Road Collision Investigation Branch

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WHBM
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Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by WHBM »

Government white paper launched on what seems an equivalent to the RAIB which investigates significant railway accidents

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/gove ... ion-branch

Don't think we discussed this before. Any thoughts ?
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by Fenlander »

Been saying we need something like this for years. In aviation the safety reports are published so others can learn from the mistakes and the industry can improve in general, same for rail. It’s always struck me as odd that on the roads we are quite happy to refer to places as accident blackspots but do very little about either the scene itself, the vehicles that use it or the driving behaviour.
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KeithW
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by KeithW »

We definitely need something like this. 30 years ago a friend of mine who was a road safety expert was trying to get the DfT interested in this, His initial training was as a psychologist and his thesis was based on the notion that people are rarely killed or seriously injured doing something they see as dangerous but get in trouble when they perceive their actions as low risk. One particular problem he identified was that drivers were very poor at judging the distances needed for overtaking on S2 roads. So there was a surprising rise in serious RTA's on stretches of straight road that immediately followed a section on which overtaking was impossible.

One example he mentioned was this stretch of the A68 in Durham.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.79369 ... !1e1?hl=en

There was an alarming accident rate when the centre line was a simple dashed line as drivers would see an apparently clear road ahead but would find themselves hafway past a large truck when someone came round the corner or appeared from a dip in the road coming the other way. A simple change in the road markings cut serious accident rates radically.
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Bryn666
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by Bryn666 »

I'm all for it. It's absolutely nonsensical that people still think if someone is killed on the roads we should just sweep their corpse to one side and not find out the cause.
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by trickstat »

KeithW wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 09:39 We definitely need something like this. 30 years ago a friend of mine who was a road safety expert was trying to get the DfT interested in this, His initial training was as a psychologist and his thesis was based on the notion that people are rarely killed or seriously injured doing something they see as dangerous but get in trouble when they perceive their actions as low risk. One particular problem he identified was that drivers were very poor at judging the distances needed for overtaking on S2 roads. So there was a surprising rise in serious RTA's on stretches of straight road that immediately followed a section on which overtaking was impossible.

One example he mentioned was this stretch of the A68 in Durham.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.79369 ... !1e1?hl=en

There was an alarming accident rate when the centre line was a simple dashed line as drivers would see an apparently clear road ahead but would find themselves hafway past a large truck when someone came round the corner or appeared from a dip in the road coming the other way. A simple change in the road markings cut serious accident rates radically.
I remember as a young man, who'd recently moved from Stevenage to Letchworth, I had a relatively near miss along this stretch of the former A1:

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.9425524 ... 312!8i6656 (the hatching wasn't there some 30 years ago)

I overtook a car thinking that it was clear to the brow of the small hill some distance north but didn't realise there is a dip before the hill and that there was a car coming in the opposite direction. I put my foot down extra hard and avoided any near misses but I never tried to overtake there again. (There is also a mobile homes park, a pub/restaurant and various other businesses on the left from which a vehicle might emerge).
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by Peter Freeman »

In each of those anecdotes, presumably from many years ago, the missing item was a continuous white centreline. Does the UK now have a far greater density of such markings?

In Victoria, Australia, the police have a dedicated 'Road Collisions Forensic Branch' (I think that's the title). I know about it because my partner's nephew (50) is one of its senior investigators.

Edit: The unit's name is Victorian Police Collision Reconstruction Unit. It's probably more incident-scale and less far-reaching than the UK proposed RCIB.
Last edited by Peter Freeman on Fri Nov 19, 2021 01:07, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by jnty »

There are "fatal accident inquiries", but these seem to take ages if they happen at all. RAIB on the other hand tends to deliver interim notes on accidents within a week and full reports within a year. The latter seems more practically useful than the former but presumably the aims of each process are different.
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by Bomag »

Bryn666 wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 09:50 I'm all for it. It's absolutely nonsensical that people still think if someone is killed on the roads we should just sweep their corpse to one side and not find out the cause.
That would be good, but currently any delay in reopening is normally not to find out the cause so we can learn from it but to find out if the the Police can blame/prosecute someone.
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by Ruperts Trooper »

