George Debono’s letter entitled ‘Road speed and death’ (The Sunday Times of Malta, January 8) was a real pleasure to read.
I commend his reference to various published studies and national data, but I would dispute his dismissal of official European Commission studies as unscientific. If one cannot compare national statistics, how can one then defend a comparison between Maltese data and those from selected European cities, as Dr Debono has done recently?
It is well known that one must take into consideration secondary factors when attempting to study the association between an outcome and potential predictions. However, when the speed limits (in Malta) have not changed, one cannot then assume that speed is a factor in explaining the observed sudden increase in local road fatalities. Since the factor ‘speed’ has not been observed to change, it cannot then be assumed to be a contributing factor, can it?
Rather, the unfortunate observed increase in motorcycle fatalities can reasonably be assumed to be a contributing factor. This is supported by studies that have shown that motorcycles and bicycles are far more dangerous to the rider than are other motor vehicles.
The studies quoted by Dr Debono must be considered in the context of other data that proves that roads which safely allow cars to travel at higher speeds are among the safest per kilometre travelled. The key issue here is inappropriate speed.
The crucial difference between excessive speed and inappropriate speed is key to interpreting these studies, as I have explained previously. Thus one cannot simply conclude that “the higher the speed, the greater the probability of a crash and the severity of the injuries”. That is an oversimplification.