Reporting on the causes of road death

Diemos

Why don't any of the national press write up the cause of some of our most serious crashes? We get a flood of information at the time of the accident, but the actual official cause is rarely reported, particularly if the person passes away.
I can only assume it is to protect the family of the victims.

I think this should be highlighted. Having effective ads is great but I think if they were linked to real world accidents then they would have more effect.

To date the 'Anatomy of a car crash' piece in the Irish Times is the only journalism that I can think of that explained what happened after a tragedy.

I don't think it should be about apportioning blame or pointing the finger. But I don't think it's right to just side step a chance to learn and educate for fear of offending someone.

Thoughts?

Atlantic Dawn

There should be reports issued on every death in the same style as the Marine Casualty Investigations Board detailing the condition of the car before the crash, brand and condition of tyres on the car, NCT/Tax/Insurance status etc...

http://www.mcib.ie/

pa990

The cause of death is determined at the inquest.
Which happens 5 or 6 months after the death.

At which time, it's no longer news.

Diemos

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

There should be reports issued on every death in the same style as the Marine Casualty Investigations Board detailing the condition of the car before the crash, brand and condition of tyres on the car, NCT/Tax/Insurance status etc...

http://www.mcib.ie/

Exactly.
And I know it may be old news, 6 months later but I think it is still very relevant to the public.

Comhrá

Diemos wrote: »

Exactly.
And I know it may be old news, 6 months later but I think it is still very relevant to the public.

And it might also make more apparent exactly how fatal accidents are caused and what measures could be taken to reduce similar future occurrences.

Air accident reports are published and lessons are learned from them.

flutered

or an oap who should be in a facility for the senile

Mountainsandh

French accident reports are very detailed, whether people died or not. The specific cause of death is not required to describe a series of events that lead to an accident.

I think this secrecy around causes of crashes here is detrimental to road safety. If it's speed, and someone lost control of the vehicle, if it's someone breaking the rules of the road, if someone seemingly took ill, if the cause was environmental, it needs to be said.
How the crash happened exactly is relevant to other drivers, especially drivers who might use the same road frequently.

Alun

They're usually quite direct in Germany too, and if the cause is known at the time of the accident, e.g. drink driving, they say so straight away, no waiting for inquests or such like. As it should be IMO.

Mountainsandh

Alun wrote: »

They're usually quite direct in Germany too, and if the cause is known at the time of the accident, e.g. drink driving, they say so straight away, no waiting for inquests or such like. As it should be IMO.

Yeah it's only here that this is used as an excuse.

As regards the family tbh I think people speculating about the causes of an accident is probably just as bad as people just, well, knowing.

BrianD3

Here is an example of a report on a collision from the NHTSA in the US. 2005 Corolla collides head on with a 1995 Mercedes W140. Corolla driver dies in hospital with multiple internal chest and abdominal injuries including complex liver laceration. The report is very detailed with lots of images of the vehicles, diagrams etc.

http://www-nass.nhtsa.dot.gov/nass/cds/CaseForm.aspx?ViewText&CaseID=195009008&xsl=textonly.xsl&websrc=true

kyote00

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but surely if you kill someone while driving over the speed limit - you deserve whatever you get

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Unless it was a young male who was over the speedlimit, in which case its a witchhunt

pa990

And just to add a bit more info about inquests, they won't say that the driver died from speeding, while drunk and off his tits on heroin.

It'll read something like:
Suffered trauma consistent with xyz, resulting in blood loss, collapsed lung etc etc, toxicology results how xx amount of alcohol and traces of an opiate.

Cause of death, cardiac arrest.

samih

I was just considering this morning opening a thread like this after reading yet another "pillar of society" type of report on a fatal RTA. In reporting it should mention for example if a pedestrian that died were standing in the middle of driving lane of an unlit road in rural ireland clothed in black without wearing anything reflective instead of that the person was a very good person (which they no doubt in most cases are).

Proper reporting would help other people avoiding to make the same mistake again.

Dravokivich

kyote00 wrote: »

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but surely if you kill someone while driving over the speed limit - you deserve whatever you get

I think you've missed lightning's point. Too many people are eager to justify a stereotype, without determining the basis of the accident in the first place.

ironclaw

Kinda depends on your definition of 'cause of road death' Take the Princess Diana crash, what killed her? The (alleged) drunk driver or the severing of her aorta? Personally, I wouldn't want to read about how my relative, or anyone else for that matter, actually died. Likewise, the cause is never clear cut. How can you categorically say what caused the accident? Perhaps icy conditions weakened a mechanical component and ultimately caused the driver to cross the divide, causing the incident. Where does the fault lie? The environment, the driver for lack of skills to prevent the crash? And if that information was passed to the general public, how many people would take it on board? Take mobile phone usage, its rampant, but there have been multiple accidents attributed to it worldwide.

