slow down, dammit

[waider]

Interesting. A few months back, a member of the Gardaí said in a radio interview that one of the more visible results of the introduction of penalty points for speeding was that drivers were adhering more to the "open road" limits - the 50, 60 and 70MPH zones. However, he pointed out that 25% of traffic-related fatalities happened in 30 and 40MPH zones and these were the areas that needed more attention. This morning, one of our Senators suggested in a radio interview that the Gardaí were "taking the soft option" by penalising people in 30 and 40MPH zones when the "real danger" was in the higher-speed areas. Apparently the National Safety Council disagrees with him. The funny part is that in the radio interview (RealMedia link) he actually asks if figures are available to support his statement, after he's made the statement. Duh. A classic example of common wisdom not actually correlating to reality, which happens distressingly often in the political theatre in this country.

Comments

[opadit.livejournal.com]

Sounds as if there may be a logical flaw there, too, like when people say, well, the vast majority of traffic accidents happen within some small distance of the home -- but really, how frequently does one travel more than some small distance from home?

[waider.livejournal.com]

Well, typically a 40MPH is an approach to a built-up area, and 30MPH is the standard built-up area limit. There are very few exceptions to the latter, even on commuter corridors that run through the city - they may be commuter corridors, but they're running within 50 feet of someone's front door. I can see how excessive speed in these areas is more likely to result in a fatality because you're probably talking about someone hitting a pedestrian or a cyclist rather than, say, a multiple-vehicle collision. In the higher-speed zones, there seems to be a fairly even balance between single-car incidents and multiple-car incidents, but improvements in road quality coupled with the phased introduction of roadworthiness testing for vehicles results in injuries more often than fatalities. I don't follow the statistics closely, mind, so I could be completely wrong about this - it's largely the impression I get from daily news reports on the subject.

[wisn.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon: "I've determined that twenty percent of your employees' sick days happen on Fridays." Shock and overreaction follows.