Sunday, September 16, 2018

PJ Could Top Grim Table By Year-End


The one for ten years of biggest road fatalities. A word of caution though. In two years – 1995 and 2000 – there was a change of PM so the corresponding numbers don't entirely 'belong' to the PMs listed for them. We allocated the full year to the PM who was in office for more than half of the year.

PJ who is already in the list along with three former PMs – Bérenger's first entry of 144 for 2004 is at the 17th spot – is likely to see his number for 2018 go all the way to the top under three scenarios. The first two are if the last third of this year relative to the first two is like those for 2016 and 2014. The third if we extrapolate the total of 115 deaths reached at the end of August. Another entry might go in the middle of the table if 2018 is more like 2015. Of course all four entries would bump his entry for 2017 – his first year as PM – out of this ranking.

We haven't made good progress in road safety for way too long. And in the last thirteen years the economy-breaking Sithanen flat tax and other indecent fiscal exemptions have ensured that we didn't have enough money to bring road deaths down in a significant and persistent manner. Unlike say Singapore which has seen road fatalities decline in every one of the past ten years except two – here they have been increasing for each of the last three years with Bodha as Minister – reducing them literally by half. The type of tax structure you have determines the number of people who die on roads. So this makes the flat tax akin to a drone assassination programme. And exposes the absurdity of calls to transform the revenues of the dead sugar industry into a guaranteed fixed-deposit.

3 comments:

akagugo said...

Please add this report as an additional nail to the coffin of summer time, so that you can add the impact of reduced alertness on the number of accidents for a solid week's time of adaptation to the new sleep cycle - on NCR's account.

"...la sécurité le retour à l'heure d'hiver entraîne un pic d'accidents pendant " une bonne semaine ", notamment en fin de journée où le surcroît atteint +47 % pour les piétons39.
Le phénomène est également observé en Belgique, où d'octobre à novembre le nombre d'accidents affectant les piétons pendant l'heure de pointe du soir augmente de 29%, selon l’IBSR.
Le nombre de blessés graves et de tués parmi les piétons augmenterait même de 80% à Bruxelles."
That's why the EU has cancelled this year's winter time, and now you realise what we've been put through!

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

NCR has been and is still mesmerised by a bean-counter who cannot interpret percentages.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

New fatalities forecast for 2018 is about 142 which would be a drop of about 10% compared to 2017. That's the first year under Lepep that the numbers are going down. Harsher fines may have played a role but it's too early to celebrate. We still have a very long way to go. And clearly there are many pieces of our transport policy that require a substantial upgrading.

Singapore had 110 fatalities at the end of November. They'll improve over last year if they get less than 12 road deaths in the current month. This would be the 8th consecutive year of decline in road fatalities (it was 195 in 2011).