Opinion Doesn’t Cut It

Newspapers are not, it seems, obliged to be accurate or well-informed when

they report on road safety. It is sufficient as a defence that a reasonable
person could have held that opinion. The problem is that a reasonable person
would be informed by the media. Thus the media may present any issue and
provided the public buy into it, no matter how ill-informed the opinion might
be, then the media may hold their position to be reasonable.
Ill-informed doesn’t cut it in road safety.
If I tell you ‘trust me you’ll be fine without a helmet’, and you get involved
in an accident as a motorbike rider, then I’d fully expect to be held
accountable for my reckless disregard for your safety.
If a newspaper prints that, then apparently provided that sufficient people
believe the newspaper, they will have not transgressed any law. Maybe I’m
wrong, maybe they could be held accountable, in which case what happens
when they propose a position that is entirely contradicted by reality?
If you don’t know what you’re doing, you will harm yourself or others.
Parents who fail to appreciate the real issues in road safety will be easily
misled into focusing on the wrong issues, on issues that won’t save their
children’s lives.
Parents may imagine themselves to be well-informed on road safety. They are
almost certainly not. A simple test is to ask whether they or you believe that a
careful and responsible driver will be able to stop when their child steps into
the road unexpectedly.
The RoSPA position is clear, as set out in their Pedestrian Injury Simulator
(stoppingdistances.org.uk):
“As you were driving at 30 mph, on a dry road, and not distracted by a
mobile phone or impaired by alcohol, you were able to stop safely when the
pedestrian stepped out unexpectedly.” (emphasis added).
(StoppingDistances.org.uk,
http://www.stoppingdistances.org.uk/results/30dnn.htm, May 2015)
That is nonsense. Why it is nonsense is the subject of this book. That it is
nonsense is shown every year in the Stats 19 accident data. 98.4% of
pedestrian KSI occur in front of drivers who thought they were safe because
they were driving at or below the speed limit.
The figure is identical, 98.4% (2013) for under-16 KSI, the most emotive
category of injury, and the focus for Speedwatch members.
Every time the media point a finger and say ‘there’s the risk, there’s the
driver putting your children’s lives at risk’, they’re also stating by definition
that everyone else is not the risk, everyone one else would be safe if it wasn’t
for them, the dangerous drivers.’
Kent and Sussex Courier for example were not merely explicit, but made it a
front page headline in the boldest type: ‘DANGEROUS DRIVERS ARE
TARGETED IN CRACKDOWN’. (Kent and Sussex Courier, UK, 17th
April 2015)
The subsequent article unsurprisingly targeted normal everyday speeding
drivers. Who then are safe?
Law-abiding non-speeding drivers and pedestrians. As long as the dangerous
drivers are kept at bay, here by Speedwatch seeking the right to use
evidentiary cameras, then pedestrians can go about their day in safety,
walking in front of cars without looking, and the non-speeding drivers will,
as RoSPA declare, be able to stop when the pedestrian steps out
unexpectedly.
Except that it’s the precise reverse of reality, and reassured, pedestrians will
think themselves safe, parents will think they have done all they need to do
by targeting speeding drivers, and non-speeding drivers will think themselves
safe and able to stop if a pedestrian steps out unexpectedly.
All those are not merely the most responsible, but those overwhelmingly
responsible for pedestrian injury, and they will be reassured by a headline
that says it’s got nothing to do with them, it’s this other class of road user
involved in only 1.6% of pedestrian KSI (killed or seriously injured).
That a major road safety organization is propounding a myth is deeply
disturbing. It is the focus of another book ‘The RoSPA Deception’. I have no
qualms about calling it a deception since the simulator was carefully designed
to make a point, rather than to reflect reality.
That Speedwatch members have bought into the same message propounded
by RoSPA and the government, is likewise disturbing, but it is their own
children whom those members are putting at risk.
They don’t have to protect and train their children. They can continue to
think it’s the drivers’ responsibility to ensure their children are never hurt.
They can continue to believe that it’s drivers exceeding the limit who are the
primary risk for their children, even though that 98.4% figure is accurate and
sitting there for them to discover in the data.
That the media are keen to garner headlines and readers and sell copies based
on an egregious reversal of the truth may be convenient, and popular, but
they’re diminishing the attention of those individuals whose inattention is
already the biggest factor in pedestrian casualties and fatalities.
You could not invent a more dangerous and irresponsible attitude to road
safety, and yet it is ‘all right’ because while it might be utterly contradicted
by the facts, all those who’ve already bought into it would find it reasonable
and be reassured.
Why the public, the media and road safety organizations would not wish to
be fully informed as to road safety, I have no idea. Why they would trust that
