

Road safety charity Brake’s campaigns director Joshua Harris lamented the “shocking lack” of progress on road safety. “Our laws are only as strong as their enforcement and roads policing is fundamental to improving UK road safety,” he said. “Shockingly, the number of traffic officers fell 24% from 2012 to 2017 and the stagnation in road safety performance shadows this trend. We urge the Government to make roads policing a national investment priority.”

Pedestrian charity Living Streets’ head of policy Tanya Braun added: “The current justice system is simply not an effective deterrent to dangerous behaviour. We are calling for an urgent review of how the justice system deals with mistakes, carelessness, recklessness and deliberately dangerous behaviour by all road users.”

[thirdcrank]

... There is no single underlying factor that drives road casualties. ...

I wonder if this phrase has been used because a big part of the Stats 19 analysis involves causative factors identified by the police investigating a crash. Over the years, there has been some controversy about the effects of vehicle speed as recorded or not in the stats 19, which has been used by some to argue against speed cameras and speed enforcement more generally, as well as speed limits as a whole.

Re the quotes in danhopgood's post, they take the words from my mouth, or my posts on here. Collapse of traffic enforcement might be a good search term.

[Cyril Haearn]

There is a lot of stupidity, motons harm themselves, the Grauniad reports many killed in cars were not wearing seat belts!

What priority might enforcing belt-up laws have?

[Pete Owens]

The big thing that stands out is the effect of the 2010 general election.

[The utility cyclist]

There is a lot of stupidity, motons harm themselves, the Grauniad reports many killed in cars were not wearing seat belts!

What priority might enforcing belt-up laws have?

Meh, seatelts have far wider negative effects than the polis want to divulge, one paramedic reckoned that in cases where the seatbelt 'saved' a person from hitting x, over 90% ended up with internal injuries.
Forcing reductions in motorvehicle speeds/acceleration would have a far greater effect on safety than seatbelts all day long IMHO

[The utility cyclist]

The big thing that stands out is the effect of the 2010 general election.

Please leave fallacious comment regarding politics out of the discussion.

[Cyril Haearn]

The big thing that stands out is the effect of the 2010 general election.

Please leave fallacious comment regarding politics out of the discussion.

Or explain, I do not know what happened

[The utility cyclist]

The big thing that stands out is the effect of the 2010 general election.

Please leave fallacious comment regarding politics out of the discussion.

Or explain, I do not know what happened

Basically a cheap bit of Tory bashing and ignoring that things don't change overnight and also ignoring that Labour have done naff all in the last 60 years for cycling. Surprised no mention of leaving the EU as to why the stats got worse from 2016-17

[Pete Owens]

The big thing that stands out is the effect of the 2010 general election.

Please leave fallacious comment regarding politics out of the discussion.

Not at all fallacious. This forum is about "public policy" - Public policy is set by the government - the government changed in 2010.

The previous government set ambitious casualty reduction targets - which were thought unrealistically ambitious at the time. Those targets concentrated the minds of highways engineers up and down the country who set about designing schemes aimed at making the roads safer. Those targets were actually met ahead of time as you can can see this in the steep decline in the road deaths up till 2010. This was criticised by the then opposition as "a war on motorists"

After the change of government that opposition cam to power and Phil Hammond was appointed transport secretary pledging to end that war - much to the delight of the nations petrolheads:
http://www.carsuk.net/war-on-motorists-over-philip-hammond/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/jun/01/transport-secretary-motorists
The casualty reduction targets were scrapped, and the focus instead moved to reducing congestion - so traffic engineers changed focus to schemes designed to shave seconds off motorised journeys rather than the lives of vulnerable road users.

Entirely predictably progress at improving road safety stalled from that point.

[thirdcrank]

... and the focus instead moved to reducing congestion ...

Another example of the priority given to maximising traffic flow on Highways England roads is the way all but the most serious crashes are dealt with by Highways Officers who are Highways England employees with no enforcement role and who prioritise clearing the carriageway eg of crashed vehicles. IMO, the less police investigation of crashes takes place, the less inhibited many drivers will feel about crashing.

[evink]

I have just posted a relevant comment to this thread under 'Accidents Statistics and Data recovery' . . . .
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=125398&p=1281163#p1281163

This post makes the case for taking due account of Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) as STATS 19 over covers personal injury incidents which become known to the police. The DfT states that a very low proportion of pedal cyclists injured in non collision incidents become known to the police.

64% of hospital admissions for cyclists in England in 2017 (10737) were due to non-collision incidents. Using survey data from NHS Bristo, where applicable, the highest cause of admissions was collision with a car, pick-up or van. The second highest was ice causing a non-collision injury.

Without a comprehensive record of the causes of cycling accidents we cannot establish properly targeted measures to reduce these accidents and hence encourage more cycling

There is more information under 'Accidents Statistics and Data recovery' .

[atlas_shrugged]

There are only about 5 EU countries that publish their accidents, average cycling distance, and number of cycle journeys. Of these 5 countries the UK has the lowest rate of cycling and the highest accident rate per km cycled.

For cyclists the figure required is not just accidents per million of population but accidents per million per km cycled. So for example the Netherlands may have higher cycling accidents than the UK but given that there are more km cycled it means that the risk in the NL is lower.

So the UK needs to do much better in getting cycle accidents down and the cycling rate up compared to other countries. The data can be seen in:
Britain's Road Safety Performance by TRL
Figure 19
Reprinted from the European Transport Safety Council (2012) NL (2008-2010), GB (2008-2010), DK (2008-2010), NO* (2009 ages 13 and over), SE† (2006)

GB 22.5 deaths per billion km cycled
SE, NO, DK, NL between 10-15 deaths per billion km cycled

GB 80 km cycled per person per year
SE, NO approx. 200 km cycled per person per year
DK 500 km cycled per person per year
NL 900 km cycled per person per year

Missing are figures for A, D, and F

[thirdcrank]

64% of hospital admissions for cyclists in England in 2017 (10737) were due to non-collision incidents. Using survey data from NHS Bristo, where applicable, the highest cause of admissions was collision with a car, pick-up or van. The second highest was ice causing a non-collision injury.

If 64% was "non-collision incidents" it's hard to see how the highest cause can be "collision with a car, pick-up or van."

[Bez]

the figure required is not just accidents per million of population but accidents per million per km cycled.

Therein lies the difference between Road Safety and road danger reduction.

Being enclosed in 1500kg of steel is safe. Feeling unable to use the roads without such protection is danger. If most people drive a car everywhere, those people are all safe, but everyone else is exposed to more danger.

Road Safety is nothing but an arms race, and like any arms race it serves to feed certain industries while making the world a more hostile place.