Since the 1980s, Britain’s roads have become significantly safer. People are alive today because academics such as my friend and colleague Richard Allsop, who has died aged 84, believed that thorough and rigorous research should support changes in public policy.
In his first post, as a scientific officer at the government’s Road Research Laboratory in West Drayton, west London, in 1964, he looked at the effectiveness of motorcycle helmets in casualty reduction and injury mitigation. This led to the law that made their wearing compulsory.
Later Richard was one of those who gave evidence to the review of road traffic law undertaken by the lawyer Peter North, which resulted in the new offence of causing death by dangerous driving, under the Road Traffic Act of 1988. He also published two reports on the effectiveness of speed cameras, commissioned by the RAC Foundation, which demonstrated that speed cameras save lives.
Between 1967 and 1972, Richard worked at University College London, lecturing in transport studies. He then moved to set up the Transport Operations Group at the University of Newcastle before returning in 1976 as professor of transport studies to UCL, where he remained until his retirement in 2005.
Richard was born and educated in Derby, the son of Grace (nee Tacey) and Edward Allsop. He was awarded a first-class degree in mathematics at Queens’ College, Cambridge in 1962 and a PhD in applicable mathematics by University College London in 1970.
I met Richard in 1994 when I was appointed executive director of the parliamentary advisory council for transport safety (PACTS), of which he was a trustee. As a newcomer to transport – except as a user – I was helped by Richard in the complexities of statistics. He wore his learning lightly but firmly, a stickler for accuracy in language and mathematics.
He rightly pointed out during a debate about the benefits of Central European Time that while lives would be saved by lighter evenings, we still had to acknowledge that some lives might be lost due to darker mornings. Safety was never an absolute; there would always be gains and losses. The challenge was to achieve improvement overall.
Richard’s professional life was not solely academic. He was a fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and of the Royal Statistical Society. He was a board member of the European Transport Safety Council and chair of its Road Safety Performance Index programme.
His commitment to international work began at university with involvement in the United Nations Association and War on Want. He was always ready to assist colleagues around the globe, and from 1997 onwards was adviser to the New Zealand Land Transport Safety Authority.
In 1990 he married Frances Killick, and she survives him.
