road safety Road traffic safety refers to the methods and measures used to prevent road users from being killed or seriously injured. Typical road users include pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, vehicle passengers, horse riders, and passengers of on-road ...

management, an accident blackspot or black spot is a place where road traffic accidents have historically been concentrated. It may have occurred for a variety of reasons, such as a sharp drop or corner in a straight road, so oncoming traffic is concealed, a hidden junction on a fast road, poor or concealed warning signs at a crossroads. For some decades treatment of accident blackspots (e.g. by signage, speed restrictions, improving sightlines, straightening bends, or

speed cameras A traffic enforcement camera (also red light camera, speed camera, road safety camera, road rule camera, photo radar, photo enforcement, Gatso, safety camera, bus lane camera, flash for cash, Safe-T-Cam, No contact apprehension camera dependin ...

) was a mainstay of road safety policy, but current thinking has it that the benefits of these interventions are often overstated. Effects such as

regression to the mean In statistics, regression toward the mean (also called reversion to the mean, and reversion to mediocrity) is the fact that if one sample of a random variable is extreme, the next sampling of the same random variable is likely to be closer to it ...

risk compensation Risk compensation is a theory which suggests that people typically adjust their behavior in response to perceived levels of risk, becoming more careful where they sense greater risk and less careful if they feel more protected. Although usually ...

and accident migration combine to reduce the overall benefit. In 1973,

Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu Edward John Barrington Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu (20 October 1926 – 31 August 2015), was an English aristocrat and Conservative politician, best known for founding the National Motor Museum, as well as for a pivota ...

said in a debate in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

: In some cases it has been claimed that the end result of such interventions in accident blackspot areas is an ''increase'' in overall casualties. In one notable experiment, a number of accident blackspots were "treated" with a null treatment—placement of a

garden gnome Garden gnomes (german: links=no, Gartenzwerge, lit=garden dwarfs) are lawn ornament figurines of small humanoid creatures based on the mythological creature and diminutive spirit which occur in Renaissance magic and alchemy, known as gnomes. Th ...

, according to some reports. Accident rates at these points were found to have decreased significantly in the following period, a finding which is taken as clear evidence supporting the theory of regression to the mean.

References

External links

Discussion of accident blackspots
{{Wiktionary Road safety

See also

References

External links