Unintended consequencies

Not before time, there's proposed safety legislation not obsessed with speeding. Proposals for new powers so police can issue tickets for bad driving are all very well, but begs the question of how you catch the miscreants. One sees drivers weaving in and out of motorway traffic, risking theirs and everybody else's necks, and just wish there was a patrol car there to scoop them up. There never is. And with the passing of a regime that thought it could enforce safety by speed cameras while reducing traffic police, maybe we are on the threshold of a new era.

We need more patrol cars like this Vauxhall Insignia
Unfortunately making new regulations does not follow logical processes. This 1993 Sunday Times column was concerned about unintended consequences. The original copy for "proposed law..." is attached.


The AA has just taken delivery of a fleet of new Ford Transits.
Sunday Times: Motoring 02 May 1993
DEATH BY DANGEROUS DRIVING

The creation of a new offence of causing death by driving is to be looked at by the AA as soon as the proposals are drawn up for a new criminal justice bill in the autumn. It is barely a year since the Road Traffic Act introduced two offences, causing death by dangerous driving and causing death by careless driving while over the prescribed blood-alcohol limit. Instead there will be a new single offence with double the existing maximum jail term of five years.

Courts will need to take account of the circumstances of accidents to make a distinction between misdemeanours with unexpectedly tragic consequences and minor shunts. 'We need to make sure that motoring offences do not get out of proportion,' an AA spokesman said. 'Causing death while at the wheel of a car must relate to similar offences in other areas, although we acknowledge public concern over the powers judges have for dealing with the lunatic fringe who drive without concern for life.'

A driver who runs into a car stationary at traffic lights is clearly culpable. But the difference between the consequences may be no more than a matter of chance. The driver of the stationary car may get a stiff neck when his headrest cushions the blow, step from his damaged vehicle and exchange names and addresses before driving off, aggrieved but alive.

Another stationary car might have no head restraints. They are a relatively recent safety feature. In an identical accident with the same degree of carelessness by the offending driver, whiplash could break the driver's neck and kill him.

Consequences in traffic accidents can often be a matter of luck - running into a car with safety features against running into one without. Driver B could face a custodial sentence of up to ten years against driver A getting a caution, a fine, and a few points on his driving licence for essentially the same misdeed, running into the back of a stationary car.

Drink-driving is a different issue. Impairment through drinking is a serious business, the courts take it seriously, and the distinction of a separate offence of causing death while unfit to drive through drink should remain.

But there is a distinction between the driver who crashes carelessly or recklessly into a bus shelter when it is empty, and the one who kills all the occupants. The difference rests only on whether anyone was in the shelter at the time. In one case it might mean a wigging by the bench, in the other a long term of imprisonment.

The logic of increasing penalties according to the consequences of transgressions, would imply decreasing them where the risks are small. Speeding at 3am on an empty motorway in clear weather would become less serious than recklessly flouting the law on a busy afternoon.

Reckless, careless, driving without due care and attention, or whatever it may be called under various road traffic acts, now generally comes to light when there has been an accident. Yet it is the bad driving that is the offence, not whether the driver knocks down a tree or kills a sheep.

In the last four years nearly 100 cases of apparently lenient sentences on drivers involved in accidents have been referred by the Attorney General to the Court of Appeal. Fourteen involved fatalities. The protests the Home Office receives over sentences on killer-drivers are overwhelming.

It is difficult not to take account of fatalities in assessing culpability, but leaving aside the drink-driving issue, not many drivers set out to kill, and pressing for fierce penalties on those who do will not do much for deterrence and could look like a cry for vengeance.

More gloom from the AA

The AA should stick to what it used to be good at.
Tick-box stuff from the AA. It's worried about the MOT Test. Says 94% of 18,700 members polled last summer thought it quite or very important to road safety. What this means is 93% ticked the box saying quite important and 1% very important. What is the AA thinking about adding exclamation marks to fretting over a 40% failure rate, for a test brought in fifty years ago? Cars are safer, they last longer, and although 62% believed extending tests to every other year would lead to more unsafe cars on the road, that means 38% didn’t.

AA publicity is Nannysome: “Reliance on the MoT test as a yearly safety check is best illustrated by the 17.6% failure rate on lighting and signalling, the vast majority of which could be fixed by the owner soon after a bulb blows. ‘Roads this winter have been littered with cars driving with a headlight, tail light or stop light out. The only time many of these drivers do anything about it is when the car goes for an MoT test or when traffic police pull them over,’ says Edmund King, the AA’s president.” Who, it must be said, will do anything to get himself a sound-bite. Being gloomy works best.