government, which doesn’t exactly have the best record in integrity, should
be determined to make parents face an uncomfortable truth, I have no idea.
I only know what the most basic math and the reported statistics make clear:
the single biggest factor in pedestrian injury is pedestrian failing to look
properly, at two thirds (62%) of casualties, 45% of fatalities.
The next biggest factor is driver/rider failing to look properly, at 25% of
casualties, 28% of fatalities.
Together, the combined factor of observation error (failed to look properly,
failed to judge effectively) on the part of the driver/rider and pedestrian
account for three quarters of pedestrian casualties, two thirds of fatalities.
Speedwatch members can target speeding drivers all they like, but two thirds
of UK drivers, those willing to speed according to Northumbria police,
mysteriously disappear in the presence of a pedestrian, and are involved in
only 1.6% of KSI.
No matter how many cars Speedwatch members track as ‘speeding’, they’re
not doing the killing that Speedwatch fear they might. Call it experience, call
it common sense, call it being smart, but they’re just not there.
Meanwhile, Speedwatch members and the public seem to believe two
conjoined myths put out by road safety organizations and government: that it
is the normal everyday speeding driver who is the threat to their children, and
that the safe, responsible driver at or below the limit will be able to stop in
time to avoid their children.
Those myths are killing pedestrians every year.
There’s no other way to look at it.
If the government and road safety organizations are putting out messages
entirely contradicted by their own data, reassuring parents that ‘it’s the
speeding driver that’s the issue, and trust me you’ll be fine as long as your
child steps out in front of a non-speeding driver’, then that is reckless
disregard for the safety of pedestrians.
It may be uncomfortable telling parents the truth, but that does not excuse the
government’s failure to address reality.
Pedestrians, including children, are being killed every year because their
parents bought into a myth.
You can learn the reality and take steps to ensure that your children and
others are properly trained.
Or you can keep to the myth, and the speeding drivers you’d like to blame
may be getting the tickets, but they won’t be there in any but a fraction of the
accidents that kill pedestrians.
In fact, in 2013, not one normal everyday speeding driver was involved in an
under-16 fatality. What I mean by that would require you to read ‘Experience
Counts’ which goes into road safety in depth.
In the nine years 2005-2013, a total of three under 16’s were killed by normal
everyday experienced speeding drivers, not one of which pedestrians failed to
make a serious pedestrian error.
Children under 16 died, 25 in 2013, 17 of whom could have been alive had
they simply looked properly. 96% of those died in front of a non-speeding
driver.
Parents and Speedwatch have a choice: they can learn road safety, the facts
not what they’ve been told, and focus on addressing the critical issues in
pedestrian safety: pedestrians failed to look properly or judge effectively.
Or they can turn their back on their children and stay with the current target.
If they do the latter, it won’t just be an illusion, but an intentional self-
imposed delusion.
Parents are already failing their children, misled by a government that prefers
convenience to reality. If they are forewarned, as they now are, and informed,
as they will be if they read this book, then they no longer will be acting in
ignorance.
Ignorance is no excuse, but to knowingly disregard the facts and the reality
take that behaviour to another level. The government may be too politically
astute to dare to accuse a parent of negligence, but that is what it is.
Not one person, as far as I’m aware, died or was injured in the PPI mis-
selling scandal, yet the government eagerly backed the public in their outrage
at the banks.
I wonder what the appropriate degree of outrage would be if the public
realized that the government and road safety organizations have been mis-
selling road safety.
That isn’t just money, it is people’s lives.
The RoSPA Deception show that the deception, the mis-selling is both
intentional and in flagrant contradiction to the reality of how pedestrians are
being injured and killed, and by whom.
This book gives parents a chance to understand the facts and realities of
pedestrian safety as shown by basic math and the government’s own figures.
How those parents respond after they’ve learned the facts and come to terms
with reality will determine whether they are appropriate and take greater
responsibility for their children, or whether they are inappropriate and stick
with what they ‘know’.
It’s not my child, but I do at least know who to blame when they’re injured or
killed.
The parent can read this book and begin to confront an uncomfortable truth,
or they can hide their head in the sand and face the consequences when their
child is injured or killed.
In all but a fraction of cases, they won’t even have the compensation of
blame.
There’ll be just them, their child, and the non-speeding driver.
Whether they face reality then or now is up to them.
v150518d
 MEDIA DECEPTION IN ROAD SAFETY
A Misguided and Harmful Approach to Road Safety
A Live Within Reason Perspective
 Andrew Mather

