Accident Reports

[Mr. Benn]

One of my interests is aviation, and I was reading a report online the other day about a crash involving a twin engined aircraft which ran out of fuel and crashed into a house. (Pilot incorrectly calculated fuel amount)

Now that info is not relevant to this group, but I was struck by the openness of the accident reporting system, both here and in the USA. It seems that every aviation accident, no matter how small, gets investigated and a report written, usually ending in a list of findings and a list of recommendations. All reports are publically available online.

Is there an equivalent system for road accidents? I don't think there is,and I don't really understand why. It seems that we treat RTAs incredibly casually. If a couple of people die, it gets reported in the local press,but there is no information as to what the factors were and why it happened. There is no follow-up to speak of, and if there is, it just consists of factors of the nature of "the driver was over the legal alcohol limit", or "he was speeding". I believe the police investigate accidents, but they must keep the reports to themselves.

Contrast that with the aviation, or even the railway industry.

A lot of people die on our roads, and there just seems to be this misguided focus on blanket speed limit enforcement. I think there should be a lot more focus on what causes road accidents, and what can be done to avoid them. A country-wide policy on accident investigation and reporting would be the start of a more serious and grown-up approach to the problem.

[The Natural Philosopher]

how about the same thing on banking industries, or - say - the Iraq war..

[charles]

Do they? or is it just that the press aren't interested since on "a few" people are involved. Judging by the amount of time roads are closed after a fatal accident, I'm sure the police do more than just log the event.

[Snip]

[John Williamson]

First, for all notified incidents they log the event, then, in cases involving injury or death, a forensic investigation of the area is carried out, and only after that has finished is the road handed back to the road authority for that road to be cleared and put back into service. In cases involving injuries or death, the vehicle(s) involved are also fully checked over for defects, especially if they are commercial vehicles carrying goods or passengers. All such incidents are notified to the local press by various means, but publication is a commercial decision.

A recent incident in which I was involved, with no injuries, but involving a diesel spill which was threatening to get into a river resulted in complete road closure for half a hour, and partial closure for two hours until all traces of diesel had been cleared from the road surface. The police investigation took about ten minutes, as it was a clear case of driving without due care and attention, which the other driver subsequently admitted, and then attended a driver awareness course in lieu of a fine and penalty points. The incident made the local traffic news, but no more.

[Nightjar]

Both the Police and the NHS produce statistics, although the two systems produce slightly different results, as the Police reports are based upon immediate casualties, while the NHS include those who might die much later. National Statistics publish the figures in the form of both tables and a detailed report, however, on this computer, I only have a link to the latest table, which is available from the DfT:

system allows for up to six contributory factors for each accident. A factor in 40% of accidents is driver or rider not looking properly. Failure to judge another's path or speed properly was a factor in 21% of accidents and careless, reckless or in a hurry in 16%. For accidents involving pedestrians, the pedestrian failing to look properly is by far the most common factor - 11,917 cases out of a total of 15,558 overall, and 155 out of 272 fatal accidents.

Colin Bignell

[tony sayer]

In article , Mr. Benn scribeth thus

No, there too many of them I expect to investigate. We do have a very open system for the railways and very well written they are too...

[Tony Bryer]

There's a voluntary reporting system for structural failures

[ss]

insurance companies pick up the tab or split 50/50. I remember one incident where my neighbour run over and killed a person, he was imeediately breathalised and had he been over it would have been his fault, as it turned out apparently there is (or was) a blind spot on main beam and this is what caused him to run over her. Another case in Turkey a turkish driver run over and killed a woman he was over the limit and was punished but on a reduced sentence because the woman was drunk and staggered onto the road so she was apportioned some of the blame, even though he was over the limit the accident would not have happened if the woman was sober. Not saying who is right or wrong but maybe more facts should be taken into account, instead of a forgone `he has been drinking it MUST be their fault`

[Steve O]

No, thank God. I wouldn't want every minute detail of every prang I've ever had plastered all over the internet.

I don't think there

What use would it be?

It seems that we treat RTAs

The court reports for all cases of death by reckless driving are freely available, so I don't see why you think such reports are hidden.

[Martin Brown]

The reports are there at least for serious KSI RTCs, and if you make a good case you can obtain access to them. They are abstract descriptions of what was determined to have happened in terms of vehicles A,B,C ...

