The Driver's Site for the East Midlands

Welcome to Drivers' Union East Midlands.
Our Mission: Better road safety at lower cost. No unnecessary delay or slowing of road transport. No unnecessary or unjust prosecution of safe drivers.

Motorists & Drivers' Union is at www.driversunion.co


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Thursday 30 April 2015

ACPO Ltd. The King is dead. Long live the KIng.

I must confess that I didn't notice or know of the passing of ACPO Ltd. It's been replaced by a group called The National Police Chief's Council. (NPCC). Read more of them here.

ACPO Ltd had too many vested interests and company off shoots for our liking. One of its babies was driver awareness courses and the feeding for profit of firms to make money from 'speeding'.

We have still not been able to discover the legal device where due legal process can be avoided by handing over money to profiteers, or how such a scheme is designed or interested in curtailing or cutting off its income by stopping offending. A complete contradiction in concept and objective. In fact, on the contrary, its a scheme budgeted on the basis that offending continues and worse, to encourage invented prosecutions too. It's a concept that screams out for a perceived and possible corruption. Here are two examples of the false stats and statements used to support it. Here  

Then there is RSS Ltd. an anti justice concept for profit if ever there was one. See ACPO's little helpers

Was the silent passing and the closing of ACPO and the standing down of Sir Hugh Ord a sign that it was one of disgrace? I would've expected a massive fanfare. How on earth did I miss it? Did you? Where was all the celebration of its life? Why did it go so quietly?

It would be nice to think that people in high places have been worried about ACPO's activities and the kind of charges that I have been making too.

Suffice to say that the new NPCC isn't a Ltd Company or a charity so that's a good start. It doesn't seem to be involved in spurious outside activity either. 

I have written to them on behalf of DU. 

We are a road safety group whose policy is based on ex traffic patrol officers.

We know that our society was created and expanded on fast, load bearing long distance road transport, the successors of which are today's motor transport. It doesn't seem to be appreciated that, central to this, is the private motorist. From air to rail travel all dependent on the motor car, to essential workers whether in road haulage, train driving, water supply, emergency services and health workers. In fact there are only two classes of road user society depends on and that is walkers and drivers.

In view of that, it is counter productive to hamper, delay and unnecessarily prosecute UK's drivers. 

It should be self evident that best road safety policy will not come from any profit or ideologically based motive. We know that by taking out both of these motives will not just more efficiently attack the causes of road accidents but will bring great relief to UK's hard pressed drivers too. 

Our aim is to achieve the best road safety without the unnecessary prosecution of UK's drivers. Who can disagree with that?

Our studies show that road safety, and the Highway Code, developed piecemeal for over a century, are now hopelessly out of date and in many cases, plainly flawed. Much of this can be attributed to the fact that far too many people, with no CV whatsoever in that life and death issue, are having far too much say in road safety policy.

I am very pleased that ACPO Ltd, with it's offshoot profit based prosecution firms, has now been disbanded. 

I hope that we can look to your association for support in our aims.

Wishes

So let's see if NPCC are going to be true road safety promoters. 

Tuesday 28 April 2015

The Fatal 4 except there's only three




Wouldn't you think that the originators of the famous Fatal Four would know that one of them simply causes nothing at all.

It may well be why the canny coppers have left driving, road safety and accidents causes, all their remit, to er... The Fire & Rescue boys. See the originators The coppers know full well that 'speeding' causes nothing and that the law is framed to acknowledge it too.

Well I have emailed the F4 Group as follows: Hi, 

We are independent ex police road safety experts. I see Dave Webb is a a fire & rescue person and no doubt has attended many accidents in that capacity but I am surprised that he is being used to make driving and crash cause statements which falls within the remit of specialist police officers. .

Can anyone, preferably Dave, explain the mechanics as to how, by simply exceeding an arbitrary and unscientific number of a pole, 'speeding' can cause anything to happen? 

