[SystemSafety] Fwd: Safety of vulnerable road users: UK

[Nancy Leveson]

Forgot to address this to everyone. In addition, children aged 7-11 do not
have "superior skills." Even if 10% of the numbers I calculated below
involved an injury or death, I would guess that such a mass slaughter of
children in the UK would have been noted before now.

Nancy

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nancy Leveson <leveson.nancy8 at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 2:25 AM
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Safety of vulnerable road users: UK
To: Drew Rae <d.rae at griffith.edu.au>


The statistics are ridiculous. What does "nearly hit" mean, particularly to
young children (and prefaced by a first question of "do you think roads are
dangerous" which almost guarantees the answer to the second question to be
"yes")?

I looked up the birth numbers for the years that would make the children
7-11 years old and found that there are approximately 3.5 million such aged
children in England and Wales (I couldn't find the numbers for Scotland or
northern ireland but taking the population of Scotland as about 10 percent
of England, that would make close to 4 million children aged 7-11). At 40%,
that means around 1.6 million children have been hit by cars (and given
their small bodies, the injury and death rates resulting would be
horrendous) or "nearly hit by cars."

This list is getting more and more irrelevant to system safety. Would it be
possible to limit the messages to things that have relevance to safety
engineering or at least have some credibility?

Nancy

On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 1:47 AM, Drew Rae <d.rae at griffith.edu.au> wrote:

> Peter,
> Much as I applaud the campaign, the statistics are a little …. ah …. let
> me just quote the original press release:
>
> [4] 'Hands up' survey of 4,787 primary school children (aged 7-11) from
> schools across the UK participating in Brake's Giant Walking Bus, carried
> out between January and May 2014. When asked 'do you think roads in your
> neighbourhood can be dangerous for kids who are walking or cycling?', 67%
> said yes, 33% said no. When asked 'have you ever been hit or nearly hit by
> a vehicle while walking or cycling?', 41% said yes, 59% said no.
>
> Why conduct epidemiological safety research when you can get just as good
> press coverage by asking kids to stick their hands in the air?
>
> On the other hand working with social/peer expectations and norms can be
> an effective strategy for driver behaviour. It's the basis of the
> Queensland "If you drink and drive you're a bloody idiot" campaign, as
> well as some more thoroughly evaluated fleet driver interventions.
>
> Drew
>
> * This message is from my work email
> * I can also be contacted on andrew at ajrae.com
> * My mobile number is 0450 161 361
> * My safety podcast is DisasterCast.co.uk
>
>
>
> On 17/11/2014, at 4:35 PM, Peter Bernard Ladkin wrote:
>
> A report in The Guardian this morning
>
> [begin quote]
>
> 41% of primary pupils hit or nearly hit by cars
> ------------------------------
>
> More than two in five primary schoolchildren say they have been hit or
> nearly hit by a vehicle while on foot or on a bike, according to a survey
> by the road safety charity Brake released for Road Safety Week. Two-thirds
> of the 4,787 pupils aged seven to 11 who were polled thought roads in their
> community could be dangerous for walking and cycling, and 41% said they had
> been struck by a vehicle or had a near miss.
>
> Brake highlighted figures showing that motorists are picking up fines for
> speeding and careless driving at a rate of almost two a minute.
>
> A total of 950,505 fixed-penalty notices were issued for speeding last
> year, and a further 17,483 were issued for careless driving. Brake is
> launching a campaign calling on road users to look out for each other to
> help cut the rate of five deaths and 61 serious injuries a day on the roads.
>
> The charity’s deputy chief executive, Julie Townsend, said: “When drivers
> use roads without care for others, the consequences can be tragic and
> horrific. That’s why we’re asking all road users to look out for and
> protect each other.”
>
> PA
>
> [end quote]
>
> PBL
>
> Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, University of Bielefeld and Causalis Limited
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-- 
Prof. Nancy Leveson
Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems
MIT, Room 33-334
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02142

Telephone: 617-258-0505
Email: leveson at mit.edu
URL: http://sunnyday.mit.edu



-- 
Prof. Nancy Leveson
Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems
MIT, Room 33-334
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02142

Telephone: 617-258-0505
Email: leveson at mit.edu
URL: http://sunnyday.mit.edu
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