Far better to believe Marie Woolf in The Sunday Times: “Drivers will be required to take fewer MoT tests under government plans that could save motorists hundreds of pounds. Ministers are preparing to relax the frequency of vehicle checks - possibly replacing annual MoTs with tests every two years. Philip Hammond, the transport secretary, wants to delay the first MoT on a new car from three years to four. The government is proposing to consult on other options - the most liberal would allow MoTs every two years over the subsequent six years. That would mean only four tests in 10 years, halving the number.”

MoT tests at £55 invariably go up when testers suggest new tyres or shake their head over rusty sills. Hammond wants to remove the burden for drivers facing petrol price rises. Cars now have long service intervals, most have technology that warns of faults so we should make the most of improvements in cars since the grease gun was banished and structural failures caused accidents.

The Sunday Times also says: “The transport secretary is looking at the motorway speed limit: 70mph is too slow for modern cars and 80mph would be acceptable given the far better brakes and safety measures in cars today. That could be enhanced by "smart" speed limits, which would vary according to road conditions. These ideas are encouraging if they lead to action. It won't end the war on the motorist but it will make driving a bit cheaper and more pleasurable.” Hooray to that.

Glum AA will shake its head. Edmund King will be on every news channel except perhaps Al-Jazeera.

Picture from the archives: Original Mercedes-Benz 300SL photographed at Brooklands.

Prevent or Punish: JJ Leeming

Sherlock Holmes’ quick eye took in my occupation (with the red-haired man, writes Dr Watson), and he shook his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. “Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.”
Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon the paper, but his eyes upon my companion.
“How, in the name of good-fortune, did you know all that, Mr. Holmes?”

Holmes’s powers of observation were always a surprise.

“Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger than your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more developed.”
“Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?”
“I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that, especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use an arc-and-compass breastpin.”
“Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?”
“What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where you rest it upon the desk?”
“Well, but China?”
“The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of tattoo marks and have even contributed to the literature of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes’ scales of a delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple.”
Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. “Well, I never!” said he. “I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it after all.”

Holmes was put out. He knew his scrutiny was acute and that, as often as not, it provided information overlooked by the most studious. Deep knowledge relieved him of the tedium of prejudice – pre-judgement on the basis of received wisdom or faulty logic. “I begin to think, Watson,” said Holmes, “that I make a mistake in explaining. ‘Omne ignotum pro magnifico,’ you know, and my poor little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so candid.”

JJ Leeming was in the Holmesian mould. He would have agreed that “Omne ignotum pro magnifico - every unknown thing is taken for great,” by those who knew no better. He was ruled by observation, logic and working under Lt-Col G T Bennett, the County Surveyor of Oxfordshire, was among the first to apply them to a study of road accidents, Bennett realised that the established view — even in the 1930s — about the culpability of drivers for accidents was not based on the facts. Such was no more acceptable then, than today. The only people who took any notice were other traffic engineers. Malcolm Heymer reviewed JJ Leeming’s 1969 book Road Accidents, Prevent or Punish for the Association of British Drivers (ABD). My copy, about which I wrote at the time, I fear was lost in my last move. I thought everyone had forgotten the great engineer. Fortunately the ABD has not and Leeming should be read by anyone with an open mind on road safety.

Leeming was County Surveyor of Dorset, believing that road accidents should be analysed critically and dispassionately. His conclusions, like those of Holmes in the view of Mr Jones of Scotland Yard, were viewed with suspicion. “You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir,” said the police agent loftily. “He has his own little methods, which are, if he won’t mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him. It is not too much to say that once or twice, as in that business of the Sholto murder and the Agra treasure, he has been more nearly correct than the official force.”

The great detective had an exact opinion of Mr Jones: “He is not a bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession.” In the view of Establishment Jones’s, accidents were caused by the wilful misdeeds of drivers, who must be punished. Leeming knew that this culture of blame led to making true contributory factors difficult to establish. Jumping to conclusions, he claimed, resulted in failures to address real problems when he took over in Dorset.

He gave an example: “Two men left a public house. Although not actually drunk, the landlord thought they had had enough and did not think the driver incapable. They drove a few miles to Warmwell Cross, where the driver, paying no attention to a Halt sign, collided with a lorry. Both men were killed.”

