In its 1996 booklet "Taking Action on Speeding", PACTS noted that a detailed study of the part played by speed in accidents and their circumstances had not been conducted in the UK for several years. It also admitted that there was not a directly provable and uncontroversial link between speed and physical impairment. Because no accurate road accident statistics are regularly collected in the UK, the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) only assumes that about a third of all road accidents in the UK are related to speed. Accurate accident statistics from the US state of Florida show that at most 2% of all road accidents and 11% of road accidents with fatalities have excessive speed as a contributory factor. This suggests that the "Speed Kills" campaign entirely fails to address the causes of almost all road accidents, including those that are fatal. Since speed cameras were widely deployed in the UK in 1993, road safety has stopped improving. The author uses charts and tables to support his case. He argues that all the advocates of the "Speed Kills" hypothesis have something to gain from promoting it; they include road safety 'professionals', electronics companies, environmental groups, and politicians. Other people are the losers, both financially and through reduced individual liberty.
Samenvatting