End revenue deaths - conquer the RAM

[StoneY]

I'd be pretty sure total killer/serious injury crashes are up per capita... .

No the injuries and deaths are DOWN, calculated against the fact the road fleet has quadrupled in 20 years and the death toll itself is relatively static by comparison to the rise in vehicles. This was NOT just motorcycle specific, it was a factor accross the entire national road fleet, all classes

Mostly, the decreases in these incidents PER CAPITA is credited to better roads, better quality cars (ABS etc)

BUT the COST of treatment and recovery also rose at a rate far in excess of what anyone predicted
Thats largley due to rising medical costs, and inflation as opposed to an increase in serious harm accidents above the ratio of cars/bikes/trucks using the roads
Thats what rose the ACC levies, the 'predicted cost of treastment in 10 years' not the bills to be paid right now

So in short, no we have not seen a huge increase in injury and death, just a massive increase in the cost to the taxpayers

[Ronin]

Perhaps one of the policy packages that work in most other countries?
God! what am I saying? New Zealand do something other than reinvent the wheel?

Which are what? Details lol Present a viable alternative. I genuinely would like to see one. It's all well and good to claim Bliss is the spawn of Satan and that he kills puppys with the RAM but people who are not as tied up in it need to be presented with well reasoned non vitriolic evidence and alternatives or you will lose your audience.

[candor]

Ronin if you read upon "vision zero" that'll show you the ideal for safety based on science.
Literature reviews and analysis and study tours and consulting experts is how countries that succeed identify good policies for them to pursue.

But structural issues in the organisation of road safety here - specifically the traffic enforcement research projects - are serious obstacles to the norm. This needs dealing with before other ideas than RAM can have any show.

IMO the AA has laid out a good replacement strategy in it's submission (I'll e-ml it to you if you and their radio interview on how Govts belief on crash causes is wrong, if you PM me). It wants these to be the key areas, not what is in Safer Journeys - a policy predicated on RAM targets again.

• Inattention and distraction • Safer Roads and Roadsides • Road User Education and Information • Safety of Younger Drivers • Alcohol and Drug Impaired Driving.

In countries that excell there is one common thread. Task forces or committees in which political influence is diluted. Instead of bureaucrats building their own empires, committees with wide expert and stake holder representation are empowered, and made accountable for sensible targets. Not targets like reducing average speeds from 100kph to 98kpm (that's RAM).

IMO we need an injury prevention committee with task forces in the 5 areas AA recommended. These should have the apt Govt Depts represented, consultancy budgets and stakeholder representation.

For example the Safer Roads taskforce would have the right Govt agency in it, bikers could be represented among others, it would generate sane policy and have push.

Push is best achieved when legislation is passed requiring Parliament to treat the road toll as a disaster or a war, requiring the least possible casualties and therefore backing of any reasonable policy. This is the law passed in Sweden, which stops the silliness of elections and voter popularity having too much of a hobbling or a deprioritising effect on progressive ideas.

For example, all the political capital gained from the kneejerk panic around boy racers which made one pollie popular in CHCH was very distracting from legislators focussing on evidence based policy. If they had really cared to address the inder 20 road toll boy racer legislation would have been the last resort - and child booster seats for kids under 10 or so would have been no.1.

[candor]

Mostly, the decreases in these incidents PER CAPITA is credited to better roads, better quality cars (ABS etc)

So in short, no we have not seen a huge increase in injury and death, just a massive increase in the cost to the taxpayers

Yep I just dug up from the OIA pile transit charts of trends 1999-2005. Just a couple of exceptions to the general improve trend though. The charts for fatal and serious crashes per million vk travelled show down trends everywhere bar Napier Office reports and Dunedin Office. Looking at a further breakdown to 14 regions Hawkes Bay, Nelson Marlborouh, Otago and Southland have uptrends in trauma or are static. All others showed small down trends. But... I don't trust the data if its primary source is Police crash reports.

The recent agreement to data match betwen ACC claims and the crash analysis system injury reports will show in a year or two if the CAS is as much a "tool" as some people think (for under reporting).

Things just may be worse than portrayed. I'll try and get updated charts, as these are a bit old to aid discussion.

[StoneY]

So in short, even when the doc's your holding in you're hand from your OIA Pile (as you describe it) show an improvement in crash stats you're STILL doubting it?


Simon and I went over the stuff you sent him last night, and while it is interesting reading we see NO refference to either Tony Bliss or the World Bank in what you provided us to date.
We see no smoking guns pointing at your conspiracy.

What we can see is hard working public servants answering ministerial questions and the ongoing development of the formulae applied each new anual period

I note a total lack of departmental letterheads, page footers, or file refferences among other tell tales that indicate genuine government documents.

