Belted statistics

Time once more to strengthen the position of TCO as the leading anti-Vägverket blog on the interweb. It's not so much that I deplore the institution as such, but rather that I find its doings so pathetically inept it has long since passed into the realm of the provocative. It is, without even so much as a shadow of a glimpse of doubt time to start over and do it properly.

In addition to the 30% that drink and drive, as blogged about earlier, according to a recent study, 50% of all people who suffer fatal accidents in Sweden aren't wearing their seatbelts. 50%. One in every two. Half of the entire crop, as it were. A simply astounding figure.

What do the good folks (read: intellectually challenged) at Vägverket do about this then?

Nothing.

Nothing they can do, they say. It's a problem on an individual level.

Bullshit, I say.

They do however - and all those who didn't see this one coming miles away raise their hands - see it as a sure sign of people driving too fast. You see, despite the fact that a lot of the victims had been able to walk away from the accidents without so much as a bump on their car, let alone their body, had they only worn seatbelts (this through Vägverket's own admission), the fact that they didn't wear them is a sign of them all being the kind of persons who are likely to take chances, which in turn is a sign of the kind of persons who are likely to speed. Tough to follow the reasoning? No wonder, there usually doesn't seem to be a whole lot of thinking behind their reasoning.

Anyway, the solution? You guessed it. More speed cameras.

Abso-fucking-lutely clinically insane.

As is this, for the Swedish speaking among you. I might translate it later, but for now I'll just do a bit of linking. It's worth a read and yet another sign of the downright jaw-dropping incompetence of Vägverket's.

Vägverket fighting journalist, refusing to adhere to EU regulations.

/JP