*** COMMENT *** Huge proportion treat rural roads as race track Thats the claim made by Brake, the road safety charity. How do they come to that conclusion? Because in a survey of 1,000 drivers carried out on their behalf of Brake, 33% of respondents admitted “driving too fast for safety” on country roads – and 37% said they have had a near miss while driving, walking or cycling on these roads. Brake point out that per mile travelled, country roads are the “most dangerous for all types of road user”, although well see in a moment that is a broad brush statement that does need some clarification. They argue thats because there is less traffic on country roads, some drivers “feel a false sense of security and are prone to take risks like speeding, overtaking, and not slowing down for brows and bends”. Julie Townsend, deputy chief executive of Brake, said: We hear constantly from people in rural areas whose communities are blighted by fast traffic. Its a big issue over the summer when many people want to enjoy our beautiful countryside on foot, bike or horseback, and shouldnt have to contend with drivers treating the roads as their personal racetrack. Driving in this way is incredibly selfish and means people feel less able to get out and enjoy the countryside.” The charity says that three quarters of those surveyed (76%) think country roads need to be safer for cyclists, walkers and horse-riders, and two in five say they would start cycling or cycle more (37%), or start walking or walk more (43%), if these roads were safer. Using the results of the survey Brake is calling on Government to lower limits on rural roads to a maximum of 50mph, and to require authorities to implement lower limits “where there are particular risks” and urging drivers to stay well under current limits because “60mph is generally far too fast for safety on these roads”. So lets have a look at the arguments logically, and try to steer clear of the emotive arguments that Brake introduce by using words like race track, selfish and blight. The first thing well say is that the roads are a shared resource and have been, since well before the invention of the petrol engine and the advent of tarmac, and that there have been confrontations between the various classes of users almost as long as people have wanted to move between two places and those with faster means of transport have used it without regard to those on foot. That is there very reason there are furious riding offences, contained within The wording of Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (as amended by the Criminal Justice Act 1948): “Drivers of carriages injuring persons by furious driving. Whosoever, having the charge of any carriage or vehicle, shall by wanton or furious driving or racing, or other wilful misconduct, or by wilful neglect, do or cause to be done any bodily harm to any person whatsoever, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years.” They may be rare, but even in the 21st century there are prosecutions for the offences of furious horse riding. A 65 year old woman was reported to the police in Surrey and charged with the 167-year-old offence of driving a horse furiously contrary to the Town Police Clauses Act of 1847. She admitted the offence at Guildford Magistrates Court and was given a conditional discharge in February this year. A month earlier, a cyclist was jailed for twelve months after pleading guilty to committing wanton or furious cycling leading to grievous bodily harm. The nine year old girl he collided with suffered life-threatening injuries. Whilst its no excuse for bad behaviour by motorised road users, we make that point to illustrate that within any group there are people who behave without regard to others. Its unreasonable to single out motorists and motorcyclists as the enemy of reasonable road users, when they quite simply constitute by far and away the biggest users of the roads in terms of numbers and distance travelled. Its also entirely unreasonable to imply that the recreational use by powered vehicles is somehow inappropriate and that only walkers, horse riders and cyclists should be entitled to use the roads in that way. So what about the figures? They were compiled for Brake by a firm of solicitors. Digby Browns survey of 1,000 UK drivers found: 19% admit breaking speed limits on country roads in the past year 15% admit taking corners or brows too fast 5% admit overtaking when it isnt safe They also surveyed passengers and found 28% have been a passenger with a driver who broke the limit, 19% with a driver who took corners or brows too fast, and 8% with a driver who overtook when it wasnt safe. Its hardly a surprise that 19% admit breaking the speed limit. In fact, its a surprise the figure is so low. The insurance company Admiral asked 3,614 motorists about whether they broke the limit and the figure was far higher - around three quarters! Although we have to be careful about trusting any self-reporting figures, the age group that admitted they were most likely to exceed the limit were drivers aged 30-39. Rather more surprisingly, no less than 81% of admitted driving above the speed limit. Even