Continue reading »]]> A new book from Cambridge University Press – Successful Science communication, (Bennett and Jennings eds.) – contains 26 chapters with helpful things to say to people concerned to communicate complex ideas to “the public”. Plus a chapter by me entitled Not 100% sure? The “public” understanding of risk; the reader is left to judge whether it too is helpful.

It begins: “Where knowledge (belief) relates to potential future harms or benefits, as it usually does in situations where science communication is seen as problematic or contentious, the issue can be framed as one of risk communication.”

And concludes: “The problem for science communicators is that we, scientist and non-scientist alike, do not respond blankly to uncertainty. We impose meaning upon it. The greater the uncertainty the greater becomes the influence of perceptual biases. These biases have deep cosmological roots and are not easily shifted. Perhaps the best that a science communicator can hope for is that introspection might assist recognition of one’s own biases, and an awareness of the inevitability of different biases in others. Self-knowledge and an ability to stand metaphorically in the shoes of others are key ingredients of the empathy essential to effective communication.”

And the first section is headed “What is risk?”

Continue reading »]]> A recent BBC radio 4 programme entitled Thinking Streets takes listeners on a refreshing tour of traffic management schemes that are elevating the status of pedestrians and cyclists relative to that of those in motor vehicles. The effect, as researcher/presenter, Angela Saini notes, is civilizing – while also reducing accidents. The programme features Ben Hamilton-Baillie, who it rightly describes as Britain’s “biggest advocate of shared space”. He is also a very convincing advocate with a website worth visiting. I have a brief part in the programme explaining the concept of risk compensation.

In Where and when is shared space safe? (PDF) I introduce the concept of shared space as follows:

Traditional highway engineering assumes that safety requires the spatial segregation of pedestrians, cyclists and motorized vehicles or, where this is not possible, rigorously enforced rules, signs and signals dictating temporal segregation. Road users, according to the established paradigm, are irresponsible, stupid, selfish automatons whose safety can only be assured by physical barriers to conflict, supplemented by legal sanctions for disobeying the rules.

“Shared space” stands many of the traditional assumptions on their heads. It assumes a very different road user ‐ one who is responsible, alert and responsive to evidence of safety or danger. It proposes tearing down physical barriers such as pedestrian guard rails and segregation infrastructure such as pedestrian bridges, and filling in pedestrian tunnels. It also proposes removing stop signs and traffic lights and other signage and road markings demanding compliance at the cost of criminal or financial sanctions. It deliberately creates uncertainty as to who has the right of way on the assumption that road users will work it out for themselves in a civilized fashion.

Download “Where and when is shared space safe?” (PDF)

Continue reading »]]> Judith Hackitt head of the UK Health and Safety Executive, has recently been complaining about “the creeping culture of risk-aversion and fear of litigation” and the “jobsworths” responsible for its promotion. The HSE appears to be losing the battle. Below I set out a piece that I was asked to write for my local tenants and residents news letter and website – http://thebrunswick.org/ .

Brunswick Tenants, Residents and Leaseholders

Many of you (I’m told 370) will have received a letter from City Restoration seeking an appointment to “carry out safety works to your windows.”

The windows in question are the vertical opening ones. Those commissioning the work believe that there is a risk that they might blow open in a high wind, shatter, and shower those beneath with shards of glass.

The proposed solution is to apply safety film to the insides of the windows in question. Flats above the Renoir-Gap – that has many people walking and eating below – have already received the treatment. My flat received this treatment before I bought it and I can vouch for the fact that it is invisible – I didn’t know I had it.

Camden now proposes to apply the same “safety works” to all the other flats in the Brunswick on the grounds that any opening window could blow open, shatter and shower people below with glass. It would appear to be a very small risk. Very few people can be seen walking below these windows – and even fewer in conditions of storm and high winds. No statistics are available for the number that have blown open and shattered. But when I inquired what sort of risk assessment had been done to justify these “safety works” I was told that the works were justified by the judgment that “IT COULD HAPPEN”.