Most people would ascribe the accident to drink-driving and give it no further thought. Leeming decided that a traffic engineer had to establish all factors, without ascribing blame. A factor, he said, was something that could have altered or prevented the accident and he identified five; Chance, Human Error, Road Layout, the Law, and Drink.

Chance: Obviously if the lorry had not been on the main road, the accident would not have happened, despite the car driver's Human Error. Road Layout: investigation into other accidents at the same place revealed what had already deceived drivers. The crossing lay over a crest and although a stop line and HALT markings were painted on the road, the incline made them virtually invisible to approaching drivers. Anybody familiar with the area — Leeming and his staff — knew the junction, so never had to rely on spotting the markings. Strangers were caught out, sometimes fatally. Law: Leeming included this for two reasons. Firstly the regulations concerning Halt signs at that time meant that they were not placed at the junction itself, nor did they tell drivers the distance to the junction. Secondly, and more important, was the pressure on police to charge drivers with offences — from failing to obey Halt signs to causing death by dangerous driving. This had prevented Leeming from discovering the trap earlier, so he organised an experiment involving police, to observe drivers’ behaviour. Those who failed to stop at the sign were pulled up and talked to Leeming's staff. Local press unfortunately ran a story complaining that erring drivers were going unpunished and the experiment was abandoned after a day, but not before drivers had provided vital clues about the invisibility of the sign. The junction was improved and there was a dramatic reduction in accidents.

Whether the collision would have happened had the driver not been drinking is anyone's guess but it showed how importent it was to look beyond the obvious.

Leeming had not been entirely immune from conclusions about driver blame. When he moved to Dorset in 1946 he assumed, like almost everybody, that skidding accidents were due to bad driving, dismissing claims about road surfaces as mere excuses. However, following complaints about a series of bends with a bad accident record, he examined the road surface, discovering that bitumen had risen to the top, covering the aggregate, so it became slippery when wet. Although still unconvinced, he had the surplus material planed off. The accidents stopped. Even then he thought it an isolated case.

Another incident convinced him. There were complaints about skidding on asphalt surfaces laid by new machines. The materials used weren’t new, the method of laying was. Leeming assumed the skids were due to bad driving, but when they became frequent he investigated: “I discussed it with a senior member of the police. He dismissed it all with a remark, ‘good drivers don't skid’. Later I received a phone call from another policeman, who said I must do something about the surface. One of their cars had skidded and was a write-off. I could not resist murmuring that good drivers don't skid, and it was not well received. Even the police are human; he had not heard what his colleague had said.” Further examination of the road surface showed, once again, how the bitumen had risen to the top due to a vibration bar fitted to the new machines. A reduction in the bitumen content of the mix cured the problem. Leeming found other counties with similar problems so began experimenting with surface dressing on sharp bends with poor accident records. The results were dramatic. His conversion was complete.

Leeming became a firm believer in not jumping to conclusions about the causes of accidents, or the value of accepted solutions, without a rigorous study of the facts. In his chapter on statistical methods, he quotes G K Chesterton: “A man of science isn’t trying to prove anything. He’s trying to find out what will prove itself.” Leeming was always meticulous about including all results and data available on any issue he was investigating, even if some of the data pointed in a different direction from the rest.

As we know only too well, many reports on road safety (and other) issues have started with an assumed conclusion, and data has been selected to fit a conclusion. Leeming was scathing about propagandists who misused statistics by comparing different things and hoping people did not notice that they were being duped.

Nothing to do with safety really but a nice picture. Number one daughter at Le Mans, 1930s.

Safety Fast

1974-1977 Ford Granada Ghia Coupe featured in The Ford in Britain Centenary File, an Eric Dymock Motoring Book available March 2011
There is not much new in the latest anti-speeding wheeze. The return of cameras by Prohibitionists was predictable. Roundheads propose one of those fatuous speed awareness courses to anybody exceeding limits by only a little, at £100. The Times parrots the airy talk of, “some 800 people a year,” being killed if speed cameras are decommissioned. “Populist objection to speed cameras cannot withstand … scientific research,” it says. It should be cautious. Climate changers and global warmists, to say nothing of millenium buggists, salmonella scaremongers, passive smoking soothsayers, panics over BSE, DDT and a dozen more hysterical “scientific researches” produce a jaundiced view of “experts”.
Campaigners follow predictable paths. A half-truth, an emotive pull, an expert advocate will set a bandwagon rolling and if the result is a Puritanical ban on rich speeding drivers so much the better. A dozen years writing for The Guardian showed me how it was done. Opinion was entrenched on speeding. I never subscribed to the newspaper’s political stance, although to its credit, once nominated as a contributor it left you alone. Your opinions were your own. Alastair Hetherington probably took the view that if I got myself into what he would regard as a hole, I should stop digging. All that was required was the house style of writing, which was the most demanding of any newspaper for which I wrote. Right-click to enlarge

If you wanted reader reaction, whimsies on speeding guaranteed it. During the first oil crisis 50mph limits were imposed to save fuel. Guardian readers of 23 December 1974 loved them.

