Safe Speed Forums

I'm catching up on some back-reading of SCAN - the Yorkshire SCameraship publication.

In their March edition, http://www.safetycameraswestyorkshire.c ... pring1.pdf from a questionnaire on speed cameras where answers needed to be posted or faxed, presumably to avoid multiple on-line submissions. I faxed my answer back) -

How can they leap to this conclusion from that question? The gulf is wider than the Thames!

Yet another case of a badly (and sadly )biased question.

This is like mathematicians quoting the square root of 4 as 2 , when it is +/- 2.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Sounds like a rather frank admission from the scammers that they're not doing their job right if you ask me! IF (as they suggest), speeding IS the cause of so many accidents, why have they been so unsuccessful at preventing it?

If they were a retail organisation, I'd be wanting a refund I'm afraid. They clearly haven't done what they claimed on the tin!

Oh it gets better look at this email for the latest scan newsletter
QUOTE:
Dear Nigel,

Welcome to the summer issue of your free casualty reduction
and road safety newsletter, SCaN... and it's a case of
"bad news/good news".

The bad news is that the number of deaths and serious injuries
on local roads went up following record-breaking falls in 2005.
The good news is that casualty trends overall are down, so the
roads are actually getting safer. It's good news that speeding
fines are going down, because it means that, generally, drivers
are going slower... which makes them less likely to be in a crash.
And there's good news about two mould-breaking new services from
West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership - a "request a
camera" service and mobile patrol locations delivered in advance
by text to your mobile phone.

It's all about making the roads you use... and the communities
alongside them... safer and better places to be. Which reminds me:
Thank you to all of you who signed the Safety in Numbers pledge
to take special care of yourself on Safer Roads Day on May 1st...
and every other day. As a SCaN reader, you know... probably better
than most... that we all share a responsibility for keeping ourselves
out of harm's way on the road. We all share a responsibility for
the safety of our streets. And we all share a common goal: to
keep ourselves and one another safe on the roads every day.

It's only by sharing this responsibility and by all working
together that we will be able to reduce the number of casualties
on our roads. So... thank your for the support you've given to this
noble cause already, and enjoy your copy of SCaN

Read it here,
http://www.safetycameraswestyorkshire.c ... etters.htm

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nigel_bytes

Where the hell do they get those figures? Out their arse?

Less than 6% of accidents are down to speeding.

Statistics can be made to prove anything...my favourite being that stats prove that the average human being has 1 breast and 1 testicle...

Just because stats are abused does not make them useless.

Ask a bookie or an insurance company about stats. Their profits depends on them.

Or ask about road safety - policies that work mean fewer dead people. That's a statistic too.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I think you've just managed to sum up exactly what we've all been trying to say about the dangers of relying on statistics!

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

If they are abused or manipulated to ones' own ends, what use are they except helpful to promote your own point of view?


And your point there being...what? That they can manipulate them to suit their own ends too?



And......refer to the above also

I don't want to be insulting but have you read this ? or understood this ? Insurers need to know the statistical risk of the groups they insure in order to set premiums and target markets. If they underestimate the risk for a group .....they pay out more maybe even more than they take in. Losses in any area of trading are bad for business. make enough mistakes and you go bust. If they were to manipulate them they'd fool only themselves. Stats apply to Road Safty policy too.

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Richard Ceen
We live in a time where emotions and feelings count far more than the truth, and there is a vast ignorance of science (James Lovelock 2005)

I'll refer you to my standard response about stats and cuases etc.

read a book called 'Freakonomics' I belive it's still a best seller.

No offence taken , but I stand by my original take on 'stats'.... they are only important to the statistician that compiled them and can be manipulated to make their own point of view look more favourable than another....
In the case of your instance...insurance companies....the 'stats' they base their business upon...are beneficial to whom...the insurance company or the policy holder ?

"10% on-line discount"...10% of what ...the price they quote or the price you are already paying?

"Kills 99% of all known germs" what about the other 1%?

"99% of cats prefer the taste"...and they know that how?

"5% of deaths on our roads are due to speeding" what caused the other 95%?

All are biased towards the ones who release those claims.

You would be answering truthfully if you replied "Yes" due to you driving at a speed you felt safe below the posted limit.

Actually, they can't.

Because there are a few people without either, the average must be slightly less than 1

80% of those who participated is hardly a decisive vote in favour compared to the driving population of the country (according to the Privilege website) of 32,024,203.... Now if 80% of them had responded as the 2661 had ......

Lets not split hers...or his's either huh?

Anyway... of those surveyed the average human being has 1 breast and 1 testicle

I'm not sure what your point is, other than to highlight ignorance surrounding the value of statistics.

That's it in a nutshell.
Simple huh?

Good self-analysis.

Let's not resort to personal abuse huh?