Do you flash other drivers when you see a speed camera van?

Can’t be bothered finding evidence and presenting it here, but don’t take my word for it, do some research.

Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. Back up your “facts,” otherwise what you’re presenting there is hearsay and opinion.

Quoted as absolutes – it’s absolute rubbish.
.

So……Nobody has ever survived being hit by a car at 35mph ???

And…..Nobody has ever been killed by being hit by a car at 25mph ???

Would you agree that drivers and riders who exceed speed limits cause more crashes, and kill and injure more people, than drivers who do not exceed speed limits?

Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. Back up your “facts,” otherwise what you’re presenting there is hearsay and opinion.

Contributory factors to reported road accidents, Department for Transport, 2010.

The National Safety Camera Programme: Four-year Evaluation Report by University College London & PA Consulting. Published by Department for Transport, December 2005

RoSPA Speed Cameras Factsheet 2011, RoSPA, 2011

The Effectiveness of Speed cameras: A Review of Evidence, Prof R Allsop, RAC Foundation, November 2010

TJ, I answered your question a few posts ago bud.

Contributory factors to reported road accidents, Department for Transport, 2010.

Unrelated to the point you’re making.

The National Safety Camera Programme: Four-year Evaluation Report by University College London & PA Consulting. Published by Department for Transport, December 2005

The Effectiveness of Speed cameras: A Review of Evidence, Prof R Allsop, RAC Foundation, November 2010

Neither appear to be available online, so are hard to review.

RoSPA Speed Cameras Factsheet 2011, RoSPA, 2011

Based on the previous two reports so, whilst this does back up your claim, it’s still difficult to verify the quality of the research.

Nontheless, I think it’s a fair comment that cameras have an effect on speed when deployed. How many people slow down for the twenty yards where the cameras are though, and then speed back up again, it’s hard to say. I’m not wholly sure that I actually disagree with you (though I’m not really sure what you’re getting at).

In what circumstances would accelerating to above the speed limit be safer?

Says the guy who use to take pride in riding a british frying machine to Russia. Are you trolling again TJ?

really cant be arsed reading all 1 millions posts but I can guess what its about. put it this way…if someone knocked down my kids and speed was a factor I’d hunt the the feckers down.

we all do it from time to time and at the right time and place is not a problem if you done go mental but in city streets its a big no no.

I’m not sure why this is going on. TJ agrees there are circumstancez in which insufficient anticipation leads to situations where accelerating can be the safer option. We live in a non-deterministic world, so that situations arise which cannot be anticipated, so in real life, there are times when acceleration is the safest opton.

Or have i missed something?

to answer the original post, no. the other drivers won’t know what I’m flashing at/about

I was driving to work the other morning, car behind me started flashing at me. Kept it up for a couple of minutes so I pulled over. He sailed on by without stopping to tell me why he was flashing. Do I look like a bloody psychic?

Anyway, I got out & checked all my lights, everything seemed ok. Couldn’t check my brake lights until later, but found out they were fine. No leaks or anything hanging off the underside. So I have no idea why he was flashing. Not like I was holding him up, the car in front was holding us all up, doing 29mph in a 30 zone, shocking eh?

was it an uneven/bumpy road surface? 😆

Charlie – very rare, only if you have made a mistake to get into that situation – and even then braking might still be a better option. Better not to make the mistake

if the ability to accelerate in those situations was removed then the amount of extra crashes would be so small – and in comparison to the crashes prevented?

I have only been in that situation once in 35 years – an ill judged overtake where a down shift and smack the throttle open got me thru – I still probably could have braked in behind but was full of adrenaline. If I had got it wrong I was in big trouble – a head on with a closing speed of 150 mph. If I had braked instead the speeds involved would have been much lower – hit the back of car doing 50 at 60 mph or bounce on my arse at 55 mph

I think the concept of ” accelerating out of trouble” is an excuse used by overenthusiastic poorly skilled drivers to justify overenthusiastic agreesive driving / riding and poor anticipation and yes – I include the scenario I have described there to show my own mistakes – cos that is what it was

Would you agree that drivers and riders who exceed speed limits cause more crashes, and kill and injure more people, than drivers who do not exceed speed limits?

No idea, do you have any evidence to persuade me one way or the other ?

That’s not the point I was making though.

My point was, that incorrectly quoting a half remembered advert off the telly, weakens an argument.

Neal – you are just being pedantic – the point still stands – the slower you are going the more chance a pedestrian you hit has of surviving.