LIVE WITHIN REASON BOOKS

Experience Counts (Book 1)
One Cause (Book 2)
Illusion of Safety (Book 6)
(Full list at end of book)

Please note:
This book is a slightly revised edition of
Illusion of Safety
Copyright © Andrew Mather 2015
Full terms at end
Also:
Sources, Full Disclaimer
 Disclaimer
The purpose of this book is to examine road safety publications and statistics
with a view to establishing a balanced road safety policy.
It is not intended to recommend or condone any particular action by or for
any individual.
Full disclaimer at end of book.
 Onion Rings

If you get halfway through, find yourself liking the book, maybe finding
something you didn’t know, something that surprised you, then maybe you
could post a one word or one line review, pick another title for 99c/99p as a
thank you, or tell a friend, or drop me a line at: andrew@andrew-mather.com
It’s not a have to: you know that, I know that.
It’s just a way you could say thank you, if you wanted to.
 Please Note

While certain principles may apply to your country and driving situation, the
statistics and conclusions in this book apply to:

UK
ONLY
 Focus

This book is short and has but a single purpose:

To disabuse the driver of the notion that by driving at the speed limit they
will be ‘safe’ in the presence of a pedestrian.
If you are already aware of that, for the reasons we will discuss, then I’m
delighted.
My concern is that many drivers may not be aware.
From my research into the government figures, it had always struck me that
there was an issue. I called it the ‘illusion of safety’.
To me it was just one more disturbing result in a whole range of disturbing
results.
That a highly intelligent adult could however presume that there must be a
law or obligation to drive ‘safely’ so that a pedestrian would not be injured,
showed just how deeply the illusion was ingrained.
As such, I decided to emphasise it as a single critical issue in a book of its
own. It is still in my other books, but very little of my other research will be
included here.
When the ramifications of the illusion of safety are understood, it may change
your perception of road safety policy.
Whether it does or not, if what you read in these pages changes your attitude
to driving in the presence of a pedestrian, then I hope that road safety has
been served.
It does not excuse the behaviour of any driver for their part. It merely focuses
on one aspect of pedestrian safety, which also happens to be the single
biggest issue in pedestrian safety.
When a pedestrian is injured, two thirds of the time the injury will be because
of this issue. Half the fatalities will be down to just this issue.
When the pedestrian makes this critical error, it will not be enough for you
have been driving at a ‘safe’ speed.
There is no safe speed in the presence of a pedestrian, and that is what we are
going to show to you.
What you make of that, will be up to you.
If you get the point, and are done, that’s great.
If you want to see how it fits into a bigger picture of road safety, then there
are two full length books which probably have more material than anyone
would want.
Still, they’re there: ‘Experience Counts’ and ‘One Cause’.
For now, let’s look at the most emotive topic in road safety: young pedestrian
KSI.
 A Difficult Age

I’d like you to look at a chart of pedestrian KSI (killed and seriously injured)
by age. These are UK figures, as are all the figures in the book, and typically
they will be from 2013. Sometimes, as in this particular chart, they may be
averages of 2010-2013, to iron out random variations.
You don’t need to be concerned about statistics in this book. I’m going to
keep them to a minimum. If you have the background and capacity to work
with statistics, then you may care to check out ‘Experience Counts’.
That book is a challenging book to read, for drivers and pedestrians brought
up in the lore of road safety as it is promulgated today.
We are not even going to touch on those issues, barring the minimum
required to focus on drivers driving below the speed limit, and injuring
pedestrians due to one critical pedestrian error.
Nor is this only a pedestrian injury error, and since we will be excluding the
contentious case of speeding drivers from the analysis, let us put that in
perspective.
Three times as many other road users will be injured by pedestrian error, than
speeding drivers will injure pedestrians.
We are not excluding speeding drivers to excuse them.
We are excluding them because to try to understand a more complex picture
will detract from the single critical issue that we’re highlighting in this book.
If the reader wishes to learn more, they have only to delve into that other
more challenging book ‘Experience Counts.’
For the maximum impact in saving pedestrian life, we must address the single
biggest issue in pedestrian safety, which is the combined factor ‘failed to look
or judge’, and we must address those drivers most involved, which in 98.4%
of injuries, 92% of fatalities, is the non-speeding driver.
When these two are combined with the illusion of safety, which we’ll cover
shortly, the result is that a single fundamental pedestrian error is the biggest
cause of pedestrian injury, and that drivers who might have imagined
themselves to be safe were the most involved by an overwhelming margin.
This book exists solely and precisely to shred that illusion.
If you already recognised that, then I am delighted.
 Pedestrian KSI by Age

This chart is not strictly necessary to address the issue, but it may reinforce
that the particular issue we’re looking at is not a driver issue.
At this point, that may still seem absurd. Surely, if you drive slowly and
responsibly, you’re safe? It is the irresponsible drivers surely who are doing
the killing?
That is the illusion. I’ve already cited the statistics, and I assure you they are
accurate. You will not find those figures in RRCGB. You need to do the
underlying analysis, but if we’re not careful, we’ll be dragged away from the
issue.
Why does failing to look or judge (failed to look properly or failed to judge
vehicle path or speed) matter so much?
They step out, you’re driving slowly and safely, you brake, and while a
speeding driver would have injured or killed them perhaps, you were safe.
I’m afraid not.
If you believe that, if you picked that up from a road safety website, if that is
your impression from road safety enforcement, they you are mistaken.
It isn’t subject to opinion, it’s basic arithmetic.
First though, take a look at this chart.
What is the distinctive feature of this chart?
If it is blatantly obvious that the peak, the narrow spike at age twelve, is
absurd, then good.
If it is not, then let us try to clarify that.

I can do this with coloured bottles, or with people. If I do this with coloured
bottles, you may feel I am trivialising a critical issue. If I do it with people,
you may feel I am being cold and revelling in a heart-breaking issue.
Let’s do people.
It’s reality.
You are an observer on a bizarre road which happens to kill or seriously
injure (KSI) everyone who attempts to walk across it.
It is Noah’s road, and you watch pedestrians walking across it two by two,
two of each age from let us say 9 to 79.
All are KSI.
Now, draw a chart with KSI on the left axis, age on the horizontal axis, as we
have in the chart earlier.
What will be the shape of the curve?
It will be a straight line, left to right, with two for each age.
Did the earlier char look like a straight line?
Not really.
So the first-order issue is that age makes a difference.
We expected that. We don’t expect to find two year olds on the road, we
anticipate there may be some higher risk with younger pedestrians, and we
expect that as pedestrians get older, then risk will fall away.
It might in fact look like this.

