Thread by @markandcharlie

That Panorama programme, but where to start... 🤔
Let's go with speed cameras first, programme makes a big thing about them not working, well they haven't for 5+ years mostly since the switch from wet film to digital & average cameras, fixed site cameras are largely ineffective

https://twitter.com/BBCPanorama/status/1483102768667705354

anyway unless placed at problem sites. Traffic officer numbers decreased dramatically from 2011/12 not 2016, if they had explored the earlier years they would have discovered a much larger decrease. Then we come to existing traffic officer numbers, most are in a ANPR intercept

role or share other roles such as ARV duties, thus do very little core traffic work but count as traffic officers on a headcount. Drink driving, well there's less tests as cuts have consequences, most drink drive arrests are proactive but due to high demand officers

across the board have very little time to be proactive, especially response / neighbourhood officers who used to catch their fair share of drink drivers. Also there was no mention of drug driving, the greatest emerging threat apart from mobile phone use we've seen in recent years

There was a concentration on "dangerous roads, be it smart motorways or rural roads", neither contribute to rising #KSIs, the way they are driven on does...which leads us onto wholesale driver behaviour which was completely ignored along with the largest causatiinal factors in

collisions which are "failed to look properly / driver distraction".
There was no mention of the huge rise in traffic numbers over the last 20 years either increasing demand on fewer resources. Overall apart from drink drive section the programme completely disregarded the main

cause of #KSIs which is #driverbehaviour. After all if everyone drove to #teststandard we wouldn't need speed cameras or traffic cops. There was no mention of the average speeds increasing during lockdown, leading to higher kenetic energy in collisions & increased injury.

Most worryingly there was no mention of the increasing threat to #vulnerableroadusers as traffic levels rise & more are encouraged into using #ActiveTravel through the behavioural change #modalshift schemes that are increasingly put in place around the country. The programme

centered on vehicle users & their "fears" whereas they are actually the safest users of our roads, with their lost sense of vulnerabilty on every road apart from #smartmotorways working to their own detriment & everyone else's , especially the vulnerable. Overall

there is no threat of harm from any of the roads they featured, the threat of harm comes from those using them, the clips they used clearly showed deficences in driving, not infrastructure or enforcement. We will never recover to the traffic officer numbers seen when I started

my traffic career or see them as "dedicated" traffic officers again, purely tasked to reduce #KSIs on the roads, which is why I'm also suprised there was no mention of #3rdpartyreporting or the cuts to local authority road safety budgets over the last decade. All in all a huge

opportunity missed to concentrate on the #greatestthreatofharm we face which is incompetent & offending #driverbehaviour and what we had was an almost excusery piece to placate drivers & reinforce the prevailing belief amongst many that they aren't part of the problem when

actually they are. Due to the exceptional circumstances of lockdown the last 2 years figures should largely be discounted regards trends in statistics, this year's figures will be the ones to look at and compare to 2018 & 19 to see where we might be heading. I dare to say we will

see a return to the general plateau we've seen over much of the last decade, with congestion reducing kenetic energy, seeing less vehicle occupant KSIs to be replaced with #vulnerableroadusers #KSIs due to increased #modalshift taking place without the required infrastructure &

#driverbehaviour change taking place first.
Although the decline in police resources & drink drive enforcement was rightly pointed out everything else just wasted good airtime that could have been used to actually prevent road harm instead of excusing it and the responsibility

we all have when driving the most effective killing machine ever devised. As I always say at no point in your adult life are you more likely to cause harm to others in society than when driving, your risk of being prosecuted shouldn't be a consideration whether you do so

responsibility or not, unfortunately it is evident that it does make a difference to many.... Tonight I will watch Winterwatch and not shout at my TV 😂 👍... World in Action was better... fantastic theme tune.. 👍