18 results for seatbelts

Been there. Got the T-shirt.

Yesterday was Risk Day in Birmingham’s Town Hall with numerous events and speakers focused on the theme. My contribution was rewarded with a conference T-shirt.   I suggested that since The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has its headquarters in Birmingham they might like to come over to take part in a discussion …

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The BIGGEST LIE?

Last Thursday (21 March 2013) I attended a conference entitled Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics? Understanding casualty trends and the causes. It was sponsored by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS). At the conference PACTS, the Department for Transport, and seven other organizations interested in promoting road safety launched a website called www.roadsafetyobservatory.com. …

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Open letter to Tom Mullarkey, CEO of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

Dear Tom Following our meeting at a dinner at the RSA over six years ago I sent you an email (22 February 2007).You replied the same day saying When I have a moment, I would like to look into this in more detail and so I will follow up on the links you have kindly …

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30 years in the jungle with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents

 31 January marked the 30th anniversary of the implementation of Britains seat belt law. A television interviewer sent to quiz me about my opposition to the law said I reminded him of Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese soldier who spent 30 years in the jungle, fighting on, unaware that the war had been lost. The interview …

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Road Safety: Myth Perpetuation

On 30 June and 1 July Oxford Brookes University is holding a History of Road Safety Symposium (http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/conference/history_of_road_safety_symposium). History, as they say, is written by the victors. The concluding speaker is Rob Gifford, Executive Director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety. The title of his presentation is “How parliament came to love seat …

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Two methods of transport-safety myth building

1. Simple assertion. An example can be found in the current issue of The Economist by the journals Science and Technology correspondent writing under the name of Babbage (http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/02/road_safety).  Babbage notes that the US fatality rate has been inching down over the past half century and then proceeds to explain why: it is the result …

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The Cream Buns Act

Mrs Thatcher had a minister, Neil Hamilton, responsible for deregulation. Under Labour a similar agenda was pursued by the Better Regulation Task Force. That morphed into the Better Regulation Commission and then into the Better Regulation Advisory Council and, finally, into a whole Department of State in the form of BERR the Department for Business, …

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Final open letter to Executive Director of PACTS

(If experiencing problems with IE7, please try Firefox, Opera or Safari) To Robert Gifford Executive Director, The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety Dear Rob Failing a response, I propose to draw this one-sided correspondence to a close. I believe that I have established: a. that the claim that seat belts have saved 60000 lives …

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Second open letter to Executive Director of PACTS

To Robert Gifford Executive Director, The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety Dear Rob Im sorry but I must persist. The power and endurance of the myth that PACTS and RoSPA have built around the seat belt law takes a lot of deconstructing. So long as belief in the efficacy of the law persists it …

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Open letter to Executive Director of PACTS

To Robert Gifford Executive Director, The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety Dear Rob This claim made over a year ago is still on the PACTS website: On the 31st January 2008, the 25th anniversary of the law change which made front seatbelt wearing compulsory was celebrated. PACTS itself was set up by Barry Sheerman …

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