That is essentially the same chart but ‘smoothed’, with age bands rather than
individual age years.
It still looks alarming, but it doesn’t look absurd.
Here is the earlier chart again.
Do you see, if you didn’t before, how pronounced that spike is?
Even with the alarming risk of 12-15 year olds in the comparison chart, the
curve was somewhat smooth. The chart with individual age years has an
absurd spike at age twelve.
If twelve year olds were forced to run across roads blindfolded as part of an
initiation, we could say ‘ah yes, that’ll be the initiation’, but they’re not.
We might put it down to genetic, hormonal changes, but it seems too sharply
defined. We’d need a medical expert to inform us.
That however would only tell us a possible cause as to why pedestrians might
be so utterly incapable of crossing a road at that age.
What it would not tell us was why the situation was being tolerated.
And these are overwhelmingly fatalities in front of non-speeding drivers,
recall.
And even if the police had not already identified the issue as the single
biggest issue in pedestrian injury and fatality, this chart would tell us anyway.
Drivers are not targeting twelve year olds. The idea is absurd. If this spike is
occurring, then it is because of a behavioural aberration, or a cultural
aberration, or a societal aberration.
In fact, I suggest it is all three.
It doesn’t matter whether you agree or not, or whether I’m right or not,
because the spike is there. However I will observe from my other research
that this is consistent with a disturbing overall picture.
That picture suggests that non-speeding drivers know who the dangerous
drivers are, that parents and pedestrians know who the dangerous drivers are,
and so with the dangerous drivers addressed by separate and rigorous
enforcement, the safe pedestrians and safe non-speeding drivers can go about
their day.
The only problem is that chart.
And the figures.

If parents consider that risk to twelve year olds to be acceptable, then I

suppose that’s their right.
If they don’t, then why are the parents not up in arms about it?
And if they were, who would they blame?
The non-speeding drivers?
At 92% involvement, it would be difficult to pin the blame on anyone else.
But if you as a non-speeding driver had been told you were safe, then is it fair
to blame you?
Who, after all, are the individuals ultimately responsible for children’s
safety?
Parents.
So if parents saw this chart and were up in arms, who would they have to be
up in arms against?
Themselves.

So why aren’t they?

This chart is right there in the RRCGB figures, except it’s not in a chart, and
it isn’t highlighted as an issue. Pedestrian risk is always an ‘issue’, but that
spike isn’t an ‘issue’, it is THE issue.
My belief is that the government has precisely lulled drivers and pedestrians
into a false sense of security by targeting ‘unsafe’ drivers and so implying
that non-speeding drivers are ‘safe’.
It is a position, sadly, strongly reinforced by the RoSPA simulator which
makes non-speeding drivers automatically ‘safe’ in the dry, and speeding
drivers automatically ‘unsafe’ in all conditions.
It is the reverse of what the statistics say, it is the reverse of what that chart
says.

If that is accurate, then all the time that ‘concerned parents’ have been
targeting speeding drivers to ensure they get ticketed, then those same parents
have been ignoring their own responsibilities as to training children properly
for the road, encouraged by a government policy which suggests that
‘someone else’ is to blame.
If the parents attempt to switch the blame onto the non-speeding driver,
which at 92% involvement is only reasonable, then I wonder if you will want
to speak out.
Either the parent is to blame, or the non-speeding driver. I’m afraid that in
this instance, the speeding driver is not going to be able to help you.
Their involvement is 0.8% of pedestrian 11-15, failed to look or judge, KSI.
At 99.2%, this is a straight fight between the non-speeding driver and the
parent.

If the non-speeding driver wins, then the parent becomes responsible for their
children’s training, as well as their errors, and that is going to be a challenge I
suspect for many parents.
If the parent wins, then the non-speeding driver will face even lower speeds,
and the question becomes: how low?
Whence the illusion of safety.
There is no safe speed in the presence of a pedestrian or other road user.
In the context of this book, we are focused solely on the issue of pedestrian
safety, so there is no safe speed in the presence of a pedestrian.
The consequences of this will make for an interesting battle between
Speedwatch (drivers are the problem) and RoSPA (non-speeding drivers are
always safe).
In the meantime, we had better understand just what the government, and
RoSPA, have not been factoring into their road safety policy and simulator.
 Blindfold

What happens if a pedestrian doesn’t look properly before crossing the road?
They might step in front of a vehicle, typically a car, but that is obvious.
The car, driving safely as a non-speeding driver, will simply apply its brakes
and come to a halt. The driver may be shocked, the pedestrian may be
shocked or oblivious, but accident avoided.
Does that seem reasonable?
What have you learned is the risk in pedestrian safety?
That if the car had been speeding, which as a non-speeding driver you won’t
be, it would have been travelling too fast to stop safely and the pedestrian
would have been injured?
Is that a reasonable description of what you’ve learned or understood to be
the risk of speeding drivers?
That the issue is the driver driving too fast, over the limit, or perhaps if
you’ve visited RoSPA, you’ve seen that they also include ‘too fast for
conditions’, a sort of ‘speeding for the non-speeding driver’ in their eyes.
So as a non-speeding driver that is always careful to drive at or below the
limit, certainly never too fast for the conditions, have you always felt yourself
to be safe?
It’s unfortunate, but as long as the dangerous drivers are being properly
targeted, pedestrian injury isn’t something that will affect you.
I hope you’re right, but it won’t be for that reason.

