Road deaths treated less seriously than other deaths.

At the weekend we were on our way to the Peak District in the car to ride our bikes. We got just past Dove Holes and the road was blocked . When I got home I  looked on BBc news to find out why the road was blocked and it appeared that sadly, 5 motorcycle riders had been killed within 5 mile of Buxton.Two at Dove Holes and three in another incident elsewhere.

This got a very small mention on the BBC website but when some rich persons yacht sinks its headlines for days.

Both death tolls were similar.

Have we just normalized road deaths as inevitable consquences of using the roads?

Something about this situation just seems wrong.

It’s absolutely normalised.

If you want to eradicate someone from the gene pool, use a car to do it.

Motornormativity.

Have we just normalized road deaths as inevitable consquences of using the roads?

Well, it’s not “news”. Much like school shootings etc in the US, they’ve become so common that they don’t always make the news reports.

I hate to break it to you – but there are too many tragic deaths each day to fit them all on the news. If you gave them all equal ‘billing’ there wouldn’t be any other news.

Beyond things that are noteworthy becuase of freakish weather (the yacht deaths were news before anyone was aware who was on board) what tend to make the difference between road deaths that do get reported and road deaths that don’t is whether there is something to be resolved that publiciity can assist with. If theres nothing controversial and unsolved about the circumstances of an accident then putting it on the news doesn’t do much to help any of the people impacted by the tragedy. I’ve been first of the scene of what was to become a fatal accident, it was a life equal in value to any other, but ‘publicity’ isn’t one of the things I or anyone else involved would have sought or welcomed afterwards. Nothing about the circumstances required it, there was nothing the public needed to do, or act on, or learn.

But where these things do make the news its often the case that its paired with an appeal for witnesses, or something to be learned or  where theres a warning to be heeded.

I think that at least part of the problem is that the measures that would be required to reduce road deaths would be very unpopular amongst the most enthusiastic road users, including recreational motorcyclists.

This got a very small mention on the BBC website but when some rich persons yacht sinks its headlines for days.

Watching the news last night, I commented to my wife that BBC led with ‘Sicily Yacht Disaster’. It’s a tragedy for the families involved, obviously, but not even vaguely a disaster.

Have we just normalized road deaths as inevitable consquences of using the roads?

Sadly, men dying on motorcycles is not unusual. However, recall the family killed by impact with a motorcycle that also killed the two riders recently. That is still news and someone driving a Porsche 911 has been arrested in connection with the accident. A large yacht sinking in unusual adverse weather is likewise, very newsworthy. That it involved one of the richest UK entrepreneurs Mike Lynch, who has been in the news for many years, makes it even more newsworthy (not to mention Christopher Morvillo of Clifford Chance and Jonathan Bloomer, chair of insurance group Hiscox and Morgan Stanley International – which is newsworthy to the FT). Some road deaths, but not all boating deaths are newsworthy. It’s the nature of the news cycle, not the sad news itself.

I agree but something has too be done when you see five people dying like that and 4 seventeen year old kids being killed in one, one vehicle RTC. It starts getting hard to accept.

The roads are busy with too many cars and some peoples impatience or desire to drive enthusiastically should not be allowe to put other people at risk.

There are 4 or 5 deaths on UK roads every day.

133,443 casualties of all severities last year.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-provisional-estimates-year-ending-june-2023/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-provisional-estimates-year-ending-june-2023

A substantial amount of that harm will be avoidable.

 4 seventeen year old kids being killed in one, one vehicle RTC

BBC Wales started to report on these sort of death last winter, because there were quite a few, but without ever getting the obvious message across – young men are tits behind the wheel of a car and extremely dangerous.

I can’t remember if it was from the BBC website but I definitely read about the death of those 5 motorcyclists soon after it occurred. It was given a fair amount of prominence when I read it which is why I saw and clicked on the story.

When new stories emerge the old ones drop very quickly.

I think all deaths are treated seriously it is just that there has to be a particular angle to the death to make it newsworthy. Otherwise people won’t feel there is any point reading about it.