Dave Webb
The police know that it's driving too fast at any speed, even below the limits, that causes a lot of accidents and that is an element of dangerous driving. Since dangerous driving happens at any speed, then it follows that 'speeding' isn't part of it. We explain it Here.  In a nutshell, if a person crashes and kills someone by going too fast, there is no such charge or offence of causing a death by speeding is there?

I have raised this with the police many times and can be forgiven for assuming that 'speeding' remains in the F4 for one reason only. To promote the massive profitable Speeding Industry in the public eye. But whatever the reason, it's really not about road safety or saving lives simply because it isn't an accident cause at all.

Dangerous driving and careless driving are certainly fatal accident causes yet they are not in the F4. Isn't that suspicious? Why not remove 'speeding' and replace it with those if the cause is a genuine one and not to support profiteering? 

This is a serious enquiry and a genuine wish to promote genuine road safety. 

Wishes 



Should the police tell the truth about speeding? Take our poll here

Sunday 26 April 2015

Police bamboozle media on speed awareness.



In this Nottingham Post article see How the police bamboozle media on speed awareness.


To assume that drivers would prefer the courses is based on whether their ticket was justified in the first place. Our studies show that, because the system and business of courses has been set up, including paid staff, it is counter to stopping the offending and an incentive to allow offending to persist. The system now depends on speeding and not stopping it. Our research proves unequivocally that is exactly what is happening. 

If drivers had been asked: 'Would you prefer a £100 speed awareness course and time off work or nothing at all because the ticket wasn't justified?' They would choose nothing at all.

So there, unless the correct question is asked, is an example of a false premise survey isn't it? 'Accept the first part of the equation without question so the next part is a no brainer!' But what if the premise of the question is not so certain? What if the system is ignoring evidence of a faulty limit or a road layout issue causing drivers to increase speed that can be corrected? 

But the next sleight of hand is a version of the regression to the mean. The very same trick used to prove that speed cameras work. This time to tell us that '80% of those who take the courses do not get caught again within three years.'  Note: 'do not get caught' so that doesn't mean that the speeding has been stopped at all then. But it's even worse. How many people are ever caught once, never mind twice within three years? So here we have a classic of simple regression to the mean then. We all consider it bad luck to be caught once never mind again within three years so this 80% is a 'statement of the bleeding obvious' as John Cleese would say and no doubt blame it on the Ministry of Funny Facts too.

But then when we are unable to find any legal device that allows the judicial process to be stopped on a coercive offer to pay money to avoid due process, something we jail bent coppers for actually, then the cooked up surveys and stats look even more shady than just an unfortunate error. 

That they come from a senior policeman should worry us all. 

Thursday 23 April 2015

Yes the Speeding Industry Thrives

The system now depends on speeding and not stopping it.

Convictions for speeding up by half in 5 years says this story. See it here. On average 55000 for each force in 2014

500,000 just on motorways. 

Those attending the coercive speed courses of dubious legality and truth has risen by a massive 91% in 4 years. 

Oh and the police saythe fees are sufficient only to cover costs.'  Now let's get this straight. £80 for four hour lecture session with about 30 others = about £600 per hour just to cover costs? In some cases the attendees are over double that number. In Wales two firms are getting through 6000 a month. 

We know motorways are the safest roads in the UK and that there are not 500,000 crashes going on so, not only does it show that speeding causes nothing, but that perhaps the limit is too low. 

This same principle should apply to other roads too. This rise is also a result of no longer setting speed limits to the 85%tile formula so clearly indicating a flaw in speed limit setting as well. 

DU has already done a lot of work on the subject of speed courses. See Hereand Here  and can find no legal authority whereby due process can be replaced by taking money, often for courses run by firms and where profit is retained by the police when they run them. This money is to perpetuate the system. We have however found the unjustified excuse cooked up between ACPO Ltd and the CPS for them though.

To assume that drivers would prefer the courses is based on whether their ticket was justified in the first place. Oh yes what a welcome offer to drivers but what if they had been conned in the first place? What if their error was enticed by the authorities and the ticket wasn't justified anyway?

Our studies show that, because the system and business of courses has been set up, including paid staff, it is counter to stopping the offending and an incentive to allow offending to persist. The system now depends on speeding and not stopping it. Our research proves unequivocally that is exactly what is happening. 

