24 July 2006

on 24 July 2006 at 05:00

Road casualty figures not what they seem

Devotees of speed cameras are keen to tell anyone willing to listen that the one-eyed monsters have reduced road casualties. Official figures tend to support this, but there is strong evidence that those figures are misleading.

What? Misleading statistics from Government? How can this be?

Well, if I were to be cynical, I might suggest that if you have a draconian policy to fine and eventually ban drivers who exceed speed limits, it would be helpful to have figures showing that this policy reduced road casualties. But maybe there is another explanation. Maybe it’s an accident. Maybe, unexpectedly, police accident report figures are simply not reliable.

Who defines a “serious” injury, for instance? This is quite important, because it is the serious injury figures – rather than deaths – which are supposed to be showing a marked downward trend.

Two independent university studies may have the answer, because they both show that, based on much more reliable hospital admissions data, serious injuries from road accidents are not falling at all over the era of speed camera infestation.

It is already generally admitted that over this period, deaths have shown no marked fall. In 1996 they were 3598, and although they have slipped into the 3400s since then, in 2003, as camera use spread, they were back up again to 3508. When compared to the ongoing plunge in deaths before cameras got a hold – from 5589 in 1984 to 4568 in 1991 and 3650 in 1994 – this is shamefully poor, given the improvement in car safety engineering and medical care over the last decade.

So it is clear that cameras are not making our roads safer. It is hard to see how a measure that basically targets safe drivers could possibly do so.

We all want to curb excessive speed, but not at the expense of ignoring other dangerous practices, and making people think that they are skilful drivers purely because they are “obeying the law”.

The foreword to the new Philips Road Atlas, released last month, says that speed cameras are “badly managed, confusing and ineffective”. They are not making our roads safer and should be marked for disposal.

City councillors throw another tantrum

It was quite amusing to see the way the Norwich councillors threw their collective teddies in the corner when they were outvoted again on their desperate plan to pedestrianise Westlegate.

One said it was people outside the city thwarting the legitimate desires of Norwich people. Well, I’m a Norwich person, by birth and current location, and I don’t feel at all thwarted on this issue. I haven’t met anyone who does.

Another said it was grounds for the city becoming a unitary authority, which presumably means they want their own ball, and they’re not going to let anyone else play once they’ve got it. Childish, or what?

A third said it was vital to cut traffic levels in the city centre. Why? The centre is easy to drive or walk through – it’s the approaches that are the problem. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And incidentally, how are those big delivery lorries going to get to Chapelfield if Westlegate is pedestrianised?

In fact the city hall sulkers got their way on just about everything that came before Norwich highways committee, including another unnecessary and congestion-creating road closure – St George’s Street. Once again my freedom, which hurts no-one, is being curtailed for the satisfaction of a small group of politically motivated people. But hey, I only live here.

Wobbly panel can't see the steak for jelly

You might think it reasonable to block new house-building until roads and services are in place to handle it. Of course, you are quite wrong. Building lots of houses is government policy, so it must be all right. Like flying, it emits no carbon at all.

Driving, on the other hand, is responsible for at least 110 per cent of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, if not more.

So faced with a reasonable request from local authorities, the totally unelected panel of inspectors for the East of England Regional Spatial Strategy (rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) has decided to make climate change emissions the “overarching objective of their transport policies”, which is a bit like making jelly the overarching objective of steak and chips.

But it means (yippee!) that they can demand over half a million more homes for the region without bothering to improve or build any roads. And this is OK because people will use cars less. The statistics they give in support of this are among the least convincing I have ever seen anywhere, for anything.

A transport professional writing to the magazine Local Transport Today nails the wooliness. He writes: “This may be possible in major urban centres – although outside London there has been little success in doing so – but it is a different proposition in more rural counties such as Norfolk, with infrequent and inconvenient bus services.”

It seems, he says, that the panel is offering the Government “a convenient way out of funding necessary infrastructure to deal with growth now”. Surely not.

Speed humps an awful mistake, says man who introduced them

The sinister Tory grandee Kenneth Clarke has admitted to an “awful mistake”. And if you’re not sure which one, it’s road humps.

He told a radio interviewer last week that, as a junior transport minister in the Thatcher government, he was responsible for introducing road humps in this country.

In fact it’s worse than that: he went so far as to suggest that local groups might club together to pay for humps in their area.

Apparently, unlike Mr Clarke, some people still think this right-wing innovation is a good idea.

To everything there is a season (tern, tern, tern)

I hear that the little tern colony in Great Yarmouth was disappointed not to get a mention in my piece about bottom-up benefits for priority groups in the area.

A reader claims that that the terns are important to the cultural life of the town and are vulnerable to aggressive gangs of kestrels, foxes and rats.

She adds: “One kestrel – feeding his growing family – did a lot of damage last year as he feasted on the baby little tens.

“Improving the outcome for one priority group often spoils the prospects of another.”

So whose tern is it? I wonder.

10 July 2006

on 11 July 2006 at 20:24

Football is about glory, not boredom

The disappointment at England’s exit from the World Cup was much more muted than might have been expected. Was this because it was exceeded by much louder disappointment at the team’s performance?