more counter-intuitively, 72% of the over-70s also admitted to breaking speed limits, which turned out to be exactly the same % as for the supposedly high-risk 18-24 year olds! Lets try to put a bit more flesh on the bones. DfT figures suggest the groups most likely to speed excessively are those driving in a work related capacity, members of high income households, young males, motorcyclists and HGV drivers on single carriageway main roads where their speed limit is 40 mph. But perhaps the people Brake surveyed are the few who obey the limits religiously? Maybe not. When you ask people what they think, it turns out that we all have one rule for ourselves and another for everyone else; in 2002 the Select Committee on Transport stated that: most drivers and pedestrians think speeds are generally too high but 95 per cent of all drivers admit to exceeding them. And Brake are guilty of stretching a point in interpreting the survey. The question actually asked was: Q4. In the past year, do you think you have driven faster than was safe on a country road? (tick at least one, and as many as apply) And the answers were: 19% said yes, Ive broken speed limits on country roads 11% said yes, Ive driven a bit too fast in bad weather/visibility 15% said yes, Ive taken corners/brows a bit too fast 5% said yes, Ive overtaken when it wasnt totally safe 58% said no, Ive always driven within speed limits and slowly enough to be safe on country roads 9% said Ive not driven on country roads By using multiple ticks, the total adds up to more than 100%, and its not easy from summing their totals to see how they managed to get their 33% of respondents admitted “driving too fast for safety” on country roads - presumably its a result of overlap between the four yes answers as they add up to 50%. Whats missing from those figures is any idea of how often the drivers were answering yes. In other words, were drivers thinking back admitting to one particular error where they went into a corner too quick, or made a bit of a mess of an overtake? Or are we looking at a habitual risk-taking behaviour? We dont know, because were not told (presumably because they didnt ask) but if drivers were admitting to occasional errors, its hardly justifies the racetrack soundbite. But surely the fact youre more likely to be killed or injured on a minor road must show they are particularly dangerous? Well, in January 2001 Ordnance Survey calculated that in the UK we had the following amounts of road in Great Britain: motorways - 2,705 miles, A Roads - 29,934 miles, B Roads - 18,779 miles and finally minor public roads - 195,396 miles. Brakes casualty figures, which come from the DfTs 2013 and 2014 reports into road casualties, says car occupants are almost twice as likely to be killed on a country road than an urban road, motorcyclists more than twice as likely, and cyclists more than three times as likely. In 2013, 895 people were killed on non-built up roads, up 1% on 2012, and 6,554 seriously injured. Note they say non-built up. What that presumably means is that they have lumped in all the collisions on rural A and B roads (and potentially even non-urban motorways!) in with the country roads they are concerned about. Though our own figures regarding length of roads in the UK dont separate urban and rural roads (we couldnt find that information in a quick search), a significantly greater proportion of traffic in rural areas will still be carried on the main through routes - the DfT report that motorways and A roads carry 65% of road traffic. We found an interesting BBC Magazine page written by Michael Blastland where he attempted to find out whether urban or rural driving was more dangerous. He picked two contrasting areas; the heavily urban Greater London and the very rural Northumberland. Starting with DfT figures for the number killed or seriously injured in 2010, he found: Greater London: 2889 Northumberland: 151 No great surprise there, so he looked at the casualty rate, relative to the volume of traffic. Here are the accident rates for those killed or seriously injured per billion vehicle miles. Greater London: 145 Northumberland: 90 And he sliced the figures ever more finely. And with every slice, he came up with a different proportion. Eventually, he looked at mortality rates from land transport accidents, per 100,000 people. Now the results were: London: 2.77 Northumberland: 4.46 Not quite twice as high and of course even Northumberland has some built-up areas. And what happens when do accidents happen in rural and urban areas? The consequences of collisions are different. RoSPA report that more deaths occur on rural roads than on urban ones. In 2010, there were 1,046 fatal accidents on rural roads compared to over 572 on urban roads. But the number of serious and slight injury collisions is higher in urban areas; in 2010 there were 98,550 on urban roads and 49,264 on rural roads. But is it all speed? First of all, we have to see that Brake are conflating several different observations and trying to combine different issues into one easy soundbite. Once again, we need to try to drill down towards the circumstances in which accidents