Tragic accidents happen, I don't see anything to be gained from a blow by blow report of how people lost their lives. We need to make the behaviors that cause accidents socially unacceptable, like we did with drink driving e.g. How did you get those three points Mary? Well, I was driving in the middle lane of the M50 at 80km/h and impeding traffic, like the Garda explained to me at the roadside.

Can you imagine the facebook or Journal.ie comments for a detailed nit pick of an RTA? 'Idiot', 'Wouldn't happen to me' etc. Cringey stuff.

flashforward

OP I was thinking about this exact thing a couple of weeks ago and completely agree.

ironclaw wrote: »

Kinda depends on your definition of 'cause of road death' Take the Princess Diana crash, what killed her? The (alleged) drunk driver or the severing of her aorta? Personally, I wouldn't want to read about how my relative, or anyone else for that matter, actually died.

I only want to see a report on what caused the incident, not a coroner’s report on cause of death.

ironclaw wrote: »

Likewise, the cause is never clear cut. How can you categorically say what caused the accident? Perhaps icy conditions weakened a mechanical component and ultimately caused the driver to cross the divide, causing the incident. Where does the fault lie? The environment, the driver for lack of skills to prevent the crash? .

I disagree, the root cause of an accident can be determined. In your case above, the defective mechanical component is the root cause of the crash. (Icy conditions should not weaken a mechanical component) In the case above if the component you are referring to is a tire then the root cause could be speed (driver error), or perhaps worn tires led to the loss of control. (Maintenance error – Driver error)’

ironclaw wrote: »

if that information was passed to the general public, how many people would take it on board? Take mobile phone usage, its rampant, but there have been multiple accidents attributed to it worldwide.

Again I disagree – I know of multiple accidents but have no idea what the actual cause was, only hearsay and theories around the time of the incident, then forgotten. If RTE news spent 1 minute (or the papers dedicated 1 column) referring back to an accident from 6months ago (showing images of the wrecked vehicles) and noted what the root cause of the accident was then it would have infinitely more impact than a generic comment ‘mobile phones cause accidents’. This would be tough on families affected but heartache is not enough of a reason to not do it.



I want to see a breakdown of the serious accidents and incidents causing deaths on our roads.
Look at this:
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/road-deaths-up-15-in-2016-during-very-bad-year-for-road-safety-1.2922484
187 deaths, no further details as to what attributed to the increase from 2015 (is it proportional to the number of cars on the road??)
How many actual incidents accounted for these 187deaths and has that increased from previous years? Or has there just been more multi person crashes?
For such a serious issue its amateurish how we collect and distribute data on these incidents.

I want a split of the above accidents broken down into motorway/national/rural/built-up roads.
Dropping down a level I want each accident categorised into some top level cause headings: Speed, Alcohol/Drugs, Defective component, Maintenance issues, Other driver fault
Again drop down a level and classify each accident further eg. % above speed limit, % above blood alcohol limit, steering column fatigue, tire thread depth, mobile phone usage.

If all of the above was taken into account the news could report with much more accurately – ‘This is the fifth accident in 2017 that has been caused by mobile phone usage while driving, bringing the total of deaths attributed to mobile phone usage to 7.’
That sentence coupled with an image of the car wreck would make someone think about pulling out their phone on the way to the shop that evening, generic reporting I’m afraid will not…

samih

You don't need to go to the nitty gritty details, just what most likely lead to the accident. In case of poor Diana the contributing factors leading to the crash she lost her life would probably have been speed some three times the posted limit and alleged intoxication of the driver. Once the control of the vehicle was lost everything else is just luck of the draw and makes it makes no sense to be graphic in details (unless it's a paper about emergency procedures to resuscitate the victims etc. etc.). Also if it was raining and the Merc had bald ditchfinders under it would have been worth mentioning.

Alun

flashforward wrote: »

187 deaths, no further details as to what attributed to the increase from 2015 (is it proportional to the number of cars on the road??)
How many actual incidents accounted for these 187deaths and has that increased from previous years? Or has there just been more multi person crashes?
For such a serious issue its amateurish how we collect and distribute data on these incidents.

I agree. This obsession with one very simple statistic, the number of deaths per year, is overly simplistic, not only because it ignores the many serious injuries that don't result in death, but it is also entirely dependent on the number of occupants in the vehicle(s) at the time which is of no relevance to introducing measures to potentially avoid similar accidents in the future.

Like you say, what is really relevant is the number of incidents resulting in either death or serious injury, not the number of people injured or killed.

Diemos

ironclaw wrote: »

Personally, I wouldn't want to read about how my relative, or anyone else for that matter, actually died. Likewise, the cause is never clear cut. How can you categorically say what caused the accident? Perhaps icy conditions weakened a mechanical component and ultimately caused the driver to cross the divide, causing the incident. Where does the fault lie? The environment, the driver for lack of skills to prevent the crash? And if that information was passed to the general public, how many people would take it on board? Take mobile phone usage, its rampant, but there have been multiple accidents attributed to it worldwide.

