DRIVERS ARE SKILLED RISK MANAGERS SAYS SAFE SPEED
26 October 2006 - Safe Speed

The Safe Speed campaign has been highlighting for some time that present roadsafety policy - based on the Draconian enforcement of road traffic laws isfailing comprehensively to deliver results.

The fundamental reason that high regulation can''t work is because road safety
depends on ''skilled risk management'' from road users.

When you think about it, our road safety record is amazing. There are countless
millions of vehicle movements each day, very few of which end in any kind of
tragedy, yet if drivers shut their eyes for just 20 seconds a crash is
virtually certain.

Road risk values have reduced by a factor of almost 15 since 1950.

In 1950 total traffic was 53 billion vehicle kilometers (bvkm) and resulted in
5,012 road deaths. The risk factor was 94.5 deaths per bvkm.

In 2005 total traffic was 500 bvkm and resulted in 3,201 road deaths. The risk
factor was 6.4 deaths per bvkm.

This massive reduction in risk is due to safer roads, safer vehicles, better
post crash emergency care, and simply learning to live with traffic.

But in recent years the improvements have stalled. We''ve seen poor improvements
for a decade and no significant improvement for five years. This is because
drivers are getting worse at risk management under the influence of policy.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: ''The reason for the poor recent road safety
results are quite clear - drivers are getting worse at avoiding crashes. This
is because driving is ''skilled risk management'' and present policy has
undervalued this most important aspect of road safety. Department for Transport
are entirely responsible. They have forgotten the foundations of road safety
and are institutionally unable to understand the process of safe driving. With
their high emphasis on regulations and automated enforcement they have
neglected to allow for side effects on all our risk management skills.''

''Speed cameras are at the centre of the failed policy and must be scrapped.''

''The contribution of drivers to road safety has been grossly underestimated and
undervalued.''

''Although the average driver is not terribly skilled by, say, the standards of
advanced or defensive driver trainers, his ability to stay out of trouble is
actually quite remarkable. With 200,000 crashes per year from 32 million
licenced drivers the average risk of causing a crash is once in 160 years. And
the best news of all is there is ample room for improvement.''

''As soon as we start treating drivers as skilled risk managers we can expect to
see a return to the very big road safety gains of earlier decades.''

www.safespeed.org.uk

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