Re: XPT of Rails at Wodonga Vic Wed 25/4?

["Bradley Torr" <truenorth@one.net.au.SPAMTRAP>]

Brendan <nadnerb_2000@nospam.start.com.au> wrote in article
<3aec111a_5@news01.one.net.au>...
> Yeah I saw that report:
> 
> Taxis came 6th
> Pedestrians 5th
> Cars 4th
> Trains 3rd
> Busses 2nd
> Air 1st

The thing about comparative transport safety statistics is that there are
so many ways to measure it, and each measurement produces quite different
results.

Ways of measuring transport safety include: fatalities per million vehicle
kilometres; fatalities per head of population; fatalities per million
passenger kilometres; fatalities per million vehicle hours; fatalities AND
injuries for each of the parameters above; incidents per million vehicle
kilometres; etc. etc. ad nauseum.

For example, I once read in the "Australian Post" about the supposedly
'slack' traffic law enforcement in the Northern Territory. It made light of
the fact that in Australia in generally, there are 9 road fatalities per
100,000 head of population per annum, but in the Territory, the figure is
23 road fatalities per 100,000 head of population. Looking at that alone,
one may think (and the journo at the "Australian Post" certainly thought)
that NTers are nothing more than a bunch of habitual drunkards who don't
wear seat belts, don't obey speed limits and that the police just sit by
while people are dying everywhere on the Territory's highways.

However - the article did not mention anything about the vast distances of
the Northern Territory whatsoever. Each person on average travels massive
road distances per year compared to southerners. Monthly shopping trips for
remote families and communities can exceed hundreds of kilometres. Vehicle
kilometres for cars and trucks would make the mind boggle too. When you
measure road fatalities in the Northern Territory PER MILLION VEHICLE
KILOMETRES or PER MILLION PASSENGER KILOMETRES or per million passenger
hours, the figures are much more reasonable, and as such, are unlikely to
make such sensational headlines.

This is just an example of how transport safety statistics can be
manipulated, and extraneous factors ignored. So I don't place too much
store on the BCA's claim that buses are the 'safest form of land
transport'.

Regards
BT