Road deaths up 8% this year

seamus

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2004/06/18/story152957.html

Now, I'm looking at the Garda traffic stats, and noticing some descrepancies. January and February are traditionally bad months, but 2003 seem to be lower than normal, and 2004 seem higher than normal.

Disregarding those two months, road deaths have actually dropped by 17% - a figure which gives a good indicator of the huge difference between Jan/Feb 2003 & Jan/Feb 2004. Obviously we can't disregard those two months, people actually died, but I do see a good indication that the penalty points are actually working, that we got off to a bad start to the year.

If things continue as they are, some quick sums tell me that road deaths will actually drop by nearly 7% (Came out at 314 dead by the end of the year for me). If . Still no consolation for the families of those who will die though.

seamus

I have nothing to do in work today.
I'm convinced the NSC just release a blurb once a month with no real info. Here's a breakdown of stats so far this year:

	      [b]2003[/b]              [b]2004[/b]           [b]Diff[/b]	   [b]% (See Note)[/b]
							
Jan	       20		 31	        11	       55
Feb            21	         38		17	       68.29
Mar	       33		 25	        -8	       27.02
April	       23		 30		 7	       27.83
May	       38		 27	       -11	       11.85
June*	       22		 14	        -8              5.09

Note: Percentage increase is the increase in road deaths  to month end from 1st Jan.

*Total for June 2003 is based on total of 37 multiplied by 18/30

Of course all this is spurious, and quite a frivilous excercise. There's absolutely nothing to suggest that deaths won't rise again.

rs

Am I the only one who believes that many road deaths on Irish roads should receive darwin awards.

I'd love to see the figures broken down into

Single vehicle accident Drivers
Single Vehicle accident passangers

Multiple Vehicle accident where one driver is obviously at fault
Passangers in that Vehicle
Occupants of other vechiles

Victims of Accidents where fault cannot be determined.

seamus

Originally posted by rs
Am I the only one who believes that many road deaths on Irish roads should receive darwin awards.

I had suggested something similar - a name-and-shame for people who kill themselves or others by drink-driving, but got a resounding, "What's the point?". I would be interested in seeing those stats though.

rs

It just might be nice to know that their is one less moron out there who might run into you

luckat

Can't say I'm surprised. Ireland seems to have turned into a nation of fat, red-faced shouters, who drive around screaming and honking at each other. I've never experienced such rudeness as in the last year. People seem to revert to the age of two when they get into cars.

I'd love to see hooters banned, and replaced with something that made a polite chiming sound. And I'd love to grab some of those drivers and do what parents of two-year-olds do - hold them up to a mirror to see the big face, red with temper.

It used to be that Irish people prided ourselves on our courtesy and control. Now we're discovering that ill manners can be fatal!

Ardent

Originally posted by luckat
Can't say I'm surprised. Ireland seems to have turned into a nation of fat, red-faced shouters,

Fat, red-faced shouters with suits.

mike65

I belive the majority of fatalities are single vehicle incidents (prefere not to say accident). It has been suggested that most are disguised suicides....

Mike.

luckat

Or disguised not-enough-sleeps. I've actually fallen asleep at the wheel going down a mountain road once. eeep.

shoegirl

Most of the problem with the Irish stats is that they only quantify the problem - they don't assess, for example, what kind of licence the holder had, their driving experience.

Also the statistics for non-fatal accidents are much more unreliable as the high insurance prices mean that accidents are frequently not reported. In fact one method that the insurance companies could employ to vastly reduce claims is to insist on police reporting for all claims. I don't think this is required in all cases at the moment. A lot of minor accidents never get reported because those involved collude to "sort it out amongst themselves". This is particularly prevalent with older, experienced drivers who are well aware of the impact on their insurance costs and who can afford to foot the bill for minor infractions. This is a luxury unavailable to younger male drivers and fremale drivers on high premiums.

For example there have been a large number of pedestrian fatalities this year. Now a fatality in a rural area may be partially caused by poor visibility and a lack of pedestrian facilities. Whereas my experience of driving at night in Dublin is that you need to be aware that people will fall off the pavement drunk, especially in certain areas (Camden St being particularly bad as I remember it).

Hagar

Does anybody analyse the stats in a meaningful way?
For instance the other day some criminal broke out of an open prison and him and his buddy were killed later on a stolen motor bike.
Now that shows up as two deaths but does it justify another speed trap somewhere?
How many of the deaths overall were the result of a criminal event?

halkar

I don't know about the stats but calling back to what I heard from radio every Monday, most of the accidents caused dead were at weekends and late at night involving single car crashes. Also there seems to be a lot of motorcycle accidents this year. Will not look good for motorcycle insurance :dunno:

seamus

Originally posted by halkar
I don't know about the stats but calling back to what I heard from radio every Monday, most of the accidents caused dead were at weekends and late at night involving single car crashes. Also there seems to be a lot of motorcycle accidents this year. Will not look good for motorcycle insurance :dunno:

They're at 14%, which is about the average.

There are some *major* things to take in to account when analysing motorcycle statistics:
The estimates (I've gotten from web searching) for how much more likely a motorcyclist is to die to in an accident vary between 10-30 times. Assuming that some estimates I got were from countries where helmet wearing is not compulsory, we'll go with 10.
So obviously, there is going to be a descrepancy, and motorcyclists are going to be overrepresented in the stats.
From Hibernian:
10% of motorcyclists killed are not wearing helmets.
12% of motorcyclists killed are 17 or younger (i.e. are driving bikes of 125cc or less)
70% of motorcyclists are driving on provisional licences. 7 in every 10 motorcyclists, and consequently, 7 in every 10 dead motorcyclists were not qualified.

That very last fact alone should paint it out in big clear letters for everyone: The only way to lower motorcycle accidents and fatalities is compulsory training, enforcement and detection of traffic laws, and strict rules on licencing and testing, independent of licencing of other vehicles.