I think you could extend that to lots on men and some women.

I looked at the ONS road deaths stats and 30ish to 50 ish are just as dangerous as 18 to 30ish.

So quite a lot of the forum drivers are quite dangerous.

Not also to forget, there were two other motorcyclists killed at the same time on the Snake Pass the week before. That’s seven in three crashes. Terrible

We have a huge cultural blind-spot when it comes to anything related to road safety – if anything else was killing 4 or 5 people per day in the UK there would be public outrage and something would need to be done about it, but because its cars we just accept it as part of life.

Approximately 3 people per YEAR are killed by cyclists, yet the mainstream media are trying to rile everyone up about it and there have been changes to the law, yet the death toll caused by driving is ignored and often excused as people don’t want to accept that in order to reduce it we all need to change our habits! The 20mph speed limit has been proven, multiple times, to reduce deaths, yet look at how much pushback there’s been about that.

The whole thing is bonkers!

What about a speeding vaccine?

I am sick of being overtaken dangerously when I am driving at the speed limit.

The extraordinary trumps the mundane for headlines. Twas ever thus.

“What about a speeding vaccine?”

Good idea! Imagine if a new disease appeared which started killing 5 people a day and injuring many more – there’d be uproar and millions would be spent on finding a solution.

Some deaths are ordinary, some are extraordinary. Obviously no difference if its you or your loved ones, but for the population as a whole…

We’ve collectively accepted an amount of road (car and motorbike) deaths as the price paid for our current lifestyles and freedoms. (Even if you yourself dont drive you get the benefits of a country where fast and easy motorised personal transport is the norm). Yes it has issues and yes governments and car manufacturers are trying to address it.

50 years ago construction workers dying and being maimed was considered the norm.

75 years ago infant mortality was shockingly high.

100 years ago adults dying of any random unidentifyable cause was just seen as part of life.

Those with the knowledge and power are working to reduce it. Eventually with some success. But your average man in the street accepts these things as a sad part of reality.

Just four years ago this forum was analysing and arguing over hundreds and thousands of Covid death graphs with the same detached statistical approach.

Now 180ft yachts do not normally sink at anchor in the Med in the summer. Cyclists do not often kill people by crashing into them. Fatal allergic reactions and associated legal battles regarding streaming subscriptions are also uncommon and conversation-worthy.

I think that at least part of the problem is that the measures that would be required to reduce road deaths would be very unpopular amongst the most enthusiastic road users, including recreational motorcyclists

… but if, say, the 9 o’clock news every night stated the number of road/”vehicular” casualties and deaths (and followed that with the number of drivers convicted of offences each day) then the same drip-drip-drip effect that made everyone hate europe and darkies would maybe lead to all of Wales clamouring for 20mph and death for using your phone

I agree but something has too be done when you see five people dying like that and 4 seventeen year old kids being killed in one, one vehicle RTC. It starts getting hard to accept.

The roads are busy with too many cars and some peoples impatience or desire to drive enthusiastically should not be allowe to put other people at risk.

Here in Scotland it’s just been announced that theres roughly 10 times as many drug deaths as road deaths each day. Pretty much non of them get reported. We just get the tally once a year. We’re vary partial about what tragedies we want to read about

But plenty has been done about road deaths. In 1966 they were almost 8000 a year. Despite the volume of traffic being far greater they are less than a quarter now.

Not that there isn’t more easy wins to  reduce them a bit further.   Automatic ban if caught using a phone at the wheel.  We know it is dangerous and there is no excuse for it.

No hardship exceptions for getting banned after 12pts. If your licence is so important don’t drive like an arse.

What about a speeding vaccine?

I’ll add that to the list, along with 1 in 100 GATSOs being randomly swapped for a laser guided missile launcher. I’ll have to figure out some ornate back-romym that yields ‘BLAMO’ or something – do you feel lucky punk?

