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Sunday 31 October 2010

Road Safety not Consensus Edmund.



From: Local Transport Today 29th October 10

Road safety should be left to those with genuine expertise

Keith Peat, Association of British Drivers, East Midlands regional co-ordinator, Sutton on Sea

AA president Edmund King, in defending his massive public poll on road safety and driving matters, is also defending himself (Letters LTT 15 Oct). There are too many inexpert cooks interfering and controlling the life and death issue of road safety. And many, like the AA, who are in the motoring insurance business, have a vested interest too.

Mr King is regularly referred to by the media on road safety and driving matters but how does being the president of a motor repair, recovery and motor insurance firm, make him an expert driver and road safety spokesman?

Likewise the ladies of BRAKE, who are supposed to be a victim support charity, are treated as experts too. Yet BRAKE’s list of sponsors also means they have a massive vested interest.

Road safety is the only life and death matter that I can think of where every Tom, Dick and Harry has a big say. Mr King compounds this problem by trying to make it a consensus issue of thousands of other non-experts like himself.

The Association of British Drivers, unlike Mr King and the AA, are totally independent experts with no vested interest and who, as self-funding volunteers, have no reason to tell it other than as it is.

Like any poll you can get the answers you want to get. At the moment a poll I am running says that 87% think the road safety industry’s billions of pounds, of which insurance is a part, would save more lives in the NHS and emergency services. But is this how we want road safety to be run? By vested interest in-experts craftily polling thousands of other in-experts?

4 comments:

  1. Mr. King certainly has done a U-Turn on speed enforcement since he changed jobs. An examination of his comments over the last 5 years to those he has made recently would, I am sure make embarrassing reading for him.
    I can't agree that he doesn't have some sort of road safety expertise but his obvious bias to whatever gravy-boat he is sipping from at the time is quite unforgivable.
    You must be able to do more than just post off-the-cuff griping on the matter. You are missing an opportunity here.
    I don't think that 50 out of 30 million drivers is a very good poll to be basing your figures on Keith; even you shouldn't have been tempted to use that one.
    Saying 87% think that the money should be spent in the NHS etc... wouldn't sound so good if you said that there was less than 50 motorists polled would it. Shameful statistical rubbish, the like of which you would surely complain of if it was used by other bodies.

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  2. Can't agree with you at all Bob. 50 for a small site like this, is not at all bad and unlike the AAs poll who were not asked the truthful 'if you knew that 'speeding' cannot cause an accident and that speed cameras cannot see one accident cause would you vote for them?' Since when was road safety a consensus issue of thousand of non experts like Edmund King anyway Bob? All my voters were entirely independent and surely that is the point; it means that no matter how many voted 94% would rather see the camera and Road Safety Industry billions in Cancer or NHS to really save lives. With my limited means I am very proud that 50 completely independent readers voted and they could have all voted the other way; but they didn't Bob.

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  3. The Association of British Drivers = motor lobby = vested interest. QED.

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  4. No They are all volunteers, very rarely even claim expenses and so have no axe to grind at all other than saying it as it is. Edmund King has financial interest in speeding. points & Speed Awareness Courses so there is no QED.

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