About speed limits being arbitrary.
Regarding drink driving limits - I blew that out the water years ago when we discussed it.
Of course if evidence comes forward that there are large numbers of people who are safer over the limit than THEY were under, then I'll reconsider - as a said then.
The difference is this. The scientific evidence (at the time from TRRL) was that practically all the subjects they tested performed significantly poorer at 80mg than they did sober - hence an 80 limit (but not a 50 one where the evidence was more mixed)
When it comes to speed YOU have a big problem developing a similar SAFETY argument. The percentage of people actually exceeding the speed limit at the time of an accident is very low - comparable or LOWER than the number of people speeding anyway (vastly lower if your figures are correct). Now you claim to have some statistical expertise - wouldn't that (at least) suggest that whether they were speeding or not did NOT actually make them more likely to have an accident
RADICAL that - but if 40% of drivers are actually speeding (your figure, not mine), and only 13% of drivers involved in fatal accidents were speeding (DFT figures not mine) then surely that would suggest that speeding makes you safer!!
Now I don't believe that for a moment - but I do believe that adherence or not to arbitrary speed limits is (at best) very much on the margins of road safety. And all the recent stats back that up.
I have to say I am absolutely delighted that there is now a (sort of) independent watchdog over government use of statistics. Already invalid conclusions about knife crime have been exposed - and I look forward to road safety retoric matching the statistics.
But tell me this what percentage of serious road traffic accidents do you still believe are attributal to speeding (ie exceeding the posted limit)? The government has actually been forced to post figures on this. Do you know? if you do, dare you quote it? and if so do YOU believe it?
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