Guns don't kill people, speedbumps do.

[allntrlundrgrnd]

So today at work I was thinking about how much I completely and utterly loathe speedbumps and I ran across a link to this on cracked.com (http://www.cracked.com/article_17216_5-most-popular-safety-laws-that-dont-work.html)

Ambulance_delays (http://www.bromleytransport.org.uk/Ambulance_delays.htm)

The Chairman of the London Ambulance Service, Sigurd Reinton, recently claimed that speed humps are killing hundreds of Londoners by delaying 999 crews. He said “For every life saved through traffic calming, more are lost because of ambulance delays.”

There are about 8,000 heart attack victims in London every year, and London has a particularly poor survival rate. One reason is no doubt because even a small delay increases the death rate enormously. For example 90% of victims survive if treated within 2 minutes, but it falls to 10% if treatment is delayed for 6 minutes. So for every additional minute of delay caused, up to an extra 800 victims of cardiac arrest could die. This compares with a total of 300 people who die from traffic accidents.

Mr Reinton complained that the increasing number of anti-car measures such as speed humps, road closures, road narrowing and throttle points caused significant delays in responding to emergencies. Ambulances had to go even slower if carrying a critically ill patient.

Note that Kevin Knight, who is responsible for local London Ambulance services, also spoke against speed bumps using the same arguments at the recent council Environment Portolio holders meeting. He said they were now meeting the government target of reaching 75% of life threatening calls within 8 minutes (Editor: which is not good enough to save most heart attack victims - see above), but it was getting more and more difficult to do so and even a few seconds delay could impact the chance of survival for heart attack victims. Traffic calming features caused significant delays - for example 50% of the ambulances from one station would have had to go through the proposed Leesons Hill “throttle” where there would be queuing traffic.

Research in the USA supports these claims. One report from Boulder, Colorado suggests that for every life saved by traffic calming, as many as 85 people may die because emergency vehicles are delayed. It found response times are typically extended by 14% by speed-reduction measures. Another study conducted by the fire department in Austin, Texas showed an increase in the travel time of ambulances when transporting victims of up to 100%.


just sharing, cause I work as FOOD DELIVERY GUY in my 240 and i hate it...see sig

[ryguy]

That's an interesting statistic, totally not what I expected from the thread title.

[allntrlundrgrnd]

i was thinking of that huge dude in happy gilmore with the shirt that says 'guns dont kill people, I kill people' lol

[KOUKIboy]

^^Yeah guns dont pull the trigger...People do....

[SimpleS14]

Does anyone find that 8,000 heart attack vitcims in one city (London) is a bit alarming?

[s13tilldeath*]

yea i was thinking the same thing^^^^....

I hate speed bumps too, but i normally just go through the parking lot instead of hitting the speed bumps.......

[xtheenderx]

hahaha i love cracked. read that article yesterday!

[VROOOM]

ive personally seen a guy in a ford F150 hit a pregnant lady in front of the store i worked at. she lost the baby and was in serious condition. speed bumps may have helped her out. although the guy who hit her got arrested for DUI.

[1ZlowZ]

I thought someone was playing with a gun and hit a speed bump and shot himself...

[deolio]

http://chaibiscuitandme.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/irony61.jpg

[allntrlundrgrnd]

YouTube - Happy Gilmore - Shooter Getting Threatened (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G52aaTFibHo)

[ronmcdon]

'Century Gothic' font, I like! :)

Regarding the article, it's not really all that informative.
the key here is 'speed-reduction measures'
Speed bumps just happens to be one of them.
In London, there are many many other speed reduction measures other than speed bumps.
We don't see a statistic on how how speed bumps alone cause traffic delays.

If you've ever been to London, that city happens have a really shitty road infrastructure.
City pretty much started during the medieval times, so its not like it was built for cars in mind.
The city also gradually merged with hamlets/towns with gradual urban sprawl
There no block/grid structure.
Traffic is terrible, and the city is extremely dense at places.
Like many other cities in europe, many of the roads are tiny and hard to manuever.
U-turns at some spots are more or less impossible.