Its obvious this sort of documentation would be watermarked as confidential at LEAST yet no such marks are shown in any of these doc's.

To help you understand why I say this;
I worked in fairly high up IT roles within several government departments over the last 6 years, and have been instrumental in the application of Meta Data policies with DOL and ERO among other projects that I am not allowed to speak of

I am very familiar with what 'confidential' documents look like, and I am not convinced of the validity of these documents we have been sent.

http://rapidshare.com/files/379051894/Candor.pdf.html
Anyone who wishes to have a look for themselves, here it is. Ten downloads only so be quick

StoneY

[candor]

No I'm agreeing with you there is improvement, but adding my 5 cents that it is minor and maybe not even as much as it looks at that. And I'm agreeing with you that it comes from things like road improvements.

Hmm kay. Heres just one of numerous papers we have showing he is a leader in this project.
Scroll down to the Resource Allocation model study on p7 and you'll see Safety Directions by Bliss are the developmental papers.
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache...&ct=clnk&gl=nz

He was also the LTSA attendee at meeting 30 advocating the formula use.

He is also the main author on LTSA Safety Directions publications which the NRSC memorandum of understanding lists as providing the strategic direction for road safety in NZ. Safety Directions working papers 1-7 and the Safety Directons manual lay out the theory behind and developmental stages of the RAM.

If you don't think the docs are genuine what can I say - phone the AA motoring policy advisors and they'll tell you they studied the GENUINE docs we provided them for weeks, which helped inform their anti enforcement submissions to cabinet and government. Or phone Martin Jenkins BEng of the Akilla campaign who spent a year doing numerous OIAs - met with Transport Officials with their lawyers present, and then had to use the Ombudsmen to secure the release of the docs - I'll PM you his PH number if I'm not credible.

No trouble to produce these things at a meeting and more to pad things out, but I have no scanner so cannot post up so easily. I'm not in the business of forging Govt papers thanks!
We've had a couple years analysing this stuff so we know a bit - and it is not a product of hardworking civil servants. It is serious negligence or a major cock up. You'll need to see the analyses by people far brighter than myself to "get it" probably. I originally did not know what I was looking at, as I'm not educated to that level, I needed a "translator" so to speak.

Don't worry - they tried every trick in the book to avoid release, including denial the info existed. But the law mandated release as the OIA is quite strong. incidentally the e-ml has an oia stamp on its first page of 2 so not sure why it's said to be unmarked. And I accidentally scanned one doc twice, and missed doing another one, which shows what questions under the OIA we'd asked - which i see may make following it all a bit tricky.

[Ixion]

I'm a bit confused about where all this is coming from or going to.

Tony Bliss certainly exists , and he certainly works for the World Bank, and used to work for LTSA. I have corresponded with him, he took part in the Safer Journeys forum discussion. And he certainly developed a mathematical model for allocation of resources for road safety.

I have found at least one of his working papers, which is attached. It's very boring but it is certainly 'official'

I'm sure he would be happy to confirm all that, he can be contacted through the World bank i imagine.

From the papers Candor has, it appears that the model has become considerably more complex since he moved on. I suspect that like most such things the more complex it becomes the less relaible it becomes.

It is important to note that Mr Bliss's work was not directed toward eliminating road casualties. Rather, to minimising the financial impact of them - to determining the point at which extra expenditure (in whatever area) produced dimishing returns.

His work suggested that the most effective (effective in financial terms, not necessarily in safety or social terms) use of the available money was by directing it to having police giving out tickets.

Whether this model is proving robust in practcie is a matter that can be argued by everyone in every direction. Certainly the predicted casualty rates for 2010 have not eventuated. But economic models seldom do produce real world results that tally with the expectation.

Whether any of this comprises a 'smoking gun' or 'conspiracy' I don't know. It all seems fairly straight forward to me. Likewise whether it actually WORKS is a matter that may be endlessly debated. Personally i don't think it does, human interactions are always far more complex than economists want to admit. But then, I'm not an economist.

What can be said is that Mr Bliss's resource allocation model does , by and large, direct the governments allocation of resources (duh, hardly surprising). And doubtless will until someone comes up with an alternative model. I very much doubt that Treasury would be impressed by a suggestion along the lines of "Lets throw lots of money around generally and see if any of it does any good".

[candor]

He didn't move on - he still attends NRSC meetings when in NZ. Where this is going is hopefully where the start of the thread suggested. To get support for a review as requested by several road safety agencies of the RAM. Its hard to see why this would be controversial when I can and will produce documents in a meeting, that show experts saying the model is not only ineffective but is harmful. If it is harmful and produces more cost than it rakes in (as the AA say), well then it is rather hard to justify.
I can forward by e-ml some of the official statements put out by experts, based on review of these papers, supporting that RAM does no good and is a waste of time and resource, to anyone interested. If these aren't all compelling taken together... then I am in an alternate universe. Sure its a bit of reading to get to the bottom of, but prolly worth it.

