Irish roads the sixth safest in the European Union, says report

galwaycyclist

So anyway, what happens if we graph annual deaths by road user type?

L1011

galwaycyclist wrote: »

So anyway, what happens if we graph annual deaths by road user type?

What kind of type?

Graphs for age and gender are available from the RSA
Graphs for age and gender by KM used have surfaced in the past but not any time recently


I would be very interested in seeing data between professional drivers / regular users and licence status of driver (although that wouldn't always be that useful, seeing as a learner permit holder could be killed in a crash they didn't cause, etc).

Amtmann

One thing I commend the RSA for is the issuing of luminous bibs to pedestrians. They're a common site on the roads today and they undoubtedly increase visibility.

I'd like to see the RSA emphasise the deleterious affects on safety caused by obviously deadly routes, such as the N28 and N24.

I'd furthermore like to see a major clampdown on motorway idiocy - meaning pedestrians, cyclists, agricultural contractors, and people parking in emergency lanes.

SeanW and ardmacha both make interesting points about the new NCT regulations for old vehicles and people with little money. It's certainly true that the test affects poorer people more than it does wealthy people, and in that sense alone, it's regressive; but it's also true, as ardmacha pointed out, that when you don't have much money you tend to not maintain your car with great regularity.

dubhthach

galwaycyclist wrote: »

So anyway, what happens if we graph annual deaths by road user type?

No figures but here it mentions that among cyclists that there was a decline in deaths by 75% from 2001 to 2010
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0512/1224296752810.html

Pedestrians have consistently accounted for the next highest number of fatalities each year. That figure fell by 54 per cent from 89 in 2001 to 41 last year.

galwaycyclist

dubhthach wrote: »

Quote:
Pedestrians have consistently accounted for the next highest number of fatalities each year. That figure fell by 54 per cent from 89 in 2001 to 41 last year.

Aaah good now we are starting to get somewhere. As I recall, around 2001 Ireland had the highest child pedestrian death rate in Western Europe. So now we have gone to having the 6th most safe roads in Europe have we? Presumably also for child pedestrians? Whom I would assume can now be shown have much greater freedom to walk to school and independent mobility generally?

dubhthach

galwaycyclist wrote: »

Aaah good now we are starting to get somewhere. As I recall, around 2001 Ireland had the highest child pedestrian death rate in Western Europe. So now we have gone to having the 6th most safe roads in Europe have we? Presumably also for child pedestrians? Whom I would assume can now be shown have much greater freedom to walk to school and independent mobility generally?

Well given that 40% of all road deaths were caused by head on collisions and these are now an impossibility on over 1,000km of route it's not surprising our stats have improved. Also plenty of cases over the years of pedestrians killed while walking on hard shoulders on national primary routes. As the bulk of traffic on these routes have now shifted onto motorways it's no wonder pedestrian death rates have dropped as well.

galwaycyclist

dubhthach wrote: »

Well given that 40% of all road deaths were caused by head on collisions and these are now an impossibility on over 1,000km of route it's not surprising our stats have improved.

Sure that seems like a reasonable suggestion - however unless we split them out by road user group: motorist, motorcyclist, pedestrian, cyclists. How can we say whether they have actually improved for a particular group? - Say motorists for instance?

dubhthach

galwaycyclist wrote: »

Sure that seems like a reasonable suggestion - however unless we split them out by road user group: motorist, motorcyclist, pedestrian, cyclists. How can we say whether they have actually improved for a particular group? - Say motorists for instance?

Well look at the Irish Times article I linked above. Some stats:

• Some 230 such car users died on the roads in 2001 and this fell by 42 per cent to 133 in 2010
• Research published by the Road Safety Authority and the Garda reveals a drop of 75 per cent in the number of cyclists killed between 2001 and 2010.
• Pedestrians have consistently accounted for the next highest number of fatalities each year. That figure fell by 54 per cent from 89 in 2001 to 41 last year.

The don't give a figure for improvement over same period for Motorcyclists though they mentioned:

Last year, fatalities among motorcyclists fell by 32 per cent (from 25 to 17) compared with 2009 figures.

As you can see for three major road user groups there are figures for the decline over 2001-2010.

SeanW

ardmacha wrote: »

... It includes disciplined driving, so enforcement of traffic laws has a role even where it cannot be shown that those committing a particular offence killed someone.

You want to be very careful with that line of reason as it can be used to "justify" any sort of stupidity. I remember once arguing with a motorist-bashing, cycling extremist who defended absurdly low speed limits in various places on the basis that they separate the unquestioningly law abiding drivers from those vile and nasty scofflaws who would dare to drive at a sensible (albeit over the limit) speed.

SeanW and ardmacha both make interesting points about the new NCT regulations for old vehicles and people with little money. It's certainly true that the test affects poorer people more than it does wealthy people, and in that sense alone, it's regressive; but it's also true, as ardmacha pointed out, that when you don't have much money you tend to not maintain your car with great regularity.

As I partly alluded to above, the problem with road safety is with our mindset, mine included to a point.

The mindset is very simply a combination of "it's everyone elses fault" and "@#%& you I'm alright Jack." That's why we have worn out old has beens like Gaybo who never proved his competency on the road or in theory in any way, rabbiting on about young people having a "disease of youth."

Motorists bash cyclists (partly with good reason) for ignoring the rules of the road
Cyclists bash motorists (also partly with good reason) for other transgressions.
Mollycoddled civil servants and make up these silly rules knowing full well that the costs and consequences will only be felt by others, in this case poor people.
Then of course there's young men, who it seems are everyone's favourite punching bag.

