Looking at transport safety budgets as a whole?

[Bletchleyite]

To the mods, I'm not sure if this is best in here, in Other Transport or in General so feel free to move accordingly (as I'm sure you will ).

This would certainly work, though the huge cost might save more lives were it spent on fixing road junctions with high numbers of serious accidents.

But that would be a different budget…

In reality. It seems we may have been trapped by the ever present. “But ETCS is coming soon to fix that.”

I have wondered if transport safety should really be looked at as a whole, and in what way spending might be different if it was? For instance, might more lives be saved by spending on road junctions and cycle provision than TPWS grids? Or might lowering rail fares and adding cheap capacity (i.e. new basic rolling stock) save lives by getting people to switch from road to rail?

Any thoughts on how this could work?

 

[HSTEd]

Well, I think this could quite easily lead to the result "all transport safety spending is better spent on building more dual carriageways as they make road travel much safer".

 

[Bletchleyite]

Well, I think this could quite easily lead to the result "all transport safety spending is better spent on building more dual carriageways as they make road travel much safer".

There's a good chance that it would improve justification for some bypasses both in terms of reducing accidents and in terms of air quality in urban areas, yes. But people do still crash on 70mph duals...

 

[HSTEd]

There's a good chance that it would improve justification for some bypasses both in terms of reducing accidents and in terms of air quality in urban areas, yes. But people do still crash on 70mph duals...

The death rate is something like a quarter of other roads per mile though.

Outside that, I think you might get some counterintuitive results.
The vast majority of fatalities on the railway are suicide-related, so suicide prevention would probably come out quite well.

I wouldn't be surprised if a programme of platform edge doors did quite well on a cost benefit analysis.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The vast majority of fatalities on the railway are suicide-related, so suicide prevention would probably come out quite well.

That's probably why the key mainlines all now have fences on the fast lines. It's fairly costly but has saved a lot of lives by being a visual deterrent despite the fact that on routes like the WCML they can't be locked as trains do sometimes stop on the fasts. "Being where you feel like you're not meant to be" is a surprisingly good deterrent even if in poor mental health, and it also gives a chance for staff to be able to notice people in that position before anything bad happens.

 

[JohnofWessex]

Traffic Policing and on the spot licence cancellations for some motoring offences?

Drink/Drug driving and exceeding 90mph

 

[Zomboid]

Roads are statistically far more dangerous. Effective road safety measures are likely to save far more lives than more TPWS grids.