Speed Cameras Increase Freeway Accidents 31-55%
from the shhhhhhhh dept
Bob Dole writes "Illinois readers should pay special attention to an official newly-uncovered study that the UK government never wanted you to see. It shows that injury accidents increased 31 percent when speed cameras were used on freeways, and they increased 55 percent when used in freeway work zones. When the researchers who were commissioned to study the effects of cameras in construction zones came up with these results, the UK government did everything in its power to prevent the data from ever seeing the light of day. After all, they make about 700 million pounds (a billion US dollars) yearly from the machines. Illinois is about to implement its own work zone speed camera program, "to reduce accidents and save lives." I'm sure the last thing on the mind of Illinois bureaucrats is all the $375 first offense, $1000 second offense citations it will generate." Update: Some good points in the comments ripping this study apart. It is worth noting, by the way, that the source of it, TheNewspaper, is based on the idea of stopping redlight and speed cameras. It sounds like they're misquoting this study and misreading it on purpose.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Say NO to Speed Cameras
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Please Check Your Facts
There is also a serious mis-quote in the article.
""sites with speed camera enforcement had a significantly higher without works ratio than sites that did not use camera enforcement"
became
"non-works [personal injury accident] rate is significantly higher for the sites with speed cameras than the rate for sites without."
Obviously someone is bending this study to their own ends, and betting that people will reprint it without checking their facts.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Please Check Your Facts
If you've seen SafeSpeed/Paul Smith before, you'll know the obvious answer is "both of the above".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This piece of 'news' is rubbish
"[The UK study] shows that injury accidents increased 31 percent when speed cameras were used on freeways,..."
No it doesn't. Read the report. All the accidents that make up this 31% happened over three preceding years, BEFORE any cameras were installed.
(Does the techdirt author believe these speed cameras somehow went back in time and injured people? Sheesh!)
The "31%" actually shows that road engineers chose to deploy analogue speed cameras on the more dangerous sections of freeway. On average, the sections chosen were _already_ 31% more dangerous. That's probably why they were chosen.
"... and they increased 55 percent when used in freeway work zones."
Also rubbish, for the same reason. Cameras were used on sites that were already known to be 31% more dangerous, even under normal conditions. Yes, there was an 18% accident rate increase when the road works began on these busy sections. But no, you can't blame the cameras for that. And you certainly can't mutliply-in the 31% from before the cameras were even there! (55% is 31% compounded with 18%, or equivalently 1.31 x 1.18 = 1.55).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: This piece of 'news' is rubbish
As an anecdote, the Flying Spaghetti Monster website (http://www.venganza.org/) states that:
"You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s(...)As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature."
I also heard that something like 90% of child molesters have milk in their fridge, suggesting a direct causal link between milk ingestion and perverse behavior.
Kind of sounds like that is the logic that concludes that the addition of traffic cameras at otherwise dangerous freeway sites is the obvious cause of any accidents that may occur there.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: This piece of 'news' is rubbish
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Kudos to previous posters
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
speed cameras
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: speed cameras
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: speed cameras
The problem is that slowing down does not necessarily mean less accidents. If traffic is forced to travel at a speed that is well below the 85th percentile, that section of roadway will have more accidents than a section where the speed is set at the 85th percentile.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: speed cameras
Ahh..so going slower leads to more accidents than going faster. In that case the study does make sense. Thanks for clearing that up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: speed cameras
You want as many cars as possible travelling over a narrow speed range - setting the speed limit at the 85th percentile achieves that goal. The use of speed cameras usually indicates that the speed limit has been set artifically too low.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: speed cameras
This just boggles the mind.
So the "artificial" 40 km/h speed limit outside schools that's set to stop people killing school children. It's sometimes enforced by speed cameras and yet you're blaming the speed cameras for any injury or fatality that occurs there?!?
The 50 km/h residential street speed limit, set to ensure that people have a higher chance of stopping when a kid runs out onto the road. Some of those streets happens to be straight. "hey, it's straight, why can't I travel as fast as my car will go?" Sometimes there are speed cameras to catch people speeding along the street. And you blame the speed camera?!?
I wish all you speed-camera blamers would just get a bloody grip on reality and learn to be responsible for your actions.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: speed cameras
Why is it then that in the UK (where the original study came from) the roads with the highest speed limits (called 'motorways') have the lowest number of accidents?
Jeffj - if higher speeds automatically mean more accidents then good luck to you on your next airline flight....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: speed cameras
The success claim stayed on their forum until the annual figures revealed an INCREASE in deaths in 2004 over the preceding 12 months.
SteveC claimed the information had 'timed out' and deleted itself automatically, yet when pressed about it one of his colleagues revealed that the information had indeed been deleted.
The outcry and criticism that followed led SteveC and his colleagues to withdraw the forum rather than face the music.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
I didn't look at all the numbers in the report, and I don't have time. Did anyone notice if the numbers are their at an individual site level? cause then I think they would be valid. Of course they either aren't their, or don't give the numbers that speedsafe wanted, otherwise they would hav used them.
If you ask me this survey is pretty useless (2 sample sites for accurate flow vs 24, hello?) even for the purpose of what it was really trying to do, let alone for determining the pros/cons of speed cameras.
But hey, any thing that helps get rid of them is ok by me :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No Subject Given
Another note worth mentioning is that only two sites "with works" had traffic flow data available.... I wonder what the error in traffic flow is for those sites?
should read:
I wonder what the error in traffic flow is for the other sites? (ie those without available data)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Responding to the charges.
Second, to the numbers. Again, READ the chart. Works accidents with speed cameras: .138 Works accidents without speed cameras: .089 Divide the number of accidents with cameras (.138) by the number without(.089), you get 1.55 -- i.e., 55 percent. The same transformation (1.117 / .089) gives you 31 percent.
Is this what the report wants you to conclude? No. Is it doing injustice to the report? NO. "non-works [personal injury accident] rate is significantly higher for the sites with speed cameras than the rate for sites without."
They don't want to give the numbers because that's not what the UK government paid them to find. The numbers, however, are there.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
More replies.
Now, are we just to be lemmings and not ask, how much higher? If the answer isn't 31 percent, what is it? All the footnote says is that it's > 5%. And if the study is all sunshine and roses for the cameras, why all the effort to hide it? It was completed 18 months ago, and only made available because the UK FOIA law kicked into effect this year. As for the KSI rate, fewer than 4 people are killed annually in road works in the UK. The fatality statistic is too small to be statistically useful. < a HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4158198.stm" rel="nofollow">BBC article.
To Mark -- everyone who reads Techdirt knows the patent system is broken. I personally like the constant reinforcement that comes from facts about the situation. If you think I'm trying to be misleading, why would I include links to a complete copy of the study? If I really wanted to mislead, it'd be easy to find (or make) an article that hid the data. I suggest you ought to ask who has something to hide before making assertions like that. The Dept. for Transport is the one who doesn't want you to read the study.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Speed Cameras Increase Freeway Accidents 31-55%
[ link to this | view in chronology ]