

Every death on every road in Great Britain 1999-2010 - ed209
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15975720

======
willyt
I live in the Scottish Highlands, It's interesting that there are almost no
deaths on the single track roads where the speed limit is 60mph and road
alignments often allow for travelling at this speed, assuming you have
correctly judged the stopping distance to avoid a head on collision with
someone round the next corner at 60mph in the opposite direction. And I can
tell you, people do cut it pretty fine. But there are quite a lot of fatal
crashes on normal roads in places which I would have thought are reasonably
safe. I wonder if a lot of crashes here are caused by risky overtaking caused
by frustrated people stuck behind slow moving vehicles. Seems like there is
often a goods vehicle involved. I have this theory that people are much more
likely to crash if they are bored than if the driving is taxing their
abilities a bit.

~~~
inovica
I'm pleased you posted the above. I visit the Highlands often (and love it)
and realised that the locals drive incredibly quickly on these single-track
roads - with passing places - and wondered what the accident rate was. After a
few years I figured that they raced like crazy in the places where they could
see and then braking sharply before corners. I bet the brake wear must be
high!! Great place though!! I got married in Glenfinnan

~~~
willyt
That's the interesting thing, once you 'know the road' you know all the places
where you can't see the road surface but because you know where the road is in
the terrain ahead you can make optimised judgements about visibility to
oncoming traffic, comfortable cornering speed etc. Also you'll know which
corners have passing places which allow two vehicles to pass comfortably at
speed. A lot of people not used to single track roads are frightened by local
drivers coming round corners 'too fast'. Often it's because people don't
realise that to keep on the left you need to take an extreme outside line
which means steering _away_ from the corner into a passing place and back
again as you go around. I tell people this when they come to visit and they
usually find it a lot less stressful driving here afterwards.

------
bambax
I don't know any UK postal code but found that "NW1" will get you near the
center of London. Once the map is active you can go to any place in the UK.

It would be interesting to filter by other criteria: year, age of people
injured are two pieces of information that are already available.

Brand of vehicule, estimated speed at impact, cause of accident, DUI, etc.
would make for very interesting criteria if they are recorded.

~~~
sambeau
Wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive explanation:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdom>

------
ed209
similar to the recent US version <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3295856>

~~~
ck2
Wow, US interstates are simply paved with death.

From what I can see, it's not just speed that kills but people-interacting-
with-people at speed that kills.

Because the 50-60mph backroads seem to have low death rates.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Yes, with a death toll around 50k per year for decades, concentrated in the
populous, urban areas, that's about right. If there were a little roadside
symbol at the spot for each person who ever died, many areas would look like a
forest. I look to self-driving cars to save us from this.

------
SagelyGuru
This is a lot more effective than the speed cameras. One thing that surprised
me is the number of pedestrians killed.

~~~
sukuriant
Also, TopGear mentioned that speed cameras haven't affected death rates at
all. They're just for money to the state.

~~~
andyking
Top Gear is an entertainment show with an agenda all of its own (I don't know
if you're in Britain, but Jeremy Clarkson is a well-known self-described
'controversial' right-winger with his own column in the Sun.)

I wouldn't take anything they come out with as fact without another source.

~~~
maximusprime
Penalizing drivers based on their speed is like paying programmers based on
lines of code.

Speed != safety.

Lines of code != productivity.

It teaches motorists that instead of watching out for dangers, they should be
constantly monitoring their speedometer. It makes our roads less safe.

Jeremy Clarkson is awesome. He should be made a lord. The liberal lefties and
the easily offended hate him. Which is fantastic to watch. 20,000 complaints
to the BBC after he made a joke about strikes? How absolutely hilarious.

~~~
to3m
You're right! I've been involved in a couple of low-speed bumps in car parks,
going at 10mph, people not looking where they are going, that kind of thing.
It was AWFUL, dreadfully worrying, and the car was a total mess. In one case,
my car even ended up with a visible scratch on the driver's-side door
paintwork.

If only I'd have been driving on the road, going at 50mph, like that time when
the car skidded on something on the road, and after hitting the edge flipped
over and landed on its roof in a muddy ditch. Unlike the dangerous dents and
scratches that my car park accidents have left my car with, this little minor
incident only left the roof a little bit crushed in, and broke one of the
wheels off. Also smashed out all the windows. So there wasn't even any need to
call the AA, not like that time somebody opened their door into my car at 0mph
and left a little nick in the plastic runner bar.

My only regret is that thanks to the nanny state I couldn't legally have gone
at 100mph to make it even safer yet!

~~~
tankenmate
Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but in the hands of a master it is true
genius!

------
SamColes
Shocking (yet unsurprising) that almost everything I click on is an eldery
pedestrian or cyclist, or a motorcyclist.

~~~
nodata
or HGV

------
tcarnell
I'm quite surprised at the lack of 'hot spots' - areas of concentrated
fatalities. Had a quick look at some areas I have lived in, including SE11
(south/central London), especially around Elephant & Castle am quite surprised
that actually, there are generally fairly few fatalities when considering this
spans a decade of data.

Obviously pedestrians and cyclists are far more at risk of being a fatality,
so the stats certainly dont represent general accidents, even serious ones.

------
maximusprime
What would be fantastic would be to overlay the speedcamera locations on the
same map.

What people would then see, is that there is no correlation between speed
cameras and "accident blackspots".

If you were able to also plot "hidden hedges" and "shouldn't be a 30mph limit
in the first place", you'd see that's where the speed cameras are placed, to
generate maximum revenue.