Bomag wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 13:26
Bryn666 wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 09:50 I'm all for it. It's absolutely nonsensical that people still think if someone is killed on the roads we should just sweep their corpse to one side and not find out the cause.
That would be good, but currently any delay in reopening is normally not to find out the cause so we can learn from it but to find out if the the Police can blame/prosecute someone.
With proper investigation, there's more to it than simple blame/prosecution - there may well be wider lessons to be learnt about the roads, infrastructure, vehicles, passengers, bystanders, etc.

It'll be interesting to see how they balance thoroughness of investigation against timely reopening of the accident scene.
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skiddaw05
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by skiddaw05 »

Peter Freeman wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 12:25 In each of those anecdotes, presumably from many years ago, the missing item was a continuous white centreline. Does the UK now have a far greater density of such markings?
I can't imagine there has been much of an increase unless there has been any significant changes to the visibility criteria guiding their use
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c2R
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by c2R »

skiddaw05 wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 13:46
Peter Freeman wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 12:25 In each of those anecdotes, presumably from many years ago, the missing item was a continuous white centreline. Does the UK now have a far greater density of such markings?
I can't imagine there has been much of an increase unless there has been any significant changes to the visibility criteria guiding their use
I suspect there has, with more complex junctions and islands being put in place, as well as reviews of roads with higher than average accident rates
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by JohnnyMo »

Bomag wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 13:26
Bryn666 wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 09:50 I'm all for it. It's absolutely nonsensical that people still think if someone is killed on the roads we should just sweep their corpse to one side and not find out the cause.
That would be good, but currently any delay in reopening is normally not to find out the cause so we can learn from it but to find out if the the Police can blame/prosecute someone.
There is a difference between given this junction Driver A is at fault and remove that tree and the junction will be much safer.

Cynic in me I expects reduce the speed limit and the junction will be much safer.
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by Peter Freeman »

c2R wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 14:00
skiddaw05 wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 13:46
Peter Freeman wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 12:25 In each of those anecdotes, presumably from many years ago, the missing item was a continuous white centreline. Does the UK now have a far greater density of such markings?
I can't imagine there has been much of an increase unless there has been any significant changes to the visibility criteria guiding their use
I suspect there has, with more complex junctions and islands being put in place, as well as reviews of roads with higher than average accident rates
I would hope so. Surely "a dip before the hill" is a visibility criterion that would always have justified a solid white line.
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by fras »

Bryn666 wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 09:50 I'm all for it. It's absolutely nonsensical that people still think if someone is killed on the roads we should just sweep their corpse to one side and not find out the cause.
Me too !
Of course the investigation of railway accidents goes back to the Victorian age, and for air travel, obviously much later, but still decades ago. The main difference between rail/air and road is that the "vehicles" on the former are almost always driven/piloted by professionals with the public )passengers) in their care, whereas on the roads, it is any Tom, Dick, or Harry with a driving licence. There is also the far greater accident rate on the roads. It seems to me that any new body should, at least in its early years, concentrate on accidents involving death or very serious injury. Prosecutions for road accidents are commonplace, but not so frequent with rail/air accidents, although obviously they do ocasionally take place. This is the real problem with road accidents, the automatic assumption that "someone's to blame".
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by cb a1 »

fras wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 17:49
Bryn666 wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 09:50 I'm all for it. It's absolutely nonsensical that people still think if someone is killed on the roads we should just sweep their corpse to one side and not find out the cause.
Me too !
Of course the investigation of railway accidents goes back to the Victorian age, and for air travel, obviously much later, but still decades ago. The main difference between rail/air and road is that the "vehicles" on the former are almost always driven/piloted by professionals with the public )passengers) in their care, whereas on the roads, it is any Tom, Dick, or Harry with a driving licence. There is also the far greater accident rate on the roads. It seems to me that any new body should, at least in its early years, concentrate on accidents involving death or very serious injury. Prosecutions for road accidents are commonplace, but not so frequent with rail/air accidents, although obviously they do ocasionally take place. This is the real problem with road accidents, the automatic assumption that "someone's to blame".
I wonder what proportion of rail and air accidents are due to 'operator error'?

