Nov 05
I am grateful for a question posted today by Carsten Jasner in response to an earlier post of mine – Seat belts again. It has prompted another look at the data: Very interesting! But when the number of car occupant deaths increases while the number of all road user deaths decreases how can the number …
Oct 28
(If experiencing problems with IE7, please try Firefox, Opera or Safari) “Moral hazard is a term that dates back to the 1600s. Until recent times its use has been mostly confined to the insurance industry to refer to behaviour that responds to changes in perceived risk. The industry has noticed that people who have contents …
Oct 21
This is one I have to share Found on an excellent website – http://www.copenhagenize.com/ 18 September 2009 “Here’s an appropriate little ‘wedgie’ in the Fear of Cycling series. The Isle of Wight County Press Online [big name for a little paper :-)] reports that the Hampshire Constabulary has cut off supplying unclaimed stolen bikes to …
Oct 16
(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 …
Oct 06
To Robert Gifford Executive Director, The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety Dear Rob Thank you for sending me a paper claiming that seat belts have saved 57000 lives in the UK between 1983 and 2007. Is this the source of the 60000 claim posted on your website in 2008? I have discovered that the …
Sep 30
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 …
Sep 23
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 …
Sep 22
Now in retirement and culling my files in the process of downsizing I came upon the following letter from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents dated 7 July 1981 shortly before Parliament was to vote on a seat belt law, and encouraging Parliament to vote for the law: TO ALL MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT …
Sep 16
Yesterday when I showed Mayer Hillman the graphs in my last blog on this subject he complained that they displayed the statistics for all road user deaths and not the statistics for those affected by the seatbelt law, i.e. people in the front seats of cars. My excuse was that at the time I produced …
Sep 11
Simon Jenkins wrote an exceptionally powerful piece in the Guardian on 4 September entitled The war on drugs is immoral idiocy. His title conveys the essence. He went beyond proposals to decriminalize consumption, to advocate decriminalizing production as well to be replaced by licensing, regulation and taxation. The Guardian appears to be suffering a failure …