Riders dropping, says poll

[Daffyd]

The bulk of that article is clive Mathew Wilson quotes, WTF these lazy journalists keep on using him as an 'expert' when all he's done is write a book about finicky car faults... Never take anything seriously in n article where he is quoted.

Yes, the man's a pillock!

[Ocean1]

The basic issue I have with the data set is that it isnt comparable to anything used previously. Only sections of it used in isolation against previous methods.The conclusions drawn from it are just made up.

I haven't read the report. Just the article. Which did quote Stroombergen saying that he can't explain half of the dramatic fall in deaths.

And frankly I don't have a problem with a change in measurement methodology from one that only ever produces results that NZTA/ACC/ et al want to one that for the first time actually uses the one data string you'd think was absolutely most relevant: that fatalities in NZ have been plummeting over the last couple of decades, in spite of huge increases in road miles. Nor do I think it's incorrect in tentatively suggesting that fuck all of that improvement has been associated with behavioural or cultural changes.

My point was why is it only now that someone's actually attempted to analyse cause, using most of the relevant information rather than simply babble on about how the road toll is simply awful and is all caused by excess speed? So when a professional statistician comes up with data roughly describing the road accident landscape and identifies indications of causal links that sure as fuck sound like something most of us might recognise from what we see every day then you have to ask why those official entities tasked with improving road safety haven't done exactly that long before now.

Maybe the fed's do know it all. Maybe this: "In 2011 the road toll dropped by almost a quarter (from 375 to 284 deaths), prompting a series of Ministry of Transport investigations into what was going right." taught them everything there was to know. Maybe they just didn't tell us because it'd demonstrate their policies were inadequate. Or pointless.

But I don't think so. The simplistic speed kills policies haven't changed, so I don't believe they suddenly commissioned an actually viable analysis which might contradict their traditional mantra. Nor has the ridiculous growth of road signage sprouting up on the outside of every fucking corner in the country slowed, having begun with those most likely to see a bike needing exactly that escape. No sudden evidence of any such common sense at all. Nothing that hints that improvements are needed in anything other than velocity.

[Voltaire]

The road toll is deaths, would less deaths be attributed partly to the improvements in car safety, emergency services and medical advances ?

[Ocean1]

The road toll is deaths, would less deaths be attributed partly to the improvements in car safety, emergency services and medical advances ?

In the current climate of politicisation it's not possible to know.

In my opinion they're likely to be improvements #1, #2 and #3, in roughly that order.

[TheDemonLord]

I thought one part of the article was particularly interesting - the section where it talked (for about 2 lines) about how improvements in roads have helped the road toll....

Could it be that all our Major single lane Arterial routes with F-All passing lanes to the rest of the country need to be updated to dual lane carriageways with barriers in the middle?


Nah - its Speed

Speed Kills

Amidoingitrite?