If hospitals are really concerned with traffic delaying issues, there's only so much you can do to get by 'speed reduction' factors.
even if you get rid of speedbumps, there's going to be traffic, shitty roads, and poor infrastructure.
best to equip ambulances as mobile ER's.
It would cost a lot lot more, but it would get the job done.
You might get there a bit slower, but it would be faster than driving to the patient, & driving back to the hospital.

[O3DigitalBath]

^there isn't room for ALL the equip....and are they just going to put one of everyt type of doctor/surgeon they have on every ambulance just in case?

do what you can in the mobile but helping people get to the actual hospital faster would always be a plus no matter how its acheived.


If you say the design of the city's roads isn't great...well that not always something that can be avoided. But ADDING to that can be...and that can decrease the time.

[ronmcdon]

^there isn't room for ALL the equip....and are they just going to put one of everyt type of doctor/surgeon they have on every ambulance just in case?

do what you can in the mobile but helping people get to the actual hospital faster would always be a plus no matter how its acheived.


If you say the design of the city's roads isn't great...well that not always something that can be avoided. But ADDING to that can be...and that can decrease the time.

no, you certainly cannot put every type of medical specialist & equipment inside every ambulance.
that's just not realistic.
however, ambulances should be prepared better to work with medical problems that are more common.
If more ppl are dying of heart attacks, then install equipment & train your personnel to deal with heart attacks.
there really isn't any perfect solution to this, just procedures to implement so that you can reduce fatalities.
It's up to the state or whomever to decide where to compromise between funds on ambulances & lives saved.
realistically, it's usually easier to better equip ambulances than to modify existing infrastructure.

[pablo180]

Easy solution....why don't they just mod the suspension of the ambulances so that it can take the speed bumps at a faster speed without compromising the equipment/doctors/patients inside??

[ryguy]

Does anyone find that 8,000 heart attack vitcims in one city (London) is a bit alarming?

London has a population of around 7.5 million people. That means that .00106 percent of the population of London has a heart attack every year. I would say that's reasonable. Thats only a little worse than 1 in 1000 people.



Easy solution....why don't they just mod the suspension of the ambulances so that it can take the speed bumps at a faster speed without compromising the equipment/doctors/patients inside??

Yeah, but what about the other 12 vehicles ahead of the ambulance that have to slow for the speed bump?

[lflkajfj12123]

Easy solution....why don't they just mod the suspension of the ambulances so that it can take the speed bumps at a faster speed without compromising the equipment/doctors/patients inside??

you really didn't use your head on this one did you?

[pablo180]

bah, I was thinking that the cars would pull to the side like they should when they hear the siren....maybe thats not an option in london.

[BustedS13]

why can't it be both?
car didn't hit no motherfuckin' bump.

ec-8mD_BhrU

[ronmcdon]

London has a population of around 7.5 million people. That means that .00106 percent of the population of London has a heart attack every year. I would say that's reasonable. Thats only a little worse than 1 in 1000 people.


thought 1 in 1,000 people would equate to closer to 0.1%
idk if it is reasonable, but that's a lot of human lives jeopardized by poor logistics.

reading the article further I think 'speed delaying factors' is pretty much negligible;

"90% of victims survive if treated within 2 minutes, but it falls to 10% if treatment is delayed for 6 minutes. So for every additional minute of delay caused, up to an extra 800 victims of cardiac arrest could die. This compares with a total of 300 people who die from traffic accidents."

We're not talking about the ambulance getting to the hospital 10-15 mins later.
This is a matter of 6 minutes being a life or death situation.
If you live in any decent sized suburb (no less a city of 7.5 mill), there's no way you can get any patient from any random part of town to the hosptial under 6 mins, every time.
that's just not possible even if you airlift the patient.
that's just not possible even if there was a hospital at every city block.

basically if there's not a doctor to treat you right there & then, you're done for.

[JayDee M Rolly]

speed bumps dont stop people from going fast over them.

the only people that slow down for speed bumps are the ones with lowered cars.

[Future240]

speed bumps dont stop people from going fast over them.

the only people that slow down for speed bumps are the ones with lowered cars.

I don't think an ambulance hitting a speed bump at high speed with a critical patient in it would be a smart idea

[Touge Noob S13]

speed bumps dont stop people from going fast over them.

the only people that slow down for speed bumps are the ones with lowered cars.


^True, today some a hole in a truck was honking at me for slowing down to go over a speed bump.