What are you relying upon to stop safely, in the unlikely but very real event
of a pedestrian stepping out into the road?
Your brakes, obviously, and that you’ll be paying attention, which of course
you will, and that you’ll be driving at or below the speed limit, and not too
fast for conditions.
Can you think of anything else?
I’ll give you a moment.
In fact I’ll give you a little more. You can read this while your mind mulls it
over. What are the dynamics of an accident, what actually happens?
The pedestrian steps out, you brake, it’s done.
Not much more to it than that really, is there?
So, did anything else come to mind, anything that might materially affect the
outcome of the accident?
Yes, maybe?
No?
Then what about this: where did the pedestrian step out in relation to the
vehicle?
Do I mean from the left, or the right, perhaps from behind a parked vehicle, a
van maybe?
That could be a factor, but no, that’s not what I’m asking.
Visualise if you like, take a moment to imagine the accident: a pedestrian
steps out… you brake … you come to a halt. All pretty scary, your heart is
beating, but you made it, everything’s ok.
Now try it again, but put the pedestrian closer, and closer, and closer until
they step out right into your bonnet, and there’s absolutely nothing you can
do about it.
What is it that a blindfolded pedestrian, a pedestrian not looking, will do?
They’ll step into the road (or run into the road), yes, but where?
Anywhere.
They’re not looking.
They’re not looking, and just getting it a bit wrong, which is unfortunate, and
sadly a few pedestrians might get injured that way?
That isn’t it at all.
They’re not looking, and that means they’re not even aware of traffic, they’re
not interested in ensuring that you as a driver have sufficient time to brake,
they have no conception as they do it that that is an issue.
They’re just stepping out into the road.

So let’s look at what really happens when a pedestrian steps out without
looking.
 Roll the dice

Let’s do this in slow-mo, and why don’t we let you drive.

What I’d like you to do is to drive normally and we’re going to approach a
built-up area, where the typical speed limit is 30mph in the UK at the present
time (2015).
As you approach the 30mph limit, I want you to slow and drive at that speed.
We’re going to be approaching a pedestrian, so you’re already forewarned
that you’re likely to want to do an emergency stop, which means you’re now
more alert than most drivers. They’re driving safely, as you are, so let’s see
what happens as we enter the 30mph limit.

What is going to keep you safe?

The stopping distance?
At least, that’s the theory, or perhaps more accurately, the subliminal
message, sometimes expressed quite explicitly.
So let’s test it out.

It isn’t a speed, but it is determined by speed, as well as road surface, tyre

condition, alertness of the driver, performance of the brakes, etc., but you
know all that, so we’ll just use the standard official figures in the dry.

The ‘official’ model has two components, one for thinking time (0.7
seconds), which translates into distance according to speed, and braking
distance, which is likewise determined by speed and the factors noted above.
Of the factors, the speed of the vehicle (cruising speed) is the one which is
most readily altered. We take this for granted as we drive, making a constant
flow of minor adjustments, and occasionally significant adjustments.
Stopping distance is 23 metres at 30mph, using official figures, so let’s start
our drive as we head into a 30mph limit, and we slow down to 30mph just as
we pass the sign, so we’re perfectly legal and perfectly safe.
A pedestrian comes into view.
What is the stopping distance?
23 metres.

As long as you remain 23 metres away from the pedestrian, you are perfectly
safe.
Not absolutely safe. Your car could burst into flames, or someone could have
a heart attack at the wheel, but with regard to the pedestrian and for our
purposes we begin with the assumption that you are safe. Specifically we
assume that you can always stop inside 23 metres.
So, the pedestrian is fifty metres away, you’re covering 13.3 metres per
second, and you have about two seconds ((50-23)/13.3) before they come into
range, at which point you will be closer than 23 metres to the pedestrian.
What do you do?

Too late.
You’re now within 23 metres of the pedestrian, and cannot safely stop if they
should what…?
Walk into the road without looking.

What is the single biggest factor in pedestrian accidents?

(Walking) into the road without looking.
Only sometimes it isn’t walking, it’s running, or hurrying.

So 30mph didn’t work out so well, did it?

Maybe 20mph would be better?
Official stopping distance is now 12 metres.
At 20mph, you’re covering 9 (8.9) metres per second.

We’re going to get into trigonometry if we’re not careful, as I trust you don’t
drive on the pavement.
For the moment, let’s leave that aside.
You come into the 20mph limit, your speed is perfectly set at 20mph, and
you’re perfectly safe.

A pedestrian appears 50 metres away, as before, and you’re much slower, so

even safer.
Now you have four seconds to decide what to do.
…3…2…1…0

What did you do?

You’re now within twelve metres of the pedestrian unless you slowed further,
manoeuvred away.
They are now closer than stopping distance.
If they now step out without looking, which they will in nearly two thirds of
pedestrian injuries, half of fatalities, the accident is inevitable.
How safe were you not merely as a lawful driver, but someone driving 10
miles an hour below the speed limit in a typical urban setting?
Not so safe as it turned out.