happen, rather than just lump everything together and claim it represents one problem. Looking at cycling accidents (RoSPA figures), most cycling accidents happen in urban areas where most cycling takes place but the severity of injuries suffered by cyclists increases with the speed limit, meaning that riders are more likely to suffer serious or fatal injuries on higher speed roads, and almost half of cyclist deaths occur on rural roads. Almost two thirds of cyclists killed or seriously injured were involved in collisions at, or near, a road junction, with T junctions being the most commonly involved. Roundabouts are particularly dangerous junctions for cyclists. Around 80% of cycling accidents occur in daylight which is when most cycling takes place. But note this. Campaign for Rural England (CPRE) state that the risk of cycling on rural A roads is now over ten times more dangerous per mile than cycling on urban roads. RoSPA report the most dangerous hours for cyclists are 3.00 to 6.00 p.m. and 8.00 to 9.00 a.m. on weekdays. And take a look at the most common cycle accidents: - Motorist emerging into path of cyclist - Motorist turning across path of cyclist - Cyclist riding into the path of a motor vehicle, often riding off a pavement - Cyclist and motorist going straight ahead - Cyclist turning right from a major road and from a minor road Do the first two remind you of anything? They should, because its the same pattern of collisions as motorcyclists are most likely to suffer. And as weve said many times, it takes two to tangle. And it looks rather as if the risk to cyclists is NOT remote rural lanes on a sunny Sunday but the daily grind of cycling to and from work. It gets increasingly difficult to dig out significant data here but theres evidence that shows fatal cycle accidents on rural roads are skewed towards night time, rear-end collisions. That fact, together with the danger hours doesnt entirely line up with Brakes claims of conflict between recreational cyclists and motorised vehicles out using the same roads. And if we allow night time riding is a real problem for cyclists, the issue may not always be a simple case of the driver for driving too fast but may require understanding why he did not seeing the cycle. Is it a conspicuity problem? But even if we allow that the accident rate really is twice as high for a country road as an urban road, we cant simply blame the driver. Few roads have been built with motor vehicles at the forefront of the planning process, just as few roads have been built with pedestrians or cyclists in mind. Most have been adapted for general purpose use, for everybody, not just cars. The earliest specifically engineered roads were built during the British Iron Age. The road network was expanded during the Roman occupation. Some of these survive and others were lost. New roads were added in the Middle Ages and from the 17th century onwards. The idea that capping top speed will have any significant impact is flawed from the off, because it implies that the accidents that lead to the casualties are solely the result of excess speed. Research into accidents from both the UK and the US conclude that 95% of accidents are human error in observation, decision-making and response and 30% result from faults in the road design. Simply put, the rural road infrastructure is a major contributing factor to rural road accidents (Road Transport and Intermodal Linkages Research Programme Safety Strategies, OECD) as they present far more serious driving challenges per mile than other roads, and many of those have to be tackled at well UNDER the speed limit. So do we need to point a finger at driver training? Well, its been noted before that the driving test pretty much ignores the challenges of driving on rural roads of any sort, hence driver training nearly always misses out these roads. We also mentioned perceptual countermeasures a few weeks back, interventions designed to improve drivers abilities to detect dangerous bends and junctions. Is speed the demon? Brake themselves said that drivers take risks like speeding, overtaking, and not slowing down for brows and bends”. So is a blanket speed reduction likely to be effective? Of course not, because speed reduction needs to be targeted at those specific locations, as Brake themselves point out. Combine the twin strategies of driver education and perceptual countermeasures and now you have a potential strategy to improve awareness of an upcoming awkward bend and junctions. Generally improving driver understanding of rural road hazards would almost certainly produce greater benefits in terms of reduced speeds at places where vulnerable road users are particularly at risk than a blanket cap on speed. As they found recently in Denmark, artificially capped speeds have not reduced driver casualties - rather the other way round! An experiment raising speed limits on rural roads counter-intuitively seems to have reduced fatalities! Anyway, here is the Brake press release: brake.org.uk/news/1249-ruralroads-jul14
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 08:45:00 +0000
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