Football is supposed to be the beautiful game, but as a friend wisely remarked last week, it is only beautiful for part of the time, and that part reached minuscule proportions while England were playing.

Much has been written about systems of play, but it seems to me that the root cause is fear. Not just England, but most of the countries with footballing reputations, were more afraid to lose than eager to win, and this is not just a footballing phenomenon.

Safety has replaced adventure in our lives, and safety doesn’t inspire anyone, because it doesn’t work. Everyone dies in the end, with or without penalties.

It was undeniable that England used negative tactics, just as FIFA president Sepp Blatter and former England manager Sir Bobby Robson alleged. So did many other teams, like Argentina, whose talent would surely have triumphed if they had expressed it in an attacking, unfrightened way instead of putting all their artistry into falling over, like Portugal.

The only team who played fast, attacking football from the outset were Germany, who ironically are great admirers of the Premiership game and whose manager, Jurgen Klinsmann, is an Anglophile who won over vast numbers of Britons when he played for Spurs. In beating them, Italy showed that, to everyone’s surprise, they could do it too.

Coincidentally, it is a former Spurs captain, Danny Blanchflower, who put everyone right on how football should be played. He said: “The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It’s nothing of the kind. The game is about glory. It’s about doing things in style, with a flourish – about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom.”

Do transport chiefs really know what we want?

Transport chiefs seem to have less and less idea of what people actually want – or is it that they are so sure they’re right that they don’t really care?

Plans to cut speed limits in residential areas of Norwich to 20mph are supported by Lib Dems, Labour and Greens. Judith Lubbock, the LD transport spokeswoman, said (among other things): “This is what people want.”

Really? I don’t know anyone who’s actually been asked, and a poll on the EDP website not only came out 63% to 37% against, but attracted one of the highest ever responses.

Given that those in favour of such measures tend to be more vocal than those against, this is an amazing result and should give Ms Lubbock and her friends pause for thought. But it won’t, of course, because they know they’re right.

So, apparently, does Guy McGregor, the Suffolk portfolio holder for roads and transport, who reacted in an astonishing way to local MP Bob Blizzard’s complaint that signs were directing drivers away from the new Lowestoft relief road.

I hold no brief for Mr Blizzard, but friends in Lowestoft tell me that the town has been in chaos, with times from Kessingland to north Lowestoft reaching an hour and a half. No surprise that the MP is “flabbergasted”, but what are we to make of Mr McGregor’s view that such comments are “outrageous”?

Well, he’s entitled to his opinion. What should shock Lowestoft people is the Suffolk transport supremo’s thinly veiled threat that it “was not a good sign for work on future projects in Lowestoft”.

What can he mean? Do road improvements require blind and silent obedience to the fount of all spending? We should be told.

Bottom-up worry for east-coast resort

A worried reader is concerned that Great Yarmouth, home of classic sand sculptures and the 2007 British Chess Championship, is being offered a “genuinely bottom-up approach” by the Government.

Three senior ministers have made the offer to the borough council, which oversees what the ministers describe as “one of a handful of the most deprived cities and towns in the UK”. I am not sure the council would be altogether happy with this description, especially deputy chief executive Mark Barrow, who told me recently that he saw Great Yarmouth as an area “rich in culture and heritage contributing massively to the local economy”.

This is roughly how I feel about it. And if I were Mr Barrow, I would be more than a little upset at remote members of Government who not only wanted me and my colleagues to be innovative and ambitious (as if we weren’t already) but also wanted us to bid for funding to “improve outcomes for priority groups”.

Bidding for funding is one of the most iniquitous and counter-productive devices used by Government. It demands a huge waste of time and resources that are already stretched, in order to produce and then inspect reams of paper containing jargon-heavy sentences designed to appeal to politically correct ministerial ears and having little relevance to what is going on. If you doubt this, you might as yourself what improving outcomes for priority groups actually means, in English.

All this is concerning enough. But what really worried the reader I mentioned was the phrase “genuinely bottom up”. How, she asked, would she be able to distinguish this from something that was falsely bottom-up?

Happily, I can help her. Anything described by a government minister as “genuinely bottom-up” is actually falsely bottom-up. That’s what public consultation is all about.

Unexpected ridge of common sense over Norfolk

Following a series of depressions lasting years in some areas, a ridge of common sense seems to have moved unexpectedly across Norfolk.

One of these weather-affected areas is education for special needs. At last someone has realised that while inclusion is a fine idea in theory – and sometimes in practice – often it doesn’t work at all. Both the special needs pupil and those with ordinary needs have been prevented from getting a proper education.

Now there are clear signs that the mess will be sorted out, and those who need to be educated separately will be properly looked after.

Another area hit by the ridge of common sense is coastal defence. In a brave move, North Norfolk District Council has refused to sign up to “expert” advice that the sea should simply be allowed to swallow up at-risk communities in its area.

And in the troubled health zone, hit by frequent squalls, someone in a position of authority appears to have noticed that community hospitals are a very good thing.

Whether the ridge of common sense will remain in place is still uncertain. There are signs of weakening in the Acle-Yarmouth area, where it has been decided that the preservation of beetles is more important than human life, but this is put down to unusual climatic conditions. And stupidity, of course.