10mph?
4.5 metres stopping distance, 4.4 metres per second.
At fifty metres you have 10 seconds to decide.
…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…0

Now you’re within 4.5 metres, unless you slowed further or stopped.
They are now within stopping distance.
If they now walk or run out without looking, an accident, another injury, is
inevitable and you’re still not safe.
At 10mph.

How slow should you go to avoid hitting a pedestrian who walks (or runs)
out in front of you?

That’s the problem.

Any moving object, in particular here a vehicle or car, has an envelope that is
swept out before it comes to a halt.
The area swept out by a vehicle under braking is the distance from here to the
stopping distance, and you’ll sweep anything in front of your car onto your
bonnet between here and there, like it or not.

Unless you manoeuvre or swerve, but there’s five things to consider there.
Firstly, even if you react perfectly, you’re not going to start the car moving in
a different direction until 0.7 seconds after you’re begun to register the issue,
the pedestrian walking out.
The car itself (we’ll work with car, which is the vehicle typically involved)
will take time to move away from its current path, so the neat tuck and dive
around the pedestrian won’t even begin until a second or so into the accident.
The second issue is that there’s no guarantee the tuck and dive doesn’t
coincide with the pedestrian either continuing straight across into precisely
the spot you’d hope would be safe.
The third is that tucking and diving isn’t safe in itself. The sudden reaction,
instinctive, is a good way to lose control, and have you been given time to be
sure that you have room to tuck and dive, to swerve, or might there be
another vehicle, maybe even another pedestrian?
The fourth is that this is happening so fast, and is so unusual to your day to
day driving, that it may be all you can do to react at all. Braking in a straight
line is about all that can be reasonably expected of a typical driver in those
circumstances.
The fifth is that you may not even get the chance to do or consider any of
that.
Part of the stopping distance is the thinking distance, at 0.7s, which is ten
metres at 13.3 metres per second, or 30mph.
If the pedestrian, who isn’t choosing the point they emerge into your
envelope (as we call it), happens to walk directly into your thinking distance,
directly in front of you, then you won’t even have had time to react before the
impact occurs.
So in treating the typical incident as a ‘straight brake’, we’re not being
unreasonable, and we’re describing an accident that’s much easier for you to
follow.

And what is it about envelopes, about stopping distances?

Every object has one, regardless of speed. Objects already stopped have an
envelope of zero, so the pedestrian would have to walk or run into your
parked car, which is more likely to irritate than alarm unduly.
But anything above zero, and there’s an envelope.
3mph = 1.3 metres per second = 1 metre of thinking distance, let alone
stopping distance. In fact, to all intents and purposes, the thinking distance is
the braking distance, but how often have you been in a traffic jam, with
pedestrians threading through the cars?
They’re extremely unlikely to be killed, one might hope, but injured? That’s
still a possibility.
At the speed limit, 30mph, that’s far more than a possibility.
What is the lowest speed at which a fatality can occur?
Zero, but it would have to be pretty bizarre. Maybe they trip, hit their head on
the sharp edge between the roof and side of the car.
As speed increases, so three things increase.
Firstly, the stopping distance increases, so you’re carrying a much longer
‘shovel’ or plough in front of your car to sweep up pedestrians. It may take a
second or two for the car to catch up with the virtual plough and the
pedestrian, but it will.
Secondly, you’re increasing the range of possibilities as to where the
pedestrian could step in front of you, from the very limit of the stopping
distance, to right in your bonnet.
We refer to those for the moment as the thinking distance and the braking
distance, per the official model.
We’ll shortly see that it gets a little more complicated, depending on what the
pedestrian is doing and continues to do, but for the moment there’s thinking,
and braking.
The third issue is that the possible impact is far harder.

If you could always come to a halt, the impact would always be zero, so it
wouldn’t matter what speed you were doing.
If pedestrians are going to walk in front of cars without looking, it does
matter, and there are three key speeds of impact.
The first is your cruising speed. Obviously that affects the accident, but have
you considered that the cruising speed is also the speed of the impact, or
simply impact speed, within the thinking distance?
If you haven’t yet managed to react, then that is the speed at which the impact
will occur.
The second is a speed that declines linearly (at a constant rate, essentially)
after you’ve hit the brakes. In the dry with good tyres, the braking
deceleration is high. In the wet it can be far less so.
You know this.
And the third speed is of course stopped, hopefully before the pedestrian but
perhaps not.

At 30mph, 40 percent of the accident envelope will see you travelling at

30mph. It is the thinking distance.
That’s a lot, and with the time it takes for the brakes to bite and deceleration
to make a useful impact, you could very reasonably consider half of the
envelope to be a full-speed impact.
With a more modern car, with a stopping distance at 30mph or perhaps 17-18
metres, the thinking distance is over half the stopping distance, so that for
more than half the envelope, the impact will occur at full speed.

What is the other issue with speed?

Energy.
The energy that needs to be dissipated increases as the square of the fast:
travelling twice as fast increases the energy to be dissipated four times.
How much does it hurt if you hit your thumb with a hammer?
Slam that hammer down twice as fast, and it won’t just hurt twice as badly.
It’s enough to make you want to give up driving.
Or pay attention.
Pedestrians are lethal, and there’s essentially nothing you can do about it.
You can brake, and that’s about it. You’ve done all you can.

You can’t make them pay attention.