We also know that the courses do not cover the offence that got drivers there but on the contrary produce stats and examples that had nothing to do with what was on the citation at all. When it comes to speeding, the courses do not tell the truth at all, so the courses are often dishonest. See our open letter to Richard Madely Here

In Wales alone two firms are getting through about 6000 so called offenders a month at £80 each. 

Isn't the Daily Mail concerned about this massive scam that actually avoids true accident causes for profit?


Tuesday 21 April 2015

It's not a 'war' it's irresponsible.


As I write, 62 cyclists have died on our roads in 2015 already. See. A section of our community, mostly cyclists, will always seek revenge and punishment of the drivers involved. Any suggestion that road cycling itself is dangerous brings outrage and claims of 'victim blaming'. It's an attitude that assumes from the start that accidents involving cyclists are deliberate so thus require justice and revenge. But cooler heads are needed if we are not to overlook the obvious just so that a dangerous scenario may be promoted with the peculiar belief that jailing drivers when it all goes wrong, will somehow make things better. Perhaps by jailing drivers the public conscience can be slaked.

Just look at these stories: Here and Here and Here and and here  OK so a driver did something wrong. Ok a driver is on trial. But does that undo the loss? Does that bring the dead back? Worse does that stop it happening again? 

In one story the road is to be closed for many hours to 'investigate' the accident. Why? It's too bloody late; the horse has bolted, the cyclist is dead. In any case the facts of how and why are already clear as in most road accidents. See more about that here. 

Part of the justification is to treat road accidents as murder now. That may well be in the vested interests of those in The Accident Investigation business, but in the public interest who does it actually serve? How many millions will today's closure cost the community?

So just look at the four cases I have posted and the other 58 this year. What is the common denominator? Humans mixing and mingling with heavy moving machinery and that it wasn't intended either. Of course it will kill people.

Trying to make this into a 'war' between two factions is irresponsible and avoiding reality. 

Cycling speed kills cyclists.

Hi

As ex police accident and driving experts we are concerned by the dangers of road cycling and that after tragic cycling deaths, drivers are then faced with long terms of imprisonment for an error. 

In your story about the woman on trial after bumping into a cyclist who died, the speed of the cyclist, estimated at 25 MPH, would've have been the major factor in the tragic outcome. See story here

The reality is that cycling can be defined as an unprotected human, on two flimsy wheels and a slender frame, mixing, mingling, impeding and often competing with, large essential fast moving machinery, operated by complete strangers of varying ability and mental capacity. 

The speed of an unprotected cyclist, high from the ground, will be a major factor in the outcome of all their accidents.  Of course the driver shouldn't have made a mistake. But that is what humans do all the time. What may have played a part in her not seeing the cyclist is a well known effect known to fast jet pilots and can be read here.  Here

Basically cyclists must realise that they are very exposed and that their speed will kill them should someone else do something wrong. See one dead & two serious from cycling speed.

This trial of blame for a dangerous scenario that society encourages, may well miss the true cause of this fatality. Had the cyclist been riding slower he would more than likely still be alive today.

Keith Peat

Friday 17 April 2015

IAM get dangerous driving wrong.



In an ITV story about high speed drivers doing 120 to 136 MPH in Wales The IAM refer to it as 'speeding'  See it here


'Those guilty of this level of excessive speeding are clearly not deterred by a short ban or fine. Their minds need to be concentrated to appreciate that they are putting other road users at significant danger by acting in this way. It is crucial that drivers and riders receive continuous development.
– SARAH SILLARS, IAM CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER'
***********************************************************************

I have a lot of time for IAM and especially their students who clearly take their driving seriously enough to take their courses. But I have challenged IAM about this confusion between 'speeding' that can cause nothing and dangerous driving that does on earlier occasions. See it here I have no idea if Sarah Sillars has any ex police background to support her comment but in it she exposes a vested interest by promoting 'continuous development' and that of course is where she and IAM make their income isn't it?