Not coy, just didn’t see how it was relevant and didn’t want to take this thread of topic. I do have a pretty good understanding of the subject but could not clearly see how it applied in this situation which is why i asked you to explain. Then you went coy.

Ah – sorry. I was assuming normal STW awkward attitude from somebody who knew the answer. I shall have to try harder at being awkward next time if you don’t remember me from the other thread 😉 . I’m actually genuinely interested in what you can present at a conference on stats without being a statistician – just tuck it somewhere in a post trolling TJ and everybody will ignore it.

I’d love to explain regression to the mean with speed cameras, but right now there’s a TJ who needs arguing with, so I’ll have to get back to you later…

if the ability to accelerate in those situations was removed then the amount of extra crashes would be so small – and in comparison to the crashes prevented?

Or better put.. If every one rides with helmet there would be less cycling related death…

(See what I did here).

I think the concept of ” accelerating out of trouble” is an excuse used by overenthusiastic poorly skilled drivers to justify overenthusiastic agreesive driving / riding and poor anticipation and yes – I include the scenario I have described there to show my own mistakes – cos that is what it was

I think it’s time you re-take your motorcycling test my dear. Really.

Is this still continuing with any sign of an end? I only asked about fookin mobile camera vans! Oh an being able to accelerate quickly and sometimes break the speed limit briefly when overtaking is far safer than having to go down two gears in ya metro to sneak by after 30 seconds on the wrong side of the road! Discuss that one at will!

V8 – to be in that situation you did fail to anticipate – you failed to anticipate the truck pulling out.

Yeah – I was driving down the motorway when somebody pushed a block of concrete off a bridge. I completely failed to anticipate that. Fortunately I saw it as it started to get pushed over, and accelerated – clearly if I’d braked I might not have had it land on my car, I’d just have run straight into it.

I also failed to anticipate the meteor which crashed into the roof of my house, the tsunami which drowned me and the dinosaur which ate me. Clearly all my own fault.

<note to pedants – parts of this post may not be strictly accurate>

TandemJeremy – Member
Neal – you are just being pedantic – the point still stands – the slower you are going the more chance a pedestrian you hit has of surviving.

The accusation of pedantry, what a shocker that is 🙄

Rule 6 of the “Internet Debater’s” Handbook

Always accuse people of pedantry when you get pulled up for quoting bogus made up statistics !

if someone knocked down my kids and speed was a factor I’d hunt the the feckers down.

How do we ascertain that “speed is a factor” (for fecker-hunting purposes)?

Is “speed a factor” if a motorist was above the speed limit, end of story, or is speed a factor when it’s shown to have actually contributed to the cause of the accident?”

Putting that another way; if (say) 50% of all motorists speed, and 50% of motorists involved in accidents were speeding, are we concluding that speed is a ‘factor’ in half of all accidents? And is that a fair conclusion if so?

aracer

Yeah – I was driving down the motorway when somebody pushed a block of concrete off a bridge

Yup- another observation one. I see people standing on a bridge over the motorway I always watch them. I look at every bridge for people chucking stuff off and for spotters for speed traps. If I see someone standing on a motorway bridge I try to change lanes so I do not go underneath them 🙂 Seriously I do this altho no one will believe me.

Jeezo – some people are unobservant.

neal – or on the other hand you can pedatically pick holes in something whan you have no counter to the point made – which you have not.

Pedantry accusations? Do you think he is wrong ?

Putting that another way; if (say) 50% of all motorists speed, and 50% of motorists involved in accidents were speeding, are we concluding that speed is a ‘factor’ in half of all accidents? And is that a fair conclusion if so?

That looks to me like speed is not a factor

Putting that another way; if (say) 50% of all motorists speed, and 50% of motorists involved in accidents were speeding, are we concluding that speed is a ‘factor’ in half of all accidents? And is that a fair conclusion if so?

Or speed was a factor in 0% of accidents.
Or speed was a factor in 100% of accidents.
Or anywhere in between 0% and 100%

Or just hunt the feckers anyway ?

Yup- another observation one. I see people standing on a bridge over the motorway I always watch them. I look at every bridge for people chucking stuff off and for spotters for speed traps. If I see someone standing on a motorway bridge I try to change lanes so I do not go underneath them

Ah, so for the meteorite you have your own space observatory you check every 5 minutes, and then rebuild your house brick by brick 10m to the left, for the tsunami you keep a constant watch on earthquake monitoring sites and hop in the motorboat and head out to sea, and for the dinosaur… actually I’m struggling to work out how you anticipate the dinosaur with only the aid of stone age tools.

if the ability to accelerate in those situations was removed then the amount of extra crashes would be so small – and in comparison to the crashes prevented?