You might try driving with the horn depressed and blaring the whole time,
but I suspect your local police would soon have you for something.
The reverse is another issue: silent cars, electric cars.
It hasn’t taken long for people to appreciate the threat and danger of a vehicle
that doesn’t have that low, in most cases, but audible alert: engine noise.

You can’t make them (pedestrians) stay on the kerb.

You can’t train them to judge the distance correctly, and in two thirds of
cases, it’s not going to make a blind (sic) bit of difference anyway.

You can brake, and that’s about it. If they’re lucky and you’re trained, and
they happen to walk out far enough away,

When they walk out without looking, it may be straight into your bonnet.
 A Time To Learn

There is no safe speed in the presence of a pedestrian. That is what we call

the illusion of safety, or half of it.
The other half is that the same thing applies to other road users, to cars
waiting at junctions, but that is beyond the highly focused topic of this book.
Cars at least are armoured; pedestrians are not.

When would be a good time for the pedestrian to learn to look: after the
accident or before?
Do you think the parent purposely sent them out untrained?
Perhaps not on purpose, but what if the parent took for granted that they had
learned to cross the road, so their children would also?
Is there any test to see if the children had?
The children will be tested for Math, for French, for Geography, but is there a
test for road use?

What if the parents did make an effort: was it enough?

If, as a safe and careful non-speeding driver, a pedestrian walks out in front
of you, you’ll get a blanket. It’s unlikely that anyone will hold you
responsible.
But how would you feel?

If you could have insisted that the parent train the child properly, would you
have done so, had you known they were going to step out in front of you?
When might be a good time to ensure that the parent has trained the child:
before or after the accident?
How would you know which child to test, or should we perhaps test all of
them, make sure they’re safe?
Is that something you’d be more inclined to back, now that you have perhaps
appreciated more than before just how dangerous they can be, typically to
themselves, but by no means exclusively?

How about as a parent, has this changed your perspective? When your child
walks out the door, just going to the shops, just heading out, will you now
review your time with them, wonder if you instilled in them all the necessary
lessons?
I’m sure you have, but if you haven’t, or you’re not sure, perhaps it’s
something to consider; and not just for you, but for your friends.
Do they appreciate how risky ‘just’ driving safely below the limit, can turn
out to be not so safe after all?
You might not want to confront your friends, or some of the other parents,
but what about the teachers: do you think they might have done all they can
in their terms, and yet still not appreciate just how dangerous ‘safe’ driving
can be in the presence of a pedestrian?
The more people are aware of the risk, the more they will pay attention.
 Bubble trouble

What do you do when someone is nervous?

Reassure them?
What if the nervousness was keeping them safe?
What if what you imagine to be paying attention is less than that of someone
who is nervous, or perhaps someone who is more aware of the risks?

Perhaps we can put you in mind of how that might look.

If someone forced you at gunpoint (as I’m sure you wouldn’t do this
voluntarily) to put on a blindfold, step up to a busy road, and cross it, how
would you feel?
Would you strain to see through the blindfold, strain to here, and tell from the
sound, whether a vehicle was near, how fast it was going?
Would your heart be pumping, adrenalin coursing through your body, doing
everything possible to heighten your awareness and your physical capability?
How much more capable would you be in that moment, than a teen, bored,
distracted, thinking of a hot date, chatting with their friends?

Ideally then, if your concern was road safety, would you be trying to make
pedestrians and driver more nervous, more aware, or less nervous, less
aware?
What is the subliminal message then of road safety organisations, when they
focus on the ‘dangerous’ driver, the ‘risky’ driver?
Do you feel proud, glad you’re not one of them, not a target of the police?
Does that make you feel more nervous, or less nervous?

If it’s the driver’s fault, and not just any driver, but the irresponsible speeding
driver, then as a responsible parent, a responsible non-speeding driver, does
that increase your nervousness, or decrease it?
Do you feel calm, assured, comfortable?

And just briefly consider: if here in the UK we have two organisations, one
telling pedestrians the problem is the driver, and the other telling drivers it’s
not them, it’s the speeding driver, will that make parents, pedestrians and
drivers more nervous, or less nervous.
Let’s take just a brief look at how that’s working out.

Do you think the average speeding driver wouldn’t take a ticket for your
child’s life? They’re parents too, a lot of them, just ordinary, or perhaps not
so ordinary, drivers who’ve spent in many cases decades on the road.
Do you think they wouldn’t be willing to pay £100 just to have your child be
safe?
So if speeding law was working, the average everyday speeding driver would
shrug, pay the fine, and get on with the life.
Take a look at that chart.
Who are the two groups of road user who are being reassured by the
government that the government is targeting the issue, the risk of the
speeding driver?
Look at the towering skyscraper of pedestrian error, at 90%, with failing to
look or judge far higher at nearly 80% (78%) than the headline two thirds.

It’s not your fault, except in about 14-17% of cases, as a sensible, safe, non-
speeding driver, but it will be you who’s involved.
Maybe not personally, but take a look at the speeding column on the right. Is
it even fair to call it a column, when it’s far wider than it is tall. It is a sliver.
That’s under 16 KSI, the most emotive topic in road safety, the one that
justifies more than any other speeding enforcement.
I’d take a ticket for you, no question, but is it going to keep your child safe?
Something you might want to think about.
 Further reading

There’s more, of course, that we could discuss.