The late Seamus Brennan, once Minister for transport, didn't bother maintaining his drivers license because he was so used to being chauffeured everywhere, though he finally did go through the licensing process for publicity reasons. Even ministers who drive themselves if ever (and get paid nearly as much as the President of the United States) and the Senior Civil Servants in their departments, will probably never have to worry about driving a car old enough to be NCT'ed, let alone one old enough to fall afoul of the annual tests rule.
It's also the case that NCTs are about to double in cost, as the government is broke and can't "subsidise" the tests to the same extent. So from 2009-2012, this single aspect of motoring for poor people is going to be 4 times more onerous. Not that any of the people involved in making these decisions will ever have to deal with it, however.

For that reason, it's hard for me to see this as anything other than bunch of pompous elitists saying "let them eat cake" from their ivory towers.

galwaycyclist

dubhthach wrote: »

As you can see for three major road user groups there are figures for the decline over 2001-2010.

With respect, that road deaths have declined is not in dispute or under discussion. At the moment what is being debated and analysed is the contribution made by various candidate influences to that decline. I have proposed that economic factors are a strong candidate for recent patterns in road death figures. Others, it would seem, favour state interventions such as law enforcement, building motorways etc.

I think the way forward is in a more detailed look at the numbers over at least the last ten years.

dubhthach

Check out the relevant figures on the RSA site. These can be seen here:
http://www.rsa.ie/RSA/Road-Safety/Our-Research/Collision-Statistics/

You can combine the stats from the 2009 and 2005 report to get all figures back to 1996 by transport category. Adding the Irish times report gives the figure for 2010.

Anyways going by the CSO unemployment start to spike in Q2 2008 so we can take 2007 as last of the "boom years" going purely on metric of unemployment. In that case we see the following between 2007 and 2010 figures:

• Total road deaths fell by 37.28%
• Motorists deaths fell by: 22.22%
• Pedestrian deaths fell by 49.38%
• Cyclist deaths fell by: 80%
• Motorcyclist deaths fell by: 48.48%
• Other deaths fell by: 52.63%

Lets break that down in a year by year progress. From 2007 to 2008 Unemployment went from 4.4% in Q1 2007 to 8.1% in Q4 2008.

• Total road deaths fell by 17.46%
• Motorists deaths fell by: 6.43%
• Pedestrian deaths fell by 39.51%
• Cyclist deaths fell by: 13.33%
• Motorcyclist deaths fell by: 12.12%
• Other deaths fell by: 26.32%

From 2008 to 2009 Unemployment went from 4.9% in Q1 2008 to 13.1% in Q4 2009.

• Total road deaths fell by 14.70%
• Motorists deaths fell by: 8.75%
• Pedestrian deaths fell by 18.37%
• Cyclist deaths fell by: 46.15%
• Motorcyclist deaths fell by: 13.79%
• Other deaths fell by: 28.57%

2009 - 2010 of course we are in teeth of recession, unemployment goes from 10.1% in Q1 2009 to 14.8% in Q4 2010

Changes between 2010 and 2009 are:

• Total road deaths fell by 10.92%
• Motorists deaths fell by: 8.90%
• Pedestrian deaths increased by 2.5%
• Cyclist deaths fell by: 57.14%
• Motorcyclist deaths fell by: 32.00%
• Other deaths fell by: 10%

dubhthach

Might as well add 2006 - 2007 stats. Unemployment went from 4.4% in Q1 2006 to 4.8% in Q4 2007. Peak of the property boom.

• Total road deaths fell by 7.40%
• Motorists deaths fell by: 24.34%
• Pedestrian deaths increased by 10.96%
• Cyclist deaths increased by: 66.67%
• Motorcyclist increased by: 13.79%
• Other deaths increased by: 35.71%

Iwannahurl

So many numbers, so little opportunity recently to consider their implications. I'm afraid I have lost my thread!

I would caution against reading too much into big percentage changes and short time periods. I'm not a statistician, but I think it's important to bear in mind the denominator in any category (eg the relatively low number of cyclists overall), the role of random variation within a short time-frame and the plausibility of any causal explanations.

dell1211

Iwannahurl wrote: »

So many numbers, so little opportunity recently to consider their implications. I'm afraid I have lost my thread!
I would caution against reading too much into big percentage changes and short time periods. I'm not a statistician, but I think it's important to bear in mind the denominator in any category (eg the relatively low number of cyclists overall), the role of random variation within a short time-frame and the plausibility of any causal explanations.

Are you for real? Anytime anyone questions your anti car drivel by making a statement you immediately ask for back up or you dismiss their post as made up(from looking at your recent posts id estimate at least 30% of your posts are asking for back up), in this thread multiple posters have provided multiple links to actual data/statistics to back up their posts and you post the above:rolleyes:. I wonder is it because this thread is not going the way that you envisaged when you started it?

You would fit in well as a member of Hugo Chavezs government, maybe you should set up a twitter account, that way you could be selective with the replies to your garbage.

Iwannahurl

dell1211 wrote: »

Are you for real? Anytime anyone questions your anti car drivel by making a statement you immediately ask for back up or you dismiss their post as made up(from looking at your recent posts id estimate at least 30% of your posts are asking for back up), in this thread multiple posters have provided multiple links to actual data/statistics to back up their posts and you post the above:rolleyes:. I wonder is it because this thread is not going the way that you envisaged when you started it?

You would fit in well as a member of Hugo Chavezs government, maybe you should set up a twitter account, that way you could be selective with the replies to your garbage.

Eh?

If anyone makes a claim, or attempts to present opinion as fact, then they should be able to support their statements with evidence.

Here's an example: you claim that I "dismiss their post as made up". Can you point to some specific instances of where I did exactly that?

What has Hugo Chavez got to do with road safety in Ireland? Maybe you should set up a witter account, for wittering...