So you think accidents will be reduced if you remove one of the four relative directional options for evasion?

Anyway, back to the far more important point about regression to the mean.

With the policy on siting of speed cameras being that they had to be placed in an area where there had been accidents (I suspect even without a stated policy – and if that policy has now been removed – that there would be the same effect), there is a tendency to site new cameras when there have been a number of qualifying accidents within the recent past. Accidents which are part of the “before” statistics. After the camera is placed, it is far more likely that the number of accidents in the locality will become closer to the long term mean than further away from it compared to the period before it was placed (given a typical stochastic accident distribution). Given an anomalously high number of accidents relative to the long term average in the before period (for the reasons given above), the number of accidents will reduce after the siting of the camera. Regression to the mean rather than any effect of the camera.

Apologies for the use of statistical terms – I’m hoping anybody interested can cope. Apologies for any accidental incorrect use of statstical terms – I’m not a statistician (I just have a basic understanding as sometimes required for problems in engineering), I hope it doesn’t distract from the explanation.

I think I said something like that pages ago, aracer… No where near as eloquently though! 🙂

I can see how that works on an individual site, but when the stats are aggregated over a number of sites the gains are greater than regression to mean would allow

So you think accidents will be reduced if you remove one of the four relative directional options for evasion?

this was in the context of having all cars mandatedly limited to the speed limit in that location – some wanted the ability to accelerate beyond the speed limit to “accelerate out of trouble”

In that situation the ability to accelerate out of trouble would be so rare if it ever existed that it would cause very few if any crashes to remove the ability to do so, whereas removing the ability to accelerate in excess of the speed limit would reduce accidents considerably and minimise the consequences of these accidents

this was in the context of having all cars mandatedly limited to the speed limit in that location – some wanted the ability to accelerate beyond the speed limit to “accelerate out of trouble”

What? You mean this was all hypothetical? In the artificial context of a limited speed?

In that situation the ability to accelerate out of trouble would be so rare if it ever existed that it would cause very few if any crashes to remove the ability to do so, whereas removing the ability to accelerate in excess of the speed limit would reduce accidents considerably and minimise the consequences of these accidents

… in your opinion.

It’s not “Pedantic” to say that you made your statistics up in the attempt to prove your point 😯

Why do I have to “counter” your point ? I’m simply pointing out that your statistics were made up.

Something you don’t appear to be able to defend, without deflecting onto me by accusing me of being pedantic 🙄

🙄

In that situation the ability to accelerate out of trouble would be so rare if it ever existed

Provide you conveniently ignore the situations where it does exist 🙄

I can see how that works on an individual site, but when the stats are aggregated over a number of sites the gains are greater than regression to mean would allow

Why would aggregrating the stats make a significant difference when the effect is likely to happen at most if not all camera sites? How much gain would regression to the mean allow? Not (particularly) arguing – just interested in the thoughts of somebody who might know more about stats than me.

Don’t see how that backs up your made up statistics ?

Or maybe it was your way of admitting you were wrong ?

Either way, good comeback.

.

By the way, according to the advert you couldn’t quite remember, but were happy to “quote” anyway…

the projected survival chances when being hit by a car at 30mph Are 45%

Rather than 0% as you “Guessed” and passed off as fact.

Also, technically, it’s not hit at 30mph, or 25mph. It’s hit by a car that was originally travelling at those speeds, assuming the same reaction times and braking distances for both examples, hence an actual collision speed of far less. Hence my original assertion, better to be paying attention and a little above the limit, than be below the limit but in your own little world. But that was a ‘bullshit argument’ apparently.

Well, if the accident site was just a statistical artifact. I.e. Somewhere has to be in the top 10% and putting the camera in place had no effect then the data from those spots, over time should give a result which is the same as the population mean. if the hotspots are real hotspots and the cameras were completely effective then we would still see the same ‘mean’ result. Of course if cameras were completely ineffective then the stats would remain high. So that, the stats drop a bit would seem to indicate that hotspots are real and cameras are doing something.

I think

Neal- however I said 35 🙄

Still think that if you use your car as the reference point, then saying you cannot accelerate, just limits your degrees of freedom