I have been reassured by the Camden officer responsible that the cost of the works will not appear on our service charge bills; the cost will be recovered from the Camden Housing Repairs Budget – which means that, if the same zero risk strategy is being pursued throughout Camden, we will pay for it through our Council Tax.

For an extended version of this complaint please see my website at www.john-adams.co.uk .

The HSE provides some guidance

“HSE believes that an individual risk of death of one in a million per annum for both workers and the public corresponds to a very low level of risk and should be used as a guideline for the boundary between the broadly acceptable and tolerable regions.” (Reducing risks, protecting people http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/theory/r2p2.htm).

It goes on “we live in an environment of appreciable risks of various kinds which contribute to a background level of risk – typically a risk of death of one in a hundred per year averaged over a lifetime. A residual risk of one in a million per year is extremely small when compared to this background level of risk. Indeed many activities which people are prepared to accept in their daily lives for the benefits they bring, for example, using gas and electricity, or engaging in air travel, entail or exceed such levels of residual risk.” Such risks, the HSE advises are “generally regarded as insignificant and adequately controlled.”

I looked up the numbers. The risk is already insignificant and adequately controlled. In England and Wales in the last year for which data are available 2 people died as a result of “contact with sharp glass” (Office of National Statistics, Mortality Statistics, Series DH2 no.32 Table 2.19). http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_health/Dh2_32/DH2_No32_2005.pdf

Spread over the population of England and Wales this represents an annual risk of 1 in 27 million, considerably less than the risk of being killed by lightening. But given the great variety of ways in which people might encounter sharp glass, in addition to being showered by a shattered window, it is highly probable that the actuarial risk of dying from the threat that Camden is now addressing is zero.

The fear of being found guilty of culpable negligence is one of the principal drivers of the creeping risk aversion denounced by Hackett. If something nasty could happen on your watch, and you might be held responsible, and you don’t have to pay for measures that reduce its likelihood, why take the chance, however minute the risk?

Those with an institutional responsibility for safety can always find one more thing that could happen. Their task is open ended. The above example of bureaucratic risk aversion is a small one of no great consequence – on its own. But it is endlessly repeated and wastes an enormous amount of money. Many things “could happen” – the precautionary principle allied to a vivid imagination can bankrupt any government.

Continue reading »]]> On 30 June and 1 July Oxford Brookes University is holding a History of Road Safety Symposium (http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/conference/history_of_road_safety_symposium). History, as they say, is written by the victors.

The concluding speaker is Rob Gifford, Executive Director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety. The title of his presentation is “How parliament came to love seat belts.”

PACTS offers historians this view of its victory in securing Parliament’s love of seat belts, which culminated in the passage of the law (on its website at http://www.pacts.org.uk/newsletters.php?id=2).

“DfT Celebrates 25th Anniversary of the introduction of seatbelts

On the 31st January 2008, the 25th anniversary of the law change which made front seatbelt wearing compulsory was celebrated. PACTS itself was set up by Barry Sheerman MP as part of the fight to get mandatory seatbelt wearing turned into legislation. Eight years later it became compulsory for all backseat passengers to use seatbelts and it is estimated that since the introduction of the first law change in 1983, seatbelts have prevented 60,000 deaths and over 670,000 serious injuries.”

I have been challenging the PACTS view of seat belt history since before it was history – http://john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2006/SAE%20seatbelts.pdf – but to no avail.

My interest was re-stimulated by the absurd claims made by PACTS in celebration of the 25^th anniversary of its achievement. I have challenged the claim in a number of blogs about seat belts on my website – http://www.john-adams.co.uk/category/seat-belts/ – including four open letters to the Executive Director of PACTS.

A “History of Road Safety Symposium” is an excellent idea and the programme includes some excellent contributors. It is a great pity that it will be undermined by giving the final slot to a celebration – unopposed – of the discredited seat-belt law.