Also, where there is rail or air operator error, the numbers of people involved in providing additional training is a relatively small group who have more of a vested interest in getting it right.

My recollection from when I did the Road Safety module at Uni was that for road collisions, driver error was 97%.

Changes to the transport network or vehicles will be minimal because that's all the road safety industry for the last 50 years have been able to focus on.

I would expect the main findings of the RCIB would be to recommend mandatory re-testing of drivers and much sticter regulations on passing in the first place and more health issues being identified for the removal of driving licence. All of which will be declared as a 'war on the motorist' and that we already have the highest safety levels and strictest driving standards, etc. Without a dedicated RCIB, politicians, whilst knowing what needs to be done, have been able to sit on their hands citing a supposed lack of evidence.
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by Vierwielen »

Two years ago I went on a visit to the AAIB as part of a local group . The tour (the standard AAIB tour) had two parts - the first was in a lecture theatre where the principles of the AAIB were explained, the main one being that "The purpose of such investigations to identify the causes of the accidents and to make recommendation to prevent recurrence of such accidents. Such investigations do NOT apportion blame or liability".

The second part of the visit was a tour of the hangers where the wreckages under consideration are stored while they are being investgated.
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by c2R »

Peter Freeman wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 14:29
c2R wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 14:00
skiddaw05 wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 13:46
I can't imagine there has been much of an increase unless there has been any significant changes to the visibility criteria guiding their use
I suspect there has, with more complex junctions and islands being put in place, as well as reviews of roads with higher than average accident rates
I would hope so. Surely "a dip before the hill" is a visibility criterion that would always have justified a solid white line.
There's all sorts of places that have always had broken lines and presumably haven't been assessed because there's not a high incidence of accidents at the location - e.g. here: https://www.google.com/maps/@54.0102557 ... 312!8i6656
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by Bryn666 »

c2R wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 18:51
Peter Freeman wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 14:29
c2R wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 14:00

I suspect there has, with more complex junctions and islands being put in place, as well as reviews of roads with higher than average accident rates
I would hope so. Surely "a dip before the hill" is a visibility criterion that would always have justified a solid white line.
There's all sorts of places that have always had broken lines and presumably haven't been assessed because there's not a high incidence of accidents at the location - e.g. here: https://www.google.com/maps/@54.0102557 ... 312!8i6656
General incompetence in design has also rendered the humble warning line as a default marking so it now has no meaning on sharp bends or crests/dips. Even motorways have miles of warning lines at slip roads, for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by KeithW »

Peter Freeman wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 12:25 In each of those anecdotes, presumably from many years ago, the missing item was a continuous white centreline. Does the UK now have a far greater density of such markings?

In Victoria, Australia, the police have a dedicated 'Road Collisions Forensic Branch' (I think that's the title). I know about it because my partner's nephew (50) is one of its senior investigators.
Individual accidents that result in serious or fatal injuries are investigated. What seems to being suggested here is an investigation of the road layout to see if that is part of the problem. There is one junction on the A505 here that has produced a lot of serious RTA's and close calls. Its fairly obvious in daytime but even then for an HGV trying to do a right turn is very dangerous. With no street lights and poor sightlines because of the trees along the divider it van be downright lethal at night and there has been a large number of wrong way incidents when people assume its just an S2 road. They have now added lighting to make the no entry signs more obvious but if you look at the previous setup it would be very easy to make that mistake.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.02772 ... 6656?hl=en
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Re: Road Collision Investigation Branch

Post by SteveA30 »

Good idea. Perhaps we will learn how many accidents have been caused by phone distraction. A few HGV drivers have been charged on that basis but, I'm sure there are many more, involving all types of vehicle.
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