Another article on the Prince Michael award:
http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/9448844.NO_EXCUSE__Road_safety_campaign_scoops_international_award/
“The radical campaign was launched after it was revealed that Dorset was the
worst performing shire county for achieving a 40 per cent reduction in the
number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads.”
Dorset has performed extremely badly in casualty reduction for obvious reasons –
the same reasons that is has the highest course fees – it is obsessed with
making money, which is incompatible with making the roads safer. If the
reductions in Dorset are now slightly higher than some other counties what we
are probably partly seeing is a bit of “regression to the mean” where the
differentials between counties are simply levelling out over time.
“The £800,000 No Excuse campaign was launched in January 2010 as a zero
tolerance blitz on bad driving.”
No, a zero tolerance blitz on driving a little over limits
much too low, not wearing a seatbelt which won’t effect others, and holding a
mobile phone, and only very infrequently when enough drivers are doing it to
make it financially worthwhile. But sending a text from a cradle mounted phone,
dangerous speeding on 99% of the roads, tailgating, overtaking dangerously, road
rage, incompetent driving, lack of attention / awareness / respect of other road
users etc etc etc are not targeted at all.
Mr Austin said: “Even accepting that there are many factors that can affect road
crash figures, such as the downturn in the economy and severe weather – which
both affect traffic volumes – I believe the No Excuse project has played a
significant contribution towards the very encouraging fall in road casualties.”
How much, Mr Austin, and how do you calculate this? Why won’t you have a proper, independent study carried out? Would it
disagree with you? Why do you call a probable increase in road deaths in 2011 a
"very encouraging fall in road casualties"?
Why is Dorset Police unable to tell us where all the money from the course goes?
Does this money keep DRS running, and therefore your job? Are you able to ignore
this when you send out mobile cameras to locations where they have contributed
to a death, where the 85th %ile speed is 15MPH ABOVE the ridiculous
50 limit and 75% of speeds are above, on a perfectly good dual carriageway
designed for 70MPH, which anyone with ½ a brain will tell you is an indication
only that the limit has now been set far too low?
Instead of where such cameras might actually have some benefit, outside
schools, shopping streets etc at busy times where they would only detect a small
number of dangerous speeders and therefore make less money?
Why can you not answer any of the nearly 100 articles at
www.dorsetspeed.org.uk
which indicate that DRS is only interested in job preservation even if it
means making the roads more dangerous?
In this article:
http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/9448847.NO_EXCUSE__Campaigners_unveil_new_detection_system/
Brian said: “I would prefer not to catch anyone” We believe you, Brian (not).
Because if you didn’t catch anyone, no one would fund Dorset Road Safe and you
would be out of work.
“The death toll on Dorset’s roads for the whole of 2011 is expected to rise
following two recent deaths in a head-on collision near Swanage on November 30.”
Great result, Brian, Dorset Road Unsafe / No Excuse. Did you tell Prince Michael
this?