Two books in fact, which go into far more detail and provide a
comprehensive insight into key issues in road safety: Experience Counts and
One User.

I have provided only a simplistic model of the stopping distance, one that is
officially recognised, but which doesn’t accurately model what happens in an
accident.
It’s not inaccurate, but it only tells part of the story, the part that any reader
should be able to quickly assimilate.
For a more comprehensive treatment, see the books in the Experience Counts
series, in particular Experience Counts: Pedestrian Risk and Road Safety
Policy.

I’ve only touched on the issue of pushing a mis-leading message, but we go

into more detail about the assumption built in to the RoSPA simulator which
turn out to be anything but accurate, indeed being highly misleading.
If you’d like a little exercise, you might visit it (stoppingdistances.org.uk)
and see if you can spot the egregious differences, and then the less than subtle
bias built in.
It may make it easier and more plausible to target the speeding driver, but
you already have enough here to be able to contrast their perspective with the
actual experience of 24,000 (23,646) pedestrians who were injured in front of
a non-speeding driver in 2013.

I cannot make you safe, nor likewise a pedestrian.

What I can do, and I have tried to do, is to make you more nervous.
Not with defamatory hyperbole, as I saw recently in a local newspaper:
‘Dangerous drivers face crackdown’.
That would be the same dangerous drivers in the right hand column, the
sliver against the towering skyscrapers.

No, I’ve tried to make you more nervous with the facts.
My dear friend, the same one who believed the ‘must drive so that you can
stop’, has acknowledged that he is now more aware, more concerned, and
took greater care with his kids, who are just now allowed to go onto the roads
with their bikes.
His children, I hope, will be safer.

For parents living near a friend’s sister, any such hope is too late. Their child
walked out from behind a school bus, only looking one way. They were 13.
You can have an opinion about me, or about the issue, or both. What you do
about the issue, I leave to you.
If nothing else, I hope I’ve made you a little more nervous both as a ‘safe’
non-speeding driver, and perhaps as a parent.
And that, ultimately, is about all I can do to enhance your safety.

If nothing else, remember:

There is no safe speed in the presence of a pedestrian or other road user.
 Other books by Andrew Mather
LIVE WITHIN REASON BOOKS
Experience Counts (Book 1)
One Cause (Book 2)
Guardians of the Secret (Book 3)
Preparing your child for the road (Book 4)
The Dawkins Delusion (Book 5)
Illusion of Safety (Book 6)
Road Safety (Book 7)
Not Scared Enough (Book 8)
ESSENE CAMELOT NOVELS
Apostle of Camelot
Warrior of Camelot
(www.essenecamelot.com)
 Disclaimer
A considerable number of statistics and charts are derived as calculations and
summaries from the sources noted requiring analysis by the author.
The author believes that the figures and charts accurately reflect the
underlying data.
All such figures should be taken as indications only.
DfT publications and sources may be consulted for confirmation or
clarification before making use of any statistics listed in this book.
The purpose of this book is to examine road safety publications and statistics
with a view to establishing a balanced road safety policy.
It recognises the actions being taken by individuals as demonstrated in road
safety statistics and by observation.
It is not intended to recommend or condone any particular action by any
individual or for any individual.
 Sources

Statistics are generally taken from the Reported Road Casualties Great
Britain (RRCGB) publications by the Department for Transport (DfT), 2010-
2013
Additional material is taken from other series in particular the SPE series of
the DfT showing speeds and speeding propensities and line-by-line analysis
of Stats19 reports including contributory factors, supplied under FOI request
by the DfT.
Certain web-sites have contributed based on their prominence in search
results for relevant topics.
Copyright is recognised and sources are cited for non-Dft material where
appropriate.
The author believes that the matters under discussion are in the public interest
and where the material examined were published on a website and achieved a
high search ranking, it is indicative that they were intended to be read and
considered by a wide audience, and as such are legitimate subjects for study
and analysis.
 
 Copyright © Andrew Mather 2015

The right of Andrew Mather to be identified as the Author of this Work has
been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents
Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or
otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the
publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition
being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
 Feedback and Comment

If you’d like to provide feedback or comment then please leave a comment

on the Amazon book page.
As a UK author we are more likely to see comments on either the US or UK
Amazon sites.

Alternatively I can be reached at Andrew-mather.com, but given the vagaries

of email, you will still have the Amazon pages as a fallback.
If you’d like to see some of the research and results without either reading
another book or rewarding an author with proclivities that might alarm you,
then you can check out our Facebook page: Experience Counts.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Experience-Counts/457909031052692
 About The Author

Andrew Mather spent six years in finance, followed by many years as a

consultant, with a passion for flying and adventure that has taken him around
the world, most memorably to Russia in the era of Glasnost to fly their jets.
His other adventure has been to be nudged into a realm that challenged his
mathematical and analytical background, and yet has been a companion now
for some thirty years.
As science delves more accurately into the nature of reality, it is probing ever
more deeply into a mystery, rarely if ever acknowledging that it is alive and
not inert.
Andrew’s pleasure has been to meet with and listen to a number of sources
whose wisdom, humour and integrity have greatly enriched his life.

Not everything that has a mind needs a body.