I have gone to a lot of trouble, including examples and even a little quiz to explain speed and the offences of speed Here



In short if speeding is at 71MPH, it cannot still just be speeding at 136MPH some 65MPH over the limit. It is dangerous driving. If there were any doubt then accept from me that if one crashed and killed at that speed the charge would not be death by speeding. And there you have it.

It should worry us all that IAM should get this driving reality so wrong and in doing so, promote the Speeding Industry who also run courses that don't tell the truth about speed, speeding, cameras and accidents. To expose their true aspiration at the same time is quite incredible. That kind of suggestion should only be made by truly independent driving and accident experts with no vested interests.

IAM are doing all drivers no favours by perpetuating and promoting the Speeding Industry like this. Being an IAM does not stop you from getting a totally unnecessary speeding ticket and a corrupt course to go with it.

So we again ask IAM to abandon its support of the Speeding Industry Profiteering and support Drivers Union with it's aims for genuine not for profit road safety instead. 




The rabid anti drivers running our roads.

In this succession of tweets we will see examples of the unsolicited tribal attack on drivers by cyclists.

It is exact evidence of who is aggressive to who but also demonstrates the rationale behind most speeding prosecution and speeding profit. That is explained here. But basically the authorities must pretend all 'speeding' is deliberate or careless to justify their policy of mass prosecution and the generation of large numbers of offenders at a site, rather than confess that when there are large numbers without attendant accidents, there is a fault. Clearly, as in this example of 6000 a year in a 30 zone, they're failing to achieve their objective of 30 MPH. Worse they are quite happy to allow it to continue instead of addressing the problem.

Below are the tweet exchanges with cyclists, that prove that there are people out there, many local politicians are keen cyclists by the way, who are behind the favoured prosecution of many thousands of perfectly safe drivers every year, and the profiteering from it. 

They have no real interest in making speed limits work at all but are just bent on seeing drivers prosecuted and the Awareness firms lining their pockets from it. 

In a tweet I suggested better signage or even raise the limit at that section on the 85%tile basis if accidents are not ensuing.











Now here enters another avid cyclist.





















Thursday 16 April 2015

Drivers. Who not to vote for.

The Driver's Union have a web page of politicians that drivers should certainly not vote for. It may sound extreme until you appreciate that your whole life and that of your family, is dependent on driving and drivers. See the Driver's Union page here and Here DU shows how to approach candidates too.

The Cyclist Lobby are already listing the people to vote for see it here and cycling was deemed so important that no less than the Daily Telegraph repeated the item too. Can you believe it? The Telegraph really thinks that cycling is that important. One really must need a brain the size of a peanut to put cycling above the NHS, Europe, the economy, police, fire and ambulance, fuel and so many other genuine issues no matter how much voluntary cycling one does. It's like voting for cricket or ten pin bowling. 

So how about some tips for drivers?

No Green politician is going to be good for drivers. They are basically anti people people with a very 6th Form rationale. It's a party for people who have never ceased to be students. They have not fathomed out that really, society simply cannot run on windmills, pushbikes and walking. Basically we would need to have a mass cull of humanity for green policy to be viable or, conversely, green policy would cause a mass cull. Anyone who has progressed above adolescence will know that voting Green would be like the proverbial Xmas turkey. Oh yes loads of cyclists will vote Green of course mostly because so many of them are still adolescent in outlook.

The Lib Dems are hardly better than the Greens. In fact the Greens could easily be an extreme wing of the Lib Dems  Pledging to spend even more money on walking and cycling and in an aim to get more people doing both too. Haven't these silly people realised that if walking and cycling were viable options for our lifestyles and circumstances we would all be doing it already because it is so cheap with less liability, risks and hassle? Any party that doesn't credit the population with providing an essential service and function without which, incidentally, the Lib Dems like every other institution, would simply fail to operate, really doesn't deserve to be elected at all. 