Continue reading »]]> I’ve just had an email from the chair of the Bournemouth Cycling Forum with an interesting complaint. Local police are targeting “criminal” cyclists who cycle without lights and cycle on the pavement.
He questions whether, in these straitened times, these should be police priorities. Does anyone have any evidence that cycling without lights is dangerous? The last time I was in Amsterdam, a city with a vastly superior cycling safety record to anywhere in the UK, I conducted a scientific survey, for half an hour after dark, of passing cyclists – 50% had no lights.
On the subject of pavement cycling he has done his research. He has found guidelines from the Home Office on the 1999 fixed-penalty fines for pavement cycling. They explicitly state: “the issue is about inconsiderate cycling on the pavements. The new provisions are not aimed at responsible cyclists who sometimes feel obliged to use the pavement out of fear of the traffic, and who show consideration to other road users when doing so. Chief officers recognise that the fixed penalty needs to be used with a considerable degree of discretion and it cannot be issued to anyone under the age of 16. (Letter to Mr H. Peel from John Crozier of The Home Office, reference T5080/4, 23 February 2004)”
He (his name is name is Mike Chalkley – cycling@mikeandche.co.uk -) makes a further compelling point. “I personally believe cyclists should on the whole be treated as pedestrians are and allowed to do as they please (unless clearly endangering others through inconsiderate or dangerous behaviour). The traffic laws that apply to them are anachronistic and archaic and do nothing but fuel fear from both the Police and society as a whole.”
I agree with Mike. Comments welcomed.

Continue reading »]]> On 20 April 2011 I was invited to speak at a conference on “Critical Infrastructure Protection” at the Counter Terror Expo at the Olympia in London. The two vast Olympia exhibition halls were filled with exhibitors selling protection against terrorists: on display were lorry-bomb-resistant barriers and bollards, blast containment solutions, CCTV and covert surveillance systems, CBRN detection and protection, explosive detection systems, body armour, automatic number plate recognition hardware and software …… and much much more – click here for a full list of exhibitors. Counter-terrorism is, by all appearances, a vast and profitable industry, and one with an obvious incentive to stress the urgent need for its services. There were no exhibitors posing the question “Is all this necessary?”

In my presentation I argued for a sense of proportion – the precautionary principle allied to a vivid imagination can justify the denial of civil liberties and bankrupt any government. I cited the particular example of the police in London confiscating naked bicycles in the vicinity of Parliament Square and Whitehall on the grounds that they might be pipe bombs in disguise. I said that I could find no evidence of anyone, anywhere, ever having been killed by such a device – for previous postings on this subject click here.

This provoked a challenge on a website called Coldstreamers – a chat room for current and former members of the Coldstream Guards. It is refreshing to encounter people on the security frontline who are prepared discuss this issue. London’s Metropolitan Police have been conspicuously unwilling to provide a justification for their cycle parking ban in Westminster.

Someone who had been at my presentation said “I was at the counter terrorism expo last week and one of the professors said no one ever in the world had been killed by a bomb disguised as a bike and I’m sure he is wrong. Can any one help?”

Such help was not forthcoming. After about 400 hits one respondent familiar with the evidence said “Has it [a pipe bomb disguised as a bicycle] actually killed anyone? I think not.” And another denounced the police reaction as “a totally paranoid act.” After a further week and more than another 100 views without further comment this appears to be the final Coldstreamers’ word on the subject.

One definition of paranoia is “an excessive suspicion of the motives of others”. Judged by the actuarial evidence – no evidence has so far been produced of anyone in the world having been killed by a pipe bomb disguised as a bicycle – the police reaction is paranoid. The reaction is also arbitrary. It is possible, if difficult, to disguise a pipe bomb as a bicycle. But there are many other easier ways, from backpacks and briefcases to cars and lorries, to create a much larger explosion. If bicycles are to be banned from Parliament Square and Whitehall why not all the other places in London where large numbers of people congregate? The paranoid fear of bicycles carried to its logical conclusion would eliminate bicycles as a mode of transport.

