Data Mining and Road Safety: The Perfect Mind to Investigate Pedestrian Risk (Live within Reason : The Perfect Mind Book 18)

In a perfect world gifted analysts pore over complex data sets and derive an elegant and common sense picture of road safety. That's certainly possible, and almost what happens. The elegant and common sense picture is certainly there. Yet somehow between the data and the public the picture goes awry. Message intervenes. A plausible story replaces an accurate one, and the public, pedestrians and motorists are left in the dark as to the real risks they're facing. They know them in principle, but they're not a big deal. They're safe. It's going to take people with integrity and skill to discover for themselves just what the real and accurate picture looks like. Reading this book is a part of that. It describes one corner of one analyst's experience, and the story that emerges. It's gong to take rather more than one analyst to make a difference. Only when a number of skilled analysts consistently discover a common-sense view that is both accurate and borne out by the figures, will a balanced and effective road policy emerge. The public is relying on a source that has other things on its mind than road safety. Convenience overrides accuracy and road safety suffers as the public are misled into a false understanding of their own risk and contribution to that risk. Discover one corner of one analyst's work and decide for yourself: is it worth exploring further, and if so, how far down the rabbit hole am I willing to go?