The problem is with any party that promotes road cycling is that, by definition, it cannot fail to be against the interests of drivers. How can any unnecessary road hazard, that impedes reasonable efficient progress and with the attendant risk of long prison terms for hitting one be a good idea for drivers? And no the answer isn't segregated cycle-ways either because this either means reducing road space for drivers or spending millions of driver taxes on something that isn't driving.  

The Conservatives have not been fair to drivers at all over the last five year term. David Cameron has been too quick to support driver jail based on inexpert raw emotion. See him in action here. As well as him we have Cycle Clips Boris and other pro cycling Tory big wigs. The fact is that, under the Conservative/ Lib Dem coalition, several anti driver measures have been introduced. How much of this was to placate The Lib Dems and how much was originated by the Westminster Metropolitan Elite within the Civil Service I do not know but the track record of Cameron et al isn't a good one for drivers.


Labour were certainly not as bad for drivers as the Coalition have been but even so it was Labour that took out science and logic from speed limiting allowing the setting of speed limits, and many thousands of unnecessary prosecutions to become totally arbitrary and based on parochial Nimbyism. Not much to choose between Labour and Conservatives I am afraid. My advice is to approach your Candidates and if they are pro driver then vote for them on that basis no matter whether Conservative or Labour. I am quite happy with my Conservative candidate who is defending a pretty safe seat so there is no real issue for drivers in our constituency.

UKIP are an unknown factor, but their clear strategy is to challenge and upset the Establishment. Never was this more necessary than in the field of genuine profitless and not ideologically based road safety. We have already made the link with Westminster officials and ideological road safety. See it here and Here and it would take a whole new party to break this up. UKIP's manifesto is already pledging to address the profiteering in road safety and that would be good for drivers.


Last night Nigel Farage had to share a platform with four left of centre politicians, and the audience was selected to fairly reflect all of them. This means that 4/5ths of the audience was left wing and green; 80% of them. He was absolutely right to point out that the studio did not represent the majority of people. He hit the nail on the head. He was there to please the majority on the other side of the cameras. Drivers must base their votes on last night's platform. Left wing/Green will not be pro-driver.  

So if there are no other overriding concerns for voters, why not put genuine road safety and thus driving first? It's not as if it is just a minor issue for you is it.  

Wednesday 8 April 2015

Defending myself from the cycling elite.





Keith Peat, Driver’s Union, Sutton on Sea, Lincolnshire
I hope that in my defence I may respond to a couple of remarks made about me in your last issue on the matter of cycling.
Sam Jones of the CTC, just one of many anti-driver charities that want drivers jailed for long periods after an accident, is a classic example of the cycle lobby who just want a one-way debate about road cycling. It’s the cycle lobby who actually thrives from ‘tribalism’ since it’s an equalising device that, until I point out that the emperor is naked, raises cyclists to the false level of an essential mode of transport.

I am a cyclist and a walker too. But when a committee of MPs considering the demands of this loud minority fails to even ask the reasonable question on behalf of all taxpayers and drivers, ‘Why must we have road cycling?’ and supported the demand for £650m a year for cyclists from a man whose name is on expensive bikes, then yes it is clear that the liberal elitists of London, including within The Times, need reining in. See it here

All I do, and no amount of character assassination can change this, is point out that without walkers and drivers we die, and without cyclists we don’t. Thus the false premise and the naked emperor. 

As for choices, cycle if you must, just as I do, but don’t attack drivers and demand too much or people like me start to ask questions. I am merely defending the UK’s 35 million drivers from demands for their road space, their taxes, their prosecution and jail by asking why must we have cyclists? It should worry everyone that simply asking a valid question draws such vilification.

I have long been concerned about the very large number of people commenting on the life and death issue of road safety who have no background in the subject. If it were bungee jumping or free fall parachuting, we would defer to experts, wouldn’t we? There are far too many charities thriving from road safety, many with a green anti-driver ideology. Rod King of 20’s Plenty is just one example of these with no relevant CV and an agenda other than road safety. Incidentally, I did not suggest that road cycling should be banned, as he has informed your readers. 

