A flawed ‘fatal four’

From Gerard Baudains.

I WROTE recently with regard to inaccurate or incomplete information from senior officials in the public sector. On that occasion it was about cancer and its many causes.

Only a week or so later, I open my copy of the JEP and don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the nonsense written about the causes of road accidents.

The fact that this time our students are being misled is, perhaps, not a laughing matter.

According to our police, the ‘fatal four’ causes of road accidents are: speeding, drink-driving, using a mobile phone – and get this – failing to wear a seat belt.

There is no doubt that speeding can cause accidents and the faster the speed the more severe the accident. According to UK government figures speeding accounts for around 3% of accidents.

However, driving too fast for the road conditions (which may be within the speed limit for the road in question) is also an issue. The point here is that they are talking about the cause of accidents, not the likelihood of surviving one, and speed is certainly not in the top four of causes.

Then we come to the bit that had me in stitches – not wearing a seat belt can cause an accident? Where are these people coming from? This is akin to the now discredited anthropogenic global-warming hoax.

We really deserve better from people at the top of their profession. If I gave out information as sloppy as this in my profession (engineering) I would have gone out of business years ago.

For the record, the leading cause of road accidents is human error and carelessness.