I did this once for a notorious trunk road at grade junction accident black spot. The collision analysis made incredibly depressing reading and to be honest I think they *should* be published in the local papers. I suspect that commercial pressures and deference to the recently bereaved means that they are not. Tiny mistakes that cause collisions at high speed are punished very severely by the laws of physics.

A rough breakdown for this site included white line overruns, going straight out into lane 2 without looking, impatience or misjudgement when turning right or crossing the main (very fast) road. We had a speed tester on it for a while and median speed was 85mph on the dual carriageway despite a high proportion of heavies limited at 56mph.

Most of the rest were just travelling too close and too fast for the weather conditions. One notable multiple pile up there in thick fog included a liquid chlorine tanker which mercifully remained intact. We got lights installed after that one (which actually only served to make traffic on the main road faster there at night). We now have a bridge.

In this particular case bad layout with a deceptively simple looking square cross configuration was partly to blame. Visibility was excellent provided that the junction wasn't busy but unfortunately people are not taught how to negogiate a busy dual carriageway at grade crossroad with mainline traffic at motorway speeds. Turning right was the most dangerous - too many people line up their vehicles blind spot with the outer lane and are then hit by a fast car that they didn't see at all.

Where I think there is a serious gap is on near miss events (mostly high numbers of bent metal incidents at certain junctions). Insurers know where they are, but the police only get called to a collision where people are injured or there are aggravating factors. It takes a full KSI to occur before anyone pays any attention to the bad junction design.

Regards, Martin Brown

[R. Mark Clayton]

Several misconceptions here, but lets start with aviation accidents: -

1. Aviation only provides a small percentage of travel, and [civil] aviation accidents are very rare - fewer killed worldwide than in road accidents in the UK.

1. When things go wrong in flight the result is usually fatal, or if a near miss easily could have been. Planes don't crash very often, but when they do you get mass casualties and £$millions of damage.

2. Most pilots are professional, so their is a practitioner interest in discovering the cause of accidents.

turning to road accidents

1. Road travel and cars in particular provide a huge proportion of travel. Probably 1000 times as many road vehicles registered than planes in the UK (lower proportion in the USA).

1. Most road accidents are minor, with either damage only or just minor injuries.

2. Most drivers are amateurs and are not that interested in finding out about mistakes, especially their own as these can result in loss of their license.

and then to procedure

true the CAA will investigate any accident in the UK, not so much to allocate blame, but to try and stop the same thing happening again. OTOH the police are mostly interested in convicting bad drivers and this limits co-operation. If there are fatalities then there will be a coroners inquest.

and the press

the public are more interested in and the press therefore more likely to report accidents involving people being conveyed in service, so a plane, train or bus crash is more newsworthy than a shunt on the by pass. Minor car accidents are just statistics.

[Roberts]

[Nightjar]

Civil aviation accidents are probably more frequent than you realise. However, as the most common accident is being hit by a service vehicle, they don't all make the newspapers.

Not at all. If you read the accident reports, most things that go wrong in flight are fairly minor and result in no casualties. Even when something catastrophic goes wrong, the results are not necessarily fatal.

or if a near

Again, not always. In some cases, the aircraft is not even written off.

There are more accident reports each month on private flights than on commercial ones. Private pilots vary enormously in skill and attitude. According to CAA figures, private pilots who have attended one of their safety evenings (where they get a stamp in their log book) are 25 times less likely to have an accident than those who have not. They attribute this not to the effectiveness of the safety evening, but to the fact that those attending are interested in safety.

...

So are most aviation accidents.

Investigations are the responsibility of the Air Accident Investigation Branch of the Department for Transport, not the CAA. However, the CAA does have a voluntary reporting system for incidents that do not require investigation.

The Police report factors that contribute to accidents to the DfT, quite independently of whether there is any blame to be attributed. The CAA will also prosecute any pilot who has broken aviation law, which could be due to an accident investigation showing that the pilot was guilty of endangering an aircraft, for example where the crash resulted from running out of fuel.

Colin Bignell

[Man at B&Q]

A few thousand killed in ones and twos is deemed acceptable compared to half-a-dozen in one place once, or maybe twice, a year on the railways.

MBQ