This correspondence column of 6 January 1975 was quite restrained. Mr Burke seems perversely pleased to drive a 90mph car. A bit racy for 1974.

Icelert 1964

There’s still ice about. Quite a lot of it. Wrote this for Motor in January 1965. Right-click to enlarge
I wonder if the Icelert system still operates in Edinburgh. Quite a good idea on the face of it, a warning system that goes off in the office responsible for sending out the gritters. I suppose you would need an arrangement for shutting it off in winters like this one. The way snow has fallen deep and crisp and even and extremely fast, you scarcely need a warning siren; you just look out of the window and marvel at the incompetence of authorities who can’t keep airports open or trains running. Only goes to show that cars remain a great means for getting about when all else fails. Not good when jack-knifed lorries block snow-bound roads of course. Pity the poor individuals who had to sleep on the M8 and other roads. Pity too anybody who tried to use the M25 when a tanker fell off the edge. You get cross with fractious policemen who close down both carriageways whenever there’s a hint of an emergency. More than their jobs are worth if anything else goes wrong. Still, it’s the season of goodwill and here’s a scene worthy of a Christmas Card, taken by me, like the one above, at the end of our road last week. Happy Christmas

Camera hysteria

Russia is in the grip of its hottest summer for a thousand years, according to an over-hyped presenter on The World at One. Whatever happened to objectivity? The obsession the BBC has with global warming has led to near panic, and the same will follow the timely decline in speed cameras. Chief police officers, notably Lord Blair former head of the Metropolitan Police, are already predicting casualties. They will be followed by smug assertions that the gloomsters were right and we are all doomed.

The BBC, full of itself as ever, was quick to follow up the camera switch-off in Oxfordshire. “Figures seen by the BBC,” it trilled, “show that motorists are speeding,” the wicked things. The Association of British Drivers, a calm voice in the midst of the approaching frenzy, urges caution on Speed Camera ‘Switch-Off’ Hysteria: “Journalists and the public should be wary of being misled by claims of ‘success’ by the road safety industry.” Their figures routinely and deliberately ignore the huge strides made in vehicle safety design, better roads and improved emergency care, which could be responsible for the majority if not all casualty reductions. This is demonstrated by similar success in countries where the obsession with speed does not exist. They also ignore other factors such as ‘Regression to the Mean’ - a well established statistical trend that accounts for most of the ‘benefit illusion’ wrongly attributed to speed cameras. The ABD points out, “There is simply no hard evidence of any positive results from speed cameras.”

By way of support it quotes EuroNCAP, which shows that a car with 5 star safety is 60 per cent less likely to cause injury. The Department for Transport knows the facts of the matter perfectly well. In Appendix H of its Four-Year Speed Camera Evaluation Report is a calculation that attributes three-fifths of casualty reduction at camera sites to ‘Regression to the Mean’ and only one-fifth to cameras. The headline claim of a 42% casualty reduction at camera sites is therefore completely misleading and has been withdrawn but don’t imagine that some campaigner won’t repeat it.

Another DfT report showed that 384 of the 1793 camera sites studied showed an increase in casualties after cameras were set up and dozens more showed no decrease at all. The ABD carefully publishes its sources to back up its information. The witless World at One woman keeps asking interviewees “Aren’t you worried … “ about a) b) or c) to which the hapless people can’t reply no I am not worried about road casualties or whatever. But there you are, they’ll go on trying to push their anti-speed agenda because they belong to the dirigiste bullying Roundhead Left, the Guardianista that believes, like Nanny, that it knows what is good for us.

http://www.euroncap.com/home.aspx
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/speedmanagement/nscp/nscp/
coll_thenationalsafetycameraprog/ationalsafetycameraprogr4598.pdf
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/29/dft_speed_cam_incorrectness/
http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/1338/1/2004_31.pdf

The AA was set up a hundred years ago to counter anti-speeding hubris. It developed nicely with breakdown services and pillboxes but now plays little part in countering the persecution of drivers by out-of-control police.