I see it as a duty to road safety and major infrastructure to draw ministers’ attention away from the anti-driver lobbyists of no CV. At the moment they are only responding to anti-driver amateurs, which cannot be healthy for decisions on essential infrastructure and road safety. I trust Mike Crowhurst will share my concern. Contrary to his comments, I do not attempt to “conscript” walkers to the drivers’ cause at all, I merely respond to the cycle lobby’s attempts to align their interests with walkers. 

Whether Mike likes it or not, that society must have drivers and walkers is simply a matter of fact and walkers should see it as a compliment.

-------------------------------------------------

Saturday 4 April 2015

Road Accident Investigation. Does it kill more than it saves?

We have always queried what actual benefits are obtained from very costly road closures, staff costs etc from the murder type investigations of road accidents. Close a motorway or city for many hours costs millions as well as accidents, casualties and death elsewhere from the knock on accidents from tiredness, trying to make up time and roads unable to cope with large volumes of diverted traffic.

Are we killing and injuring more people directly and indirectly from the massive costs that would be better used in the NHS, Emergency Services, Fire and Rescue and A&E? There is undoubtedly a cost to all this so what is it?

Well below are a series of tweets with a top traffic cop and others. Our fears have not been allayed. 

Plane crashes are usually in remote areas and forensic examination at the scene doesn't expensively disrupt major infrastructure. It also finds faults which can be remedied throughout the whole industry. 

One of the priorities in rail crashes is to get the track clear first and foremost and take the wreckage away for examination. Roads must be treated the same way. Vehicles should be moved to one side as soon as possible and can be examined closely off road as can drivers and witnesses. From this an accurate enough picture can be gathered of how the accident happened.

One of the justifications for these forensic murder type investigations is that the term 'accident' has been taken out of the police dictionary from road accidents and are treated automatically as crime. It's one of the reasons why drivers are now routinely arrested before any evidence of it not being an accident is established. By using the real definition of 'accident', none of this will be necessary saving millions of pounds in investigation and often futile driver prosecution. 

We have now established that a new definition of 'accident' has been invented to exclude an accident. 

  Note: They have used Black's Law Dictionary to define the term “accident” as: "an unintended and unforeseen injurious occurrence; something that does not occur in the usual course of events or that could not be reasonably anticipated... an unforeseen and injurious occurrence not attributable to mistake, negligence, neglect or misconduct" The effect is to take out unintentional and even mistake. This means that there is always someone to blame in a road accident unless proven otherwise. A totally anti driver policy.  But when we looked up Black's they say this: 'An unforeseeable and unexpected turn of events that causes loss in value, injury, and increased liabilities. The event is not deliberately caused and is not inevitable.' See it here
Law Dictionary: What is ACCIDENT? definition of ACCIDENT (Black's Law Dictionary) 


We prefer that as well as Odhams and the Oxford dictionary. Where we can reverse the policy: That there's always an accident unless proven otherwise. This would take out very costly long road closures that kill more from the cost and many associated knock on accidents elsewhere as a direct result of the closure. 

The same principle would also apply to drivers. Far too many are being routinely arrested at an accident when too unfit and vulnerable to make comment. Any comments made whilst at such a disadvantage should be discounted by the courts. 

Restoring the word 'accident' would save many millions of pounds in police time and many failed prosecutions too.

See this tweet from C/I Phil Vickers. I have excluded the sycophantic chit chat and go straight to the point politely asking genuine questions. The answers will be interesting. 



Ch.Insp. Vickers thought this sixth form justification was worth a favourite.





















Friday 3 April 2015

Why we can take this Constituency Road Casualty Report with a pinch of salt.


The Echo have faithfully published a large column based on one of the latest pieces of PACTS propaganda 
where they, financed by Direct Line Insurance, have produced a Constituency based road casualty map. Unfortunately The Echo only referred to bereaved victims and police for comment.  

Here is why this must be taken with a great deal of circumspection.