[candor]

BTW Stoney I have received other docs marked confidential that were quite boring. What does it signify and how do they decide which ones to mark as that - flip a coin?

[Ixion]

The problem I would see with this (I don't disagree with you, but my opinion isn't what counts), is that it would be hard for wanyone reviewing a economic model to go past police ticketing ,and specifically speed ticketing, as a major intervention.

Simply because it is so cheap . Largely self financing, may even show a profit

I'm sure that other appraoches could be found that would save a lot more lives,and injuries, but they would cost (net) a lot more. The RAM ultimately isn't about safety it's about cost.

I don't think the RAM takes into account collateral cos teffects (such as public loss of confidence in the police force). Those are very hard to quantify. The model has complicated formulae (always suspicious), but ultimately is quite simple. Cost of crashes (noting that sometimes having a crash kill off somone, eg an old person may be a net cost benefit - no more superannuation, no hip replacements etc); versus net cost of enforcement. Net cost of speed enforcement is pretty much zero. Hard to go past that if all you are looking at is a simplistic comparison BTW I think I see that the major determinator of crashes is actually traffic volume. How surprising. More bikes on the road, more crashes. So why does Mr Smith deny it?

[candor]

IMO it should only be a supportive intervention as part of a smarter plan - not the cornerstone. It's more on peoples mind to find the point of diminishing ROAD SAFETY returns or where too much of a good thing turns bad eg is it 500,000 tickets, 1 million or 5 million.
At what point is the supposed road safety spend (on patrolling, cameras or whatever) best spent somewhere else to save more life eg donations to Bronz (:
Dreaming on. Yes take the formula to one logical conclusion for toll reductions, and you drop the vehicle kms by "high risk" road users to zip. Or as you observed earlier another permutation could be - do not target boy racer pensioners for harm reduction as they're too costly to be worth preserving!
But the point is; that Labour MPs have said it's worth considering from a fiscal responsibility viewpoint finding out the right cut off - reviewing the system for glitches. This interest in compromise is progress, but may not linger without support. And they are very interested in building evidence based new policies at this point. The Nats to me are just cruising on a smile and a wave.

[Spearfish]

All this complexity, little wonder the navel lint admirers in Wellington have trouble...
What country drives the best and why and would it work here, isn't that all there is to it?

[Ronin]

All this complexity, little wonder the navel lint admirers in Wellington have trouble...
What country drives the best and why and would it work here, isn't that all there is to it?

My eyes glazed long ago. BUT, I have read through all of the documents referenced here, even the wiki stuff. Did I understand most of it? hmmm some. Candor does have a point in that it should be possible to lower the road toll through different means than just ticketing... Will it ever happen here? Nup. From what I can see, most of the models from overseas rely on the proactive safety of the roads themselves. I cant see many people being happy about having to pay for that here. With such a small population base the cost per head would be prohibitive. Yes, I'm aware that this is essentialy putting a dollar value on a life but IMO there is affordable safety and then there is unaffordable cotton wool.

[StoneY]

My last say on this issue.

Candor;
I agree that Labour SEEM to pay us more attention (of course they want VOTES next year) and I stop in at Parliament frequently to catch up with a few of them. Dont mistake vote mongering for anything other than that.
Your forgotten the moment the phone lines disconnected, think anything else and your as naieve as I was in November.

Conspiracy?
Nup. No smoking guns, no blame to be held by zionist bankers at the heart of the world eccononmy

An issue in our road management?
Yes, definitely. They try to minimise bad behaviour by charging and fining offenders...same situation as the rest of the world and you know, its all they HAVE as a prevention in most countries


NOW here is how it works in reallity, where we end up after all the tickets fail:

See attached PDF.

Timmy, launched his 800hp turbo charged rotary powered nissan Silvia (illegally modified, unregistered, unwarranted, non compliant) race car from 200 meters away from where MY car was parked.
He wrapped his Nissan around my Legacy in a 50kmh zone at estimated speed of 150kmh
He was also pissed at the time (over 700 mg on the breath, still he chose a blood test)

One wet bus ticket awarded, and the very reason we have repeat offenders constantly killing people in our country on the roads.

Ticket Timmy all ya like, he will say what he said while I was handing him a towel for his bleeding scalp..... 'its ok Daddy will pay for it'

StoneY out

(thread unsubscribed, peace all)

[Bald Eagle]

My last say on this issue.

One wet bus ticket awarded, and the very reason we have repeat offenders constantly killing people in our country on the roads.

That bus tickets barely bloody damp FFS