Highway Code, published in 1931



N

Noel

Guest
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7017796.stm

I had to read this bit twice:

"Today, with more than 27 million vehicles in Britain, the number of people
killed on the roads stands at something over 3,000 a year.

Back in 1931 that figure was more than 7,000 - yet there were just 2.3
million vehicles around."

Cheers
Noel
 
On Sep 28, 7:57 pm, Noel <[email protected]> wrote:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7017796.stm
>
> I had to read this bit twice:
>
> "Today, with more than 27 million vehicles in Britain, the number of people
> killed on the roads stands at something over 3,000 a year.
>
> Back in 1931 that figure was more than 7,000 - yet there were just 2.3
> million vehicles around."

Speed limits, traffic police, drink driving laws, safety cells,
crumple zones, traffic calming, better brakes and lights, ... All
adds up.
 
Duncan Smith wrote:
> On Sep 28, 7:57 pm, Noel <[email protected]> wrote:
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7017796.stm
>>
>> I had to read this bit twice:
>>
>> "Today, with more than 27 million vehicles in Britain, the number of people
>> killed on the roads stands at something over 3,000 a year.
>>
>> Back in 1931 that figure was more than 7,000 - yet there were just 2.3
>> million vehicles around."
>
> Speed limits, traffic police, drink driving laws, safety cells,
> crumple zones, traffic calming, better brakes and lights, ... All
> adds up.

Unfortunately, you can also add better ambulance response times, highly
trained paramedics, advances in A & E medicine - better survival rates
from collisions.


--
Brian G
www.wetwo.co.uk
 
Duncan Smith wrote:
> On Sep 28, 7:57 pm, Noel <[email protected]> wrote:
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7017796.stm
>>
>> I had to read this bit twice:
>>
>> "Today, with more than 27 million vehicles in Britain, the number of people
>> killed on the roads stands at something over 3,000 a year.
>>
>> Back in 1931 that figure was more than 7,000 - yet there were just 2.3
>> million vehicles around."
>
> Speed limits, traffic police, drink driving laws, safety cells,
> crumple zones, traffic calming, better brakes and lights, ... All
> adds up.

Don't fool yourself. Apart from the reduction in casualties amongst car
occupants due largely to vehicle design improvements (that you do
mention), the rest of the reduction is largely due to less people
walking and cycling, and less people letting their children walk and
cycle alone. This results from their community roads having been
engineered to give motor traffic de-facto priority - rather than
providing an adequate motorway network and retaining community roads for
true respectful "shared use".

--
Matt B
 
"Brian G" <[email protected]> wrote
> Duncan Smith wrote:
>> On Sep 28, 7:57 pm, Noel <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>> Speed limits, traffic police, drink driving laws, safety cells,
>> crumple zones, traffic calming, better brakes and lights, ... All
>> adds up.
>
> Unfortunately, you can also add better ambulance response times, highly
> trained paramedics, advances in A & E medicine - better survival rates
> from collisions.

....and in probability, congestion and that people have become more used to
having to interact with other road users.
 
On Sep 28, 10:41 pm, Duncan Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sep 28, 7:57 pm, Noel <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7017796.stm
>
> > I had to read this bit twice:
>
> > "Today, with more than 27 million vehicles in Britain, the number of people
> > killed on the roads stands at something over 3,000 a year.
>
> > Back in 1931 that figure was more than 7,000 - yet there were just 2.3
> > million vehicles around."
>
> Speed limits, traffic police, drink driving laws, safety cells,
> crumple zones, traffic calming, better brakes and lights, ... All
> adds up.

Natural selection?

What's the name of that moth that changed colour during the
industrial revolution.

John Kane
 
On 30/09/2007 14:11, John Kane wondered:
> What's the name of that moth that changed colour during the
> industrial revolution.

Biston betularia, or the peppered moth:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth>

--
Danny Colyer <http://www.redpedals.co.uk>
Reply address is valid, but that on my website is checked more often
"The plural of anecdote is not data" - Frank Kotsonis
 
On Fri, 28 Sep 2007 19:41:49 -0700, Duncan Smith
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Sep 28, 7:57 pm, Noel <[email protected]> wrote:
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7017796.stm
>>
>> I had to read this bit twice:
>>
>> "Today, with more than 27 million vehicles in Britain, the number of people
>> killed on the roads stands at something over 3,000 a year.
>>
>> Back in 1931 that figure was more than 7,000 - yet there were just 2.3
>> million vehicles around."
>
>Speed limits, traffic police, drink driving laws, safety cells,
>crumple zones, traffic calming, better brakes and lights, ... All
>adds up.

I'm certain that so some called "traffic calming" makes the roads more
dangerous to many due to the reactions that many drivers have to them.

M
 
Mark said the following on 01/10/2007 16:52:

> I'm certain that so some called "traffic calming" makes the roads more
> dangerous to many due to the reactions that many drivers have to them.

What an appropriately timed post! I've just come back from a near miss
in the company van where there are speed pillows just ahead of a blind
bend. In a futile attempt to avoid the pillows, some drivers use the
middle of the road - around said blind bend. The owner of the house by
the bend has had fences replaced numerous times...

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/
 
On Mon, 01 Oct 2007 17:39:29 +0100, Matt B
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Wasn't it Barnet that experienced a 15% drop in road casualties
>following the removal of speed humps there?

Correlation does not imply causation.

Have pedestrians and cyclists been forced off the roads by the higher
traffic speeds? Have Barnet's additional safety measures, such as
improved pedestrian crossings, contributed to the reduction? Have air
and noise pollution levels increased?

I'm sure the measures implemented by Brian Coleman are popular with
some, but the man is a thieving crook who got himself a driving ban, yet
expects London's taxpayers to foot his exorbitant £10k taxi bill. His
childish tantrum over Connie Huq's endorsement of London Freewheel did
him and his party no favours either.
 
Marc Brett wrote:
> On Mon, 01 Oct 2007 17:39:29 +0100, Matt B
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Wasn't it Barnet that experienced a 15% drop in road casualties
>> following the removal of speed humps there?
>
> Correlation does not imply causation.

Is that _also_ the rule if a drop in casualties correlates with the
/introduction/ of a "safety measure"? ;-)

--
Matt B
 
On Sep 30, 12:55 pm, Danny Colyer <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 30/09/2007 14:11, John Kane wondered:
>
> > What's the name of that moth that changed colour during the
> > industrial revolution.
>
> Biston betularia, or the peppered moth:
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth>

Thanks.

John Kane, Kingston ON Canada
 
"Duncan Smith" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Sep 28, 7:57 pm, Noel <[email protected]> wrote:
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7017796.stm
>>
>> I had to read this bit twice:
>>
>> "Today, with more than 27 million vehicles in Britain, the number
>> of people
>> killed on the roads stands at something over 3,000 a year.
>>
>> Back in 1931 that figure was more than 7,000 - yet there were just
>> 2.3
>> million vehicles around."
>
> Speed limits, traffic police, drink driving laws, safety cells,
> crumple zones, traffic calming, better brakes and lights, ... All
> adds up.

Read John Adam's book 'Risk', about "Smeed's Law". See the section,
"Safer Vehicles?", p137. Smeed plotted the number of accidents over
time in various countries. They all followed much the same curve,
although some climbed the curve at a later time than others. Thus
Malaysia in 1980 is just like the USA in 1925. This seems to show
that whatever the improvements were in road design and car design
between 1925 and 1980, they didn't achieve much, if anything.

There were two exceptions: Over the years the Brit's have always
been slightly safer than the curve shows they "should" be, and the
Germans, slightly more dangerous.

Jeremy Parker
 
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