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In Britain, the Hyperformance insurance company says that many statistics produced on road casualties are fine in their own right, but they don't really help motorists understand why accidents happen, which is arguably the most import part if ways are to be found to stop them happening. Is this because motorists genuinely don't know, or are they just unwilling to say?
  
"How useful is it to know roundabouts are statistically safer than crossroads, or that nearly four times more cars have an accident turning right rather than left¹ and that only half as many drivers come a cropper² on a bend?" says Steve McPherson, Sales & Marketing Director, Hyperformance. 
  
"Statistics tell us that three times as many motorists collide with trees than hit lampposts, and that you are 10 times more likely to hit an animal on a carriageway than a dislodged vehicle load. They show that defective road surfaces are responsible for as many accidents as defective traffic lights, and confirm that pedestrian crossings are not actually that safe for pedestrians.
  
"Some statistics are a real cause for concern but they still don't tell us why, for instance, road accidents cause 20% of the deaths of children between 5 and 19, or account for 74% of all accidental deaths to 15-19 year olds³."
  
Hyperformance believes more should be done to broaden the scope of the information recorded on accidents in a bid to better understand why they happen. The company says that on the few occasions this has been done in the past it has led to some interesting findings.
  
Several police forces ran a trial back in 1996 and recorded contributory factors in road accidents. The trial was unscientific, but its results were revealing. It found the five most frequent causes of accidents to be:

• A driver's failure to judge another person's path or speed;

• Careless/thoughtless or reckless behaviour;

• Inattention;

• Looking but failing to see;

• Excessive speed. 

Surprisingly, impairment due to alcohol was down the list in 9th place, even though official statistics prove that one in five drivers or riders killed on the road are over the limit.
  
"Getting accurate information on the causes of accidents could have a real benefit for road safety. Even partial statistics could help change motorists' perception of the risks and so make a valuable contribution," says Steve McPherson.
  
"We know, for example, that speed cameras work and there are less accidents where they are sited. We think that the drink-driving problem is in part due to the fact that young people still don't realise how few drinks will put them over the legal limit. 
  
"The point is that whether based on hard fact or perception, anything that makes motorists stop and think about what they are doing and alters their approach to driving can help to improve road safety. The most important thing to do is to use every means possible to get the message across."
  

Explanatory Notes

1.  Bearing in mind that Britain is a drive-on-the-left country

2.  "Come a cropper" is slang -- on this occasion for "have a crash".

3.  The Casualty Report 2000

Source:  Allen & Allen