Tragic accidents happen, I don't see anything to be gained from a blow by blow report of how people lost their lives.

Nobody would want to read about their relative in that context but if they caused an fatal accident then I think the information should be released for the greater good.
As for how can you categorically say what caused an accident? Camera's, etc. there are numerous camera that have captured fatal road accidents in this country.
If there is footage of me looking at a phone screen while overtaking before crashing head first into an oncoming truck, then that is pretty indisputable.
That would not make me a bad person, it would make me someone who made a silly decision and but myself, my family and the other innocent road users would pay for dearly for that mistake.

The thing is bad actions on the road are like smoking, most of the time there will be no immediate consequences, checking your phone, speeding, changing lane without looking, drink driving etc.
You are unlikely the get any negative consequences the first time you do it and that desensitises you to those actions.
It's human nature to play risk and think, it won't be me.
I think showing actual footage, or testimony by survivors or families, really would make the message hit home. That's why they do it with smoking campaigns, that why the people's lottery show ordinary joe soaps winning. It makes the audience think that might be me.

If that stops one person from checking out facebook while driving or breaking a red or a cyclist from going up the inside of a truck which is turning left, then it will be totally worth it.

Mountainsandh

Diemos wrote: »

Nobody would want to read about their relative in that context but if they caused an fatal accident then I think the information should be released for the greater good.
.

Even if they were the victim.

There is no sugarcoating road deaths. For the victim's family, it's horrendous either way. Whether the person caused the accident or not.

Pussyfooting around reports is counter productive. It just means that nothing feels "real" about it, except for the regrettable deaths.

Tell a youngster exactly that a car went into a spin in that exact bend and hit that tree because it approached too fast and the road was wet, and he might remember next time he's driving in that spot.

Telling him/her that someone died there from a RTA, possibly caused by speed, is not likely to be as effective.

Tell a Mum that the crash that cost children their lives last week on that stretch was due to bald tyres, and you can be sure she'll feel uneasy about driving with bald tyres.

Tell her that a crash cost children's lives, and she'll feel heartbroken, but she'll be none the wiser.

And so on.

Like another poster said, the family's heartbreak is already there, so trying to spare their feelings at that stage is a bit redundant. They might feel better thinking that at least someone's life might be spared thanks to that report.

marketty

I agree, it's a massive thing in the aviation industry and is THE reason why air travel is so safe. Being cynical, I doubt it would be done in Ireland, as thorough investigation of RTAs would in many cases, I suspect, be damning towards local authorities etc for the state of the roads, inappropriate speed limits, etc

CiniO

I always found it strange after moving down here, how little details are released in public media about road accidents in Ireland.

In Ireland typically info we get is something among this:
Two car collision occurred on N5 last night. There is 1 person killed, and 2 injured. Gardai are looking for witnesses.

The same accident in Poland would be described something like that:
Two vehicles collided last night on road 94. Police are on the spot. They established, that driver of red VW Gold was driving east, skidded on a bend on black ice, and came to opposite lane, where driver's side of his vehicle collided with front of Toyota Avensis driving opposite direction. Golf driver was killed instantly due to impact. Avensis driver and passenger were removed from vehicle by fire brigade after cutting off the roof, and taken to hospital, with minor injuries. Rear seat Avensis passenger was uninjured. Collision was witnessed by Fiat Bravo driver, who remained on the spot to help police with investigation. One lane is closed and alternating traffic will remain in place for around 2 hours.


That's the difference which I can see anyway.

dr.fuzzenstein

Same in Germany.
In Ireland there seems to be investigations, then all the data is locked away and in the end "jaysis, twas shpeedin' what's causing them accidents!".
But now we have also "old" cars being the root of all evil.
So, all accidents are caused by driving a car older than 10 years at 5 km/h over the limit. There cannot be any more detail about this, because it would upset the department of road safety propaganda, whose entire job is to bleat "speed kills".
I think Irish road safety statistics are collected by throwing chicken bones and interpreting the patterns they make.

Roger_007

Every accident involving fatalities or serious injury is investigated in detail by the Gardai, yet we never hear the results of these investigations other than what might emerge in a court case.
The Gardai or the RSA should publish an annual report which would set out the probable primary and secondary causes of serious accidents. There would be no need to name names.
I suspect that the reason they do not do this is that it might expose their usual road safety campaigns as being ineffectual and not addressing the principal causes of accidents. These campaigns concentrate almost exclusively on drink driving and, to a lesser extent, speeding. There are many other causes of accidents but these are hardly ever mentioned.

Comhrá

As is the norm in Ireland, politics and hidden agendas and ulterior reason gets in the way of how things should be done.