Proving a negative is always difficult. The quest for evidence that a pipe bomb disguised as a bicycle has ever harmed anyone continues. But whether, in the whole history of terrorism, bicycle-pipe bombs have killed one person, or two, or a few, or no one, it still seems fair to characterize banning the parking of naked bicycles in Westminster as arbitrary and paranoid.

Continue reading »]]> 1. Simple assertion.

An example can be found in the current issue of The Economist by the journal’s Science and Technology correspondent writing under the name of Babbage (http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/02/road_safety).  Babbage notes that the US fatality rate has been “inching down over the past half century” and then proceeds to explain why: it is the result of “the wholesale introduction of safety belts and air-bags, as well as tougher drunk-driving laws.”  This provoked me into posting the following comment on Babbage’s article.

“Babbage disappoints. He notes that in the US the fatality rate per 100m vehicle-miles had “been steadily inching down over the past half century.” He goes on “For that, traffic authorities everywhere can thank the wholesale introduction of safety-belts and air-bags, as well as tougher drunk-driving laws.”

The “inching down” has been going on for much longer than the last half century – it began with the Model-T – and long pre-dates seat belts, air bags and drunk-driving laws. In Britain the “inching” rate has been about 5% a year since 1950 and the death rate per 100m vehicle kilometers is now about one twentieth of the 1950 level. The contribution of seat belt and drunk driving laws to this “inching” is statistically undetectable – see “Managing Transport Risks: what works?” (http://john-adams.co.uk/2010/12/02/managing-transport-risks-what-works/).

The inching-down with increasing levels of motorization, noted by Babbage, is a social learning process first described by Reuben Smeed in 1949. It is manifest in countries at all levels of motorization and appears to have little connection with technical or legal safety interventions. Today countries with low levels of car ownership are achieving kill rates per vehicle, with modern imported cars with 100 years of safety technology built into them, as high or higher than were achieved with model-Ts 100 years ago. The inching-own process is now widely labeled, in honour of its discoverer, as the manifestation of Smeed’s Law – try Google.”

2. Suppression of evidence.

Culling files recently in the course of moving house I came across some correspondence with the World Health Organization. In 1986 they had commissioned an article by me on seat belt legislation for The International Digest of Health Legislation. I assumed that the invitation was the result of things that I had already published on the subject:

* http://john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2006/SAE%20seatbelts.pdf
* http://john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/significance.pdf
* http://john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/risk%20and%20freedom.pdf, chapter 5.

The article I submitted summarized the evidence and arguments of these earlier essays. I assumed they knew what they were commissioning.

I received a prompt reply from someone with the title “Chief, Health Legislation”:  “I would like to inform you that, for editorial reasons, your review will not appear in the International Digest of Health Legislation. Even though, under the terms of the contractual agreement with you, copyright in the text is vested with the Organization, we have no objection to the review being submitted by you for publication elsewhere, subject to the proviso that no mention is made of the fact that the review was commissioned and an honorarium was paid by WHO.”

From that day to this (http://www.who.int/roadsafety/projects/manuals/seatbelt/en/) the WHO has campaigned for seat-belt legislation. No mention should be made of evidence that casts doubt on the efficacy of such legislation – that would undermine the efficacy of its campaign for more legislation.

Continue reading »]]>

I have been invited to contribute a chapter to a book called Risk Theory Handbook to be published by Springer. Publication is scheduled for a year from now, so there is still time to make changes/corrections/improvements. Comments are welcomed. Here is the abstract.