Commissioned by a parliamentary lobby group, Parliamentary Advisory Committee Transport Safety. A very grand sounding name for a lobby group who is very pro public transport, has no expert spokesmen in road safety or driving, it is supported and funded by companies who profit from road safety such as, insurance companies and speed camera manufacturers or groups like ACPO Ltd who have profitable vested interests in flawed road safety policy. They are just one of the many flourishing road safety charities of which there are far too many with a true agenda other than genuine and viable road safety. Until I spotted it, they had a principal advisor to MPs, an ex school teacher who had no background whatsoever in road safety or driving.

PACTS actually present air and rail travel as an ideal for addressing road casualty figures and actually say, in contradiction of their ridiculous zero road casualty aim, that we should achieve no more than double rail and air casualties on the road. However, it fails to mention that pilots and train drivers are very qualified and monitored and are not dealing with opposing traffic using the same track, kiddies, people, cyclists and animals too, often in very confined spaces. But I have challenged PACTS to include all road accidents in journeys specifically as part of an air or rail journey in their figures. Airports would cease to function without car transport. It is all part of the rail and air journey as that vehicle wouldn’t be on the road at that time but for the air or rail journey. A road journey, specifically for rail and air, is part of the entire journey and must be counted in rail and air casualty figures too.

To achieve zero road casualties as PACTS demands, is utterly impossible and would close the system down. This is the problem with just hearing those within the Road Safety Industry Bubble. Their aim is to perpetuate road safety profiteering at the expense of the driver and genuine road safety and nothing else. I deal with this here There is a massive economic cost to all this road safety. Many billions of pounds is being earned from it. What if we are now killing more both off and on the road from profit based road safety and on an economic cost benefit basis? We may have already gone too far. Too much road safety may also mean that road casualty figures are too low to be good for us. 

Here is an example of PACTS & the Guardian exploiting grief of the bereaved. See it here.  and PACTS searching for impossible road safety Nirvana Here meaning zero road traffic or speed.  Here they are under their alias Transport Safety Commission, in their most recent report designed especially to confound and bamboozle politicians. Here I have identified the three top officers of the TSC and they are already well known, pro cycling, anti driver lobby about whom there is much info on our site if you follow the links. TSC are also a charity in their own right. Much more on PACTS here

Direct Line Insurance financed the report. Direct Line have a vested interest in slowing drivers and points on licences. They are among this lot See here in this manifestation supporting BRAKE yet another ideological anti driver charity with no expertise in road safety or driving either. 


So much for the authors then.

My response:

I am very concerned that road safety policy is being run totally by vested interests and those with a green anti driver ideological agenda.

It should be self evident that the best road safety will not ensue from a profit or ideological base. If we were discussing bungee jumping, free fall parachuting or mountain climbing and any other life and death pursuit we would defer to experts. Yet, in road safety and driving, everybody has a view without any special expertise. It follows then, that if we defer to non experts and those who will profit from it, road safety policy will be wide open to every Tom Dick & Harry, to exploit for their own ends.

It is significant that the recent report on constituency road casualties, and specifically the one on Lincolnshire, did not include one reference to any independent road safety expert who actually has genuine road safety at heart.

We had the usual emotional quotes from the bereaved but since when did being bereaved suddenly qualify anyone to be a road safety or driving expert?

It is very dangerous to dwell on someone’s tragic loss if we kill others by promoting the wrong conclusions from it. But I am appalled how the Road Safety Industry and anti driver ideologists are so ready to exploit the bereaved as they do. Surely they know, as I do, that emotional subjective comments and opinions on road safety are very dangerous so why do they use or encourage such an unseemly ploy; shame on them.

Then we have the police contribution too. Typically they promote their speed policy by including speed as part of their fatal four causes of accidents. Well I hope I can take credit from the fact that ‘speed’ has now replaced ‘speeding’ in the fatal four because the police know, as I do, that ‘speeding’ causes nothing at all. But there are only three legal states of speed. They are careless or dangerous driving and exceeding the speed limit. If exceeding the limit can cause nothing, then they must be talking about dangerous driving so why not say so?  Why not make dangerous driving one of the fatal four and take out ‘Speed’? 

I suspect that the profit base of the Speeding Industry is such that police are now reluctant to be truthful about their fatal four even.