I think half the perceptual battle with road safety is we can see and read about the tragedies either as individual stories or complied statistics  but the successes are imperceptible. An average speed camera enforcement thingy was set up on a stretch of road near me. Prior to its implementation over (I forget what timeframe) there were 22 fatalities on that stretch of road. Afterwards there were 7 in the same time period. That suggests 14 people had their lives saved. But those 14 people don’t know that. 14 fewer widowed and orphaned families. Fewer people involved in those tragedies who’ll probably not have a day go by where they don’t think about it.  I travel along that road quite regularly so it could just as well be me whose life has been saved as anyone else I pass on each journey. I don’t think anyone drives along that stretch of road feeling protected, being grateful.

We have some of the safest roads in the world.

But plenty has been done about road deaths. In 1966 they were almost 8000 a year. Despite the volume of traffic being far greater they are less than a quarter now.

Brakes that actually work and cars not weighing a ton probably helps.

There was a time when cars had stickers to warn the vehicles behind that they had disc brakes.

And the police could calculate the speed a car was travelling before a collision by length of the skid mark.

I have a bugbear about our sneering at the USA and their gun laws in the name of “freedom” coupled with very tenuous mumbling about being occasionally useful for safety. We scoff at the huge number of pointless deaths over there resulting directly to availability of guns.

The usual arguments in favour of not having mandatory speed limiters for cars are “freedom” and very tenuous mumbling about being occasionally useful for safety. We seem to accept road deaths as just one of those things that happen.

(I realise that plenty of car accidents are caused by reasons other than speeding, and that in good conditions, motorway speed limits should be increased)

Between February 2023 and April 2024 out of 5,285  deaths:

3,907 (73.9%) were in males and 1,378 (26.1%) in females suspected or confirmed suicide

According to provisional statistics published by the Department for Transport (DfT) on May 30, 2023, there were an estimated 1,645 road fatalities in Great Britain

Exactly what deaths are not being taken seriously?

And the police could calculate the speed a car was travelling before a collision by length of the skid mark.

They still can: ABS leaves an initial skidmark before the system modulates the brakes. They can also use the distance a pedestrian was thrown to calculate an approximate speed

In the first half of my adult life I was a road accident investigator, I worked all over the UK and several hundred fatal road accidents* passed over my desk. From those 20 years I can still remember many of the individuals involved, the circumstances of their deaths, and the seconds leading up to their demise.

Some were utterly tragic, some mundane, some just an awful waste of life in situations so farcical you wouldn’t believe them if you read it in a book.

For the Government agencies I worked for, and the emergency services, they were all treated with the utmost seriousness. The societal cost of each incident is enormous, both financially and emotionally.

However, outside of those professional circles, no, road deaths are not in my opinion considered as seriously. A fatality occurs, it makes the local news, world moves on. The general public do not get to hear the circumstances, the how and the why, and there is then a disconnect between the death and the thought that, “shit, that could have been me – I drive that route everyday, on an icy morning, maybe running late, after a late night, trying to catch my mate etc etc etc”.

On the positive side as irc mentioned, road deaths have reduced massively over the years. In my 20 years investigating, we went from 4000 to 2000 a year. There are lots of factors in that reduction but probably the most important is the seriousness in which the subject was taken by Government and its agencies, and the measures they introduced on the road networks to design out risk, or to mitigate the effects of a collision. There is also the huge increase in vehicular safety on the part of manufacturers of course, and the unnoticed back room development of systems to record and analyse RTA data.

Could we reduce fatalities further? Yes of course. I remember a seminar many years ago where the net zero target was first mentioned, there was a lot of scoffing at the chances, yet here we are with numbers way way lower than back then, and net zero an actual aim. But as numbers reduce, we find the low hanging fruit has all gone. It gets harder to reduce deaths further. Bigger, more expensive decisions need to be taken, perhaps unpopular changes implemented.

*RTA/Rtc, collision. Call it what you like, I 100% understand the implication

They can also use the distance a pedestrian was thrown to calculate an approximate speed

Eyewitnesses too presumably.