Abstract

What does a transport safety regulator have in common with a shaman conducting a rain dance? They both have an inflated opinion of the effectiveness of their interventions in the functioning of the complex interactive systems they purport to influence or control. There is however a significant difference. The clouds are indifferent to the antics of the shaman and his followers. But people react to the edicts of a regulator and frequently not in the way the regulator intends. There are two different kinds of manager involved in the management of transport risks: there are the “official”, institutional, risk managers who strive incessantly to make the systems for which they are responsible safer, and there are the billions of individual fallible human users of the systems, each balancing the rewards of risk against the potential accident risks associated with their behaviour. Conventional road safety measures rest on a model of human behavior that assumes that road users are stupid, obedient automatons who are unresponsive to perceived changes in risk and who need protecting, by law, from their own and others’ stupidity. The idea of risk compensation underpins an alternative model of human behavior: that road users are intelligent, vigilant, responsive to evidence of safety and danger and, given the right signals and incentives, considerate.

The full paper can be found here.

Continue reading »]]> The Daily Mail today raised my hopes that it had had a Damascene conversion on the subject of drugs – and then dashed them. Below a letter to the editor that is certain not to get published.

Dear Sir

The Mail is often given credit for making the political weather. Certainly many politicians claim to believe it. Fear of what the Mail might say has been a major impediment to a serious engagement by politicians in a public debate about drugs.

I was therefore delighted to read Andrew Alexander’s article (How legalising drugs would deal with the local baron[1]) in the Mail today. He advanced no new arguments but put persuasively what sensible people who have studied the subject have been have been saying for many years.

My delight was short-lived. You carefully counter-balanced Alexander’s article with an ill-informed rant by Stephen Glover (Why doesn’t this dangerous man come clean and admit he wants to legalise drugs?[2]). Glover says “I believe that legalising drugs, or even just taking them less seriously than alcohol, would be a social disaster in which the poor and disadvantaged would suffer most.” This is a belief without evidential support. It is an “argument” worthy of Sarah Palin or Christine O’Donnell. But in giving it prominent exposure you will have restored the fear of sensible politicians that saying anything sensible on the subject will result in a savaging by the Mail.

Yours sincerely

John Adams

[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1326030/How-legalising-drugs-deal-local-baron.html#ixzz14EgrklOg

[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1325788/Why-doesnt-Prof-David-Nutt-come-clean-admit-wants-legalise-drugs.html#ixzz14EjGfQBW

Previous postings on this theme at http://john-adams.co.uk/category/drugs/ and http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/000195.php

PS My letter unsurprisingly did not get published. But I take some encouragement from the numerous comments posted in response to the Alexander and Glover articles. I looked at the first 20 responses to both articles. The comments on the Alexander (pro-legalization) article were overwhelmingly favorable: 17 to 3. The comments on the Glover (anti-legalization) article were overwhelmingly negative: 18 to 2. Can it be that most Mail readers buy it to stoke up their indignation? JA 13.25, 4/11/2010.

Continue reading »]]> Moving house I have discovered 30 copies of this book that I have put on Amazon for £5 – the inducement I need to go to the post office. Below an Amazon review that I quite like.

Amazon Review (*****):

Risk and Freedom is a book of historic significance. Published in 1985 and out of print for many years it continues to have a profound influence on road safety policy. It provides the first coherent application of the concept of “risk compensation” to the management of risk on the road. Risk compensation is a term coined by Canadian psychologist Gerald Wilde in the 1970s to describe the behavioural adjustments of people to perceived changes in safety or danger. In Risk and Freedom Adams applies the idea to a wide variety of road safety measures – seat belts, helmets, speed limits, alcohol limits, highway improvements, crumple zones and other crash protection measures, improved brakes and tires, and accident blackspot treatments, to name the main ones.

The idea that risk compensation could explain the failure of such measures to achieve their promised benefits was, at the time, unanimously dismissed out of hand by highway engineers, vehicle designers, and regulators. Today it is widely accepted as mere common sense, and serves as the basis for the new, and increasingly popular, shared space schemes. The most obvious explanation for the success of these schemes is Adams’ argument that road users are not obedient automatons, but alert and responsive participants in what Adams calls in his last book, Risk, “the dance of the risk thermostats”. Also, unlike most books on this subject it is well-written and entertaining.