Sir Paul Stephenson has resigned because of his involvement in the phone hacking scandal. Here is another national scandal I believe he was implicated in as Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Read more »

I was interviewed by Jack Thurston about Road Danger Reduction and cycling for the entire July 4^th edition of the excellent “The Bike Show”  on Resonance FM. You can hear the interview here.

This book, one of the main sources of evidence for the road danger reduction approach, is now out of print.  A few copies are available from the author. Here are what reviewers have said: Read more »

   

No, I’m not saying Lewis Hamilton is a Nazi. Nor that Mercedes-Benz are (not now anyway). Nor that the “road safety” lobby is Nazi. I’m not, really I am not. I am not falling foul of  Godwin’s Law. I promise.   

There are just some interesting connections between the four of them which I noted after my eye fell on the following Press Release (from 2009) and which I think are revealing: “Lewis Hamilton has launched a new initiative at Mercedes-Benz World to give teenagers a greater understanding of road safety.”  Read more »

A picture is worth a thousand words, and this one disseminated by the Campaign for Global Road Safety (sic) for the UN Decade for Road Safety is a good indicator of what is wrong with it. Children in South-East Asia show how the CGRS and others behind this initiative think of the basic act of crossing the road: heavily supervised by adults; wearing crash helmets; carrying hi-viz signals; and even tied to each other. This is exactly not what real road safety is about. Let’s look at the origins of the “UN Decade for Road Safety” to learn where this nonsense has come from: Read more »

Above you see the “Decade of Action” being launched by the Prime Minister with Formula One racers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton. This episode is quite a good indication of at least part of what is wrong with  this initiative. It is dangerous nonsense which sends out the opposite of the messages we need to present to achieve real road safety. Just in case you think this is a wildly radical sentiment, consider the following from the Chief leader writer of the Daily Telegraph: ”Are these really the chaps to persuade boy racers to slow down? Whatever next? A new crackdown on violent crime, with Peter Sutcliffe and Donald Neilson in attendance?”. Read more »

Let’s take a look … Read more »

We make another key point about the dire Strategic Framework for Road Safety  we commented on yesterday.

This is the central theme of absolving the majority of those drivers responsible for most of the danger on the roads by diverting attention on to the very worst drivers – who won’t be dealt with either. Read more »

       PRESS RELEASE   Wednesday May 11^th 2011

“Nationally and internationally, this is a bad day for safety on the roads”.

Subject: UN “Decade of Action for Road Safety” and Department for Transport “Strategic Framework for Road Safety”.

This dark day for a civilised approach to danger on the roads will be symbolised by the UK Prime Minister David Cameron welcoming Formula One racing drivers to 10 Downing Street. Both the UN and UK “strategies” are based on misleading measures of safety on the road and conniving with careless and dangerous driving.

Globally, we support our colleagues in RoadPeace saying that: “reducing road danger, through the reduction in speed, volume and dominance of motorised vehicles, is essential not only to reduce road deaths but also to tackle the twin crises of climate change and obesity”.

Nationally, a civilised approach to safety on the road requires reducing danger at source from careless and dangerous driving, with proper accountability from those responsible for it. But this has once again been opposed by the Department for Transport’s downgrading of the importance of careless driving by reducing likely penalties and ineffective “education” for bad drivers.

Note to Editors:

The Road Danger Reduction Forum is a transport professionals-based organisation with support from cycling, pedestrian, road crash victims and sustainable transport organisations in the UK. Go to www.rdrf.org.uk

Above is our Press Release. We will be spending some time saying what is so wrong with these two strategies, meanwhile let’s get one of the perpetrators of the global strategy to show his true colours: 

Lord Robertson – http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01114ks/Today_11_05_2011/  Listen at 2:41:50. This excerpt was aired at the RoadPeace conference at London School of Hygiene and Medicine on May11th to gales of laughter.