Speed affects everything, even a man walking into a telegraph pole so it’s a bit vague to use the word ‘speed’ for policy. The faster mankind has become so longevity has increased so speed is hardly fatal. Speed is motion without which we would all die instantly when our hearts stopped beating. Dangerous and Careless driving is what kills on the road. That there is no legal offence of ‘speed’ or ‘death by speed’ says it all.  

But let’s not get too exercised in Lincolnshire about this report. Let’s look at the motives of the authors and those who paid for it. Commissioned by Direct Line Insurance, who has a vested interest in driver points and over-slowingUK’s roads, and written by PACTS, an important sounding parliamentary lobby group who are anti private transport and anti driver and are funded by road safety vested interests such as Direct Line, speed camera manufacturers, ACPO Ltd, public transport and so on.

Advising Parliament, PACTS have no experts in road safety or driving skill and actually demand zero road casualties. That could only be achieved by zero road speed, no motor vehicles and cyclists and would result in such an economic collapse, that all of us would die from lack of basics including food and water very rapidly. Of course their motive is simply to perpetuate an aggressive and very profitable road safety industry for ever more whilst promoting their favoured backers The Public Transport Industry.

So Lincolnshire happens to be top of the road casualty list. So what?

One could argue, from outside the Road Safety Industry Bubble, that Lincolnshire is on the right track if we are killing far more people off and on the road from flawed profit based road safety and a poor cost effective economic basis. What if road casualties are too low everywhere anyway and we are really killing more off the road from the cost of it?

There is a massive cost to road safety that only those on the outside will acknowledge. If there is any doubt about the real agenda behind the report, then it is corroborated by the real facts. After 300 billion UK driver miles a year, there’s less death on the road from all causes than from accidents in the home, far less than from NHS mistakes, and even less than from strangulation and hanging or self harm. Isn’t death at home or in hospital or by suicide important? So what are all these road safety charities and lobby groups really about if it isn’t death and casualties?

Lincolnshire is a massive county with wonderful roads for good drivers but, as is acknowledged, very few motorway or dual carriageway miles. For obvious reasons, dual carriageways and motorways have the lowest accident rates per mile and density, so it can be expected that Lincolnshire’s figures are affected by the lack of them. It doesn’t help when councils then restrict dual carriageways to less than 70 MPH, so that faster drivers cannot legally pass an HGV on them. Thus overtakes of HGVs are funnelled onto the single two way carriageways where such passes are within speed limits and thus are created the multi casualty road collisions. This is one result of amateur drivers making road safety policy. One bad policy then created others when the response is to over limit the single carriageways too.

Bad speed limiting will cause accidents where there were none previously.  Short stretches of 50MPH often sandwiched between long stretches of 40 Limits so that drivers, anxious to progress with less and less space and time to do so, then find themselves hurriedly trying to make passes over a short distance with opposing drivers doing exactly the same thing with disastrous consequences. What is wrong with longer 50 MPH stretches sandwiched only with de-restricted speed limits and far less 40 limits?

On the basis that to remove the need to overtake would reduce the attempts and thus these terrible outcomes, it’s not just the speed limiters ignoring the obvious either. Lincolnshire Police steadfastly refuse to deal with the careless slow drivers who ignore their long tail backs; the architects of overtaking and the subsequent crashes. It is inconsiderate and dangerous.

The police refuse to address night time rural use of headlights too and yet there are countless Lincolnshire drivers who are driving along our rural roads on dipped beam, failing to light up the road for themselves, but more importantly, for those following.

But more generally road safety and the Highway Code have developed piecemeal for over a hundred years. Much of it is out of date. The Highway Code itself, again not written by experts, contains many faults as well as omissions and caters for road use that is now obsolete for major infrastructure. As a result Highway Code, now of 145 pages and 307 rules, is far too big  So a bottom up review of road safety policy is 60 years overdue. At the moment we are throwing baby out with the bathwater and there is too much profit from it.

So there is plenty of scope to make Lincolnshire safer on the roads but don’t let’s get too concerned about a lobby group’s claims; things are much better than they make out.