Road Safety & Cllr. Harry Smith – Facts not Labour Fiction

Harry says “The results of the traffic survey have shown that average daily flows of 791 vehicles and average 85%ile speeds of 35.6mph within Boundary Road. Speeding by individual drivers is irresponsible however, not all roads where drivers speed require the introduction of lowered speed limits. Indeed, the very few irresponsible drivers choosing to grossly … Continue reading “Road Safety & Cllr. Harry Smith – Facts not Labour Fiction”

Harry says “The results of the traffic survey have shown that average daily flows of 791 vehicles and average 85%ile speeds of 35.6mph within Boundary Road. Speeding by individual drivers is irresponsible however, not all roads where drivers speed require the introduction of lowered speed limits. Indeed, the very few irresponsible drivers choosing to grossly ignore the current 30mph speed limit by travelling in excess of 40 and 50mph are unlikely to adhere to a 20mph speed limit.”

The automated traffic count can be viewed by anyone reading this article.

Let’s start with the first statistic quoted by Harry, an average 791 daily flows of traffic.

Northbound Southbound Total Daily Flow
Sat 738 630 1368
Sun 659 563 1222
Mon 876 710 1586
Tue 867 788 1655
Wed 905 831 1736
Thu 884 776 1660
Fri 973 874 1847
Average 843 739 1582




Amazingly Harry’s average of 791 is half of what it should be. Harry has taken the real figure 1,582 and amazingly halved it! This means the average traffic flows are double what he stated in front of about 60 councillors and members of the public!

Now we’ve learnt there were double the cars Harry thought there were, let’s move his claims about speed.

Once again Harry tries incorrectly to take an average of two figures (from the Northbound and Southbound counts) to make it sound better.

One figure is for the slowest 5 out of every 6 cars going Northbound. The other figure is for the slowest 5 out of every 6 cars going Southbound.

As shown above in the table an extra 15% of vehicles went in the Northbound direction, so you can’t just average out the two figures by adding them together and dividing by two. 5,902 cars went Northbound, but only 5,174 went Southbound.

However Harry’s next point as he makes a prediction:-

“the very few irresponsible drivers choosing to grossly ignore the current 30mph speed limit by travelling in excess of 40 and 50mph are unlikely to adhere to a 20mph speed limit.”

Yes, Harry there are a few drivers (suprisingly) during this study that travelled between 60 and 70mph in a 30mph area.

However let’s stick to those doing above 30mph. Most of the drivers are exceeding the speed limit going Northbound. When you add together the drivers going in the other direction too exceeding the speed limit it’s nearly 5,000 speeding vehicles/week.

If you’re trying to cross the road and a driver is doing 40mph, 50mph or 60mph if you get hit your chances of survival are pretty slim.

The speeding traffic is comparable to what Harry said was the total traffic flows.

Yes, there are under a hundred vehicles doing over 45mph a week. However how does Harry know what these drivers would do even if they were reminded of the current speed limit? I live in the road this survey was done. There aren’t any signs telling drivers of the current speed limit, so how are drivers to know what it is?

Harry also said “As a concerned Ward Councillor I have asked that the Director make all available efforts to conclude his outstanding investigations as soon as possible and report his findings appropriately.”

We’re still here 14 months later. I appreciate what has been done so far, but it hasn’t addressed the issues in the petition. How fast is ASAP?

134 Boundary Road, Bidston, CH43 7PH

Author: John Brace

New media journalist from Birkenhead, England who writes about Wirral Council. Published and promoted by John Brace, 134 Boundary Road, Bidston, CH43 7PH. Printed by UK Webhosting Ltd t/a Tsohost, 113-114 Buckingham Avenue, Slough, Berkshire, England, SL1 4PF.