Published in The GuardianThursday June 12, 2008 Ian Stewart asserts that his university’s mathematics students “earn more money, on average, than those studying any other degree subject” and that “their ability to handle technical ideas is highly prized, and rewarded” (Letters, June 7). His assumption, shared by most other contributors to the current debate about …
Category: risk
May 09
Are we doomed to live in an oppressive safety culture?
Martin Parkinson raises an interesting question (comment on previous post): what should be the reaction to an accident that, a priori, was an extremely low probability event? He suggests that any attempt to reverse the counterproductive aspects of ˜health and safety culture is doomed to failure. After an accident he argues that most people will …
May 04
Where and when is shared space safe?
Presentation for PRIAN Public Realm Course, Bedford, 28 April 2008. Traditional highway engineering assumes that safety requires the spatial segregation of pedestrians, cyclists and motorized vehicles or, where this is not possible, rigorously enforced rules, signs and signals dictating temporal segregation. Road users, according to the established paradigm, are irresponsible, stupid, selfish automatons whose safety …
Apr 06
Making God laugh (again): a risk management tutorial
The words risk and management sit uncomfortably alongside each other. Many people believe that it is possible to distinguish real, actual or objective risk from perceived risk. But all risk is perceived. It is a word that refers to the future, a future that exists only in our imaginations. Those who call themselves risk managers …
Feb 12
Seat belts – again
On the first of February 2008 I sent an email to the Department of Transport at – road.safety@dft.gsi.gov.uk. It said: In your press release of 31 January you state: “Seatbelts have prevented an estimated 60,000 deaths and 670,000 serious injuries since 31 January 1983 when seatbelts were made mandatory for drivers and front seat passengers.” …
Jan 31
Myth Inflation
Anniversaries are convenient occasions on which to reinforce myths. Twenty five years ago, 31 January 1983, it became compulsory for occupants of the front seats of cars in the UK to wear seat belts. Today Britains Department for Transport has posted a press release announcing that in the 25 years since the seat belt law …
Nov 17
Risk compensation deniers
In October 2007 the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety published a Status Report (PDF: 1MB) complaining about my article “Britains Seat Belt Law should be Repealed” (PDF: 0.2MB) (published as “Seat Belt Laws Repeal them?” in the June 2007 issue of the statistical journal Significance). It went on to denounce all those who invoke the …
Oct 27
“Risk and Freedom” now free online
Now available as a free online download Amazon Review (*****): Risk and Freedom is a book of historic significance. Published in 1985 and out of print for many years it continues to have a profound influence on road safety policy. It provides the first coherent application of the concept of risk compensation to the management …
Sep 08
Shared Space – would it work in Los Angeles?
(Commissioned, but not used – and worse not paid for – by The Los Angeles Times. So published here free of charge on the slightly-smaller-circulation Adams’ Blog) There is a growing enthusiasm amongst European transport planners for “shared space”. It is an intriguing idea pioneered by Hans Monderman, a highway engineer in Friesland. He removed …
Sep 07
Never mind the width, feel the quality
(Published in abbreviated form in The Times Higher on 24 August 2007, as Tide of paranoia swells safety fears needlessly) We are in danger of having a wholly disproportionate attitude to the risks we should expect to run as a normal part of life. So said the Prime Minister in May 2005. At the highest …