Police investigations were developed to follow national standards about 20 years ago https://www.college.police.uk/app/roads-policing/investigation-fatal-and-serious-injury-road-collisions

Eyewitnesses too presumably.

If they’re a bystander they probably wouldn’t be as accurate as someone following/overtaken in another vehicle, but yes, anyone who can help determine the truth.

Distant CCTV has been used because you get a reasonable field of view to give a measurable distance/time

Worth seeking out “The Crash Detectives” on iPlayer for a good insight into this stuff –  I think it should be filmed nationwide as a regular program, there is so much learning in most episodes.

Police have put this out ahead of the bank holiday up here

BBC News – Police urge bikers to take care after fatal crashes

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpdl9l2jd13o

Worth seeking out “The Crash Detectives” on iPlayer for a good insight into this stuff

One small part of the whole investigation. The Accident Investigators (AI) as shown there analyse marks and other evidence from the scene, do the calculations, plans, give their evidence in Court, etc

There’s a whole load of other specialisms in managing the scene, preserving it until the AIs get to you, finding CCTV, witnesses, dealing with media, liaising with families, strategies, interviewing witnesses and suspects, etc., etc. That’s the bit that I did for fifteen years, until the one. It wouldn’t make good TV 🙂

As well as the obvious affects of having people who are killed or seriously injured on the road and thier relatives, I also worry about the trauma that dealing with the the situation has on emergency workers. I would imagine that things people see at “accident” scenes stay with them for a very long time.

As a “recreational biker”, I tend to avoid riding on weekends and bank holidays because of sharing the roads with lunatics.  I’m retired, so I have that luxury.  Living in an area surrounded by superb biking roads, the biggest danger when I do have to ride at the weekend is mostly other motorcyclists.

A regular occurrence is meeting an oncoming weekend warrior struggling to stay on his own side of the road coming too fast round a bend.  Overtaking at junctions, groups of riders blindly following each other into dodgy overtakes on blind bends, hill crests, speeding through villages etc. I do think it’s improved a little in recent years, as the riding demographic has increased in age and has largely swapped sports bikes for ‘adventure bikes’ and tourers.  But the general standard of riding is shocking and becomes way, way worse when they ride in groups. In the past I have ridden in a few large groups, but refuse to do it now.

A lot of motorcyclists convince themselves that it’s careless car drivers who cause most of their issues – the ‘SMIDSY’ accident.  That is a factor (although one that can be mitigated significantly with advanced riding techniques) but in reality they are their own worse enemy.  And I say that as a long time biker who is still in love with motorcycling.

I just read through the thread this morning and realized I had typed net zero in my post when referring to future accident numbers. This should have been vision zero, net zero deaths would be rather difficult to achieve!

I don’t think I can blame autocorrect but it was late

I used to have a bike. I only really rode it on very early on sunny Saturdays to avoid other bikers and have quiet roads.

When the brother of the guy I used to mountain bike with, was killed just outside Hebden Bridge, I sold my bike and gave up. I used to enjoy a sedate potter but I didn’t have the heart to continue after that.

The news* isn’t an arbiter of the worth of the events it’s reporting. More people die in events all of the world than in the stories that make the news on any given day.

Statistically there will be 2 murders in the UK today, neither will make the news.

Tens / hundreds will die in Palestine, Yemen, Sudan, peace talks might make the news but the death toll won’t.

People will die of cancer, dementia, Parkinson’s, but only new treatments ever make the news.

Motorcyclists dying in the Peak or people dying in warzones isn’t newsworthy because you already know it happens, there’s nothing new to report and you don’t learn any new information.

*on the TV or the BBC in particular.  Newspapers are different, they can have a bias, and need to generate sales immediately so will promote stories that their readership deems worthy.  So MCN will probably have this in the front few pages, The Daily Mail will probably have a running total of migrant crossings because despite being not-novel it’s newsworthy to it’s bigoted readership.