The devotion of a whole front page by The Times to cyclist safety is quite extraordinary. RDRF has, along with other organisations and 17,000 individuals as of today (05/02/2012) signed up to it. But will this campaign fizzle out like the ones waged by The Independent and the London Evening Standard – let alone safety campaigns launched throughout the last century? At the risk of seeming overly negative, we have to question features of this campaign and ask what will be required to effectively pursue the good intentions that exist.
After all, “safety on the road” can mean all kinds of things: from misguided and counterproductive fantasies through to getting the most vulnerable out of the way of the most dangerous. Public figures have signed up to The Times campaign – as they would to motherhood and apple pie. Below we analyse the campaign in detail: its potential for reducing danger on the road to cyclists and other road users, what will be required to pursue these objectives – and the problems that have already surfaced. Read more »
Peter Hitchens is part of a tendency in right-wing Conservatism, including the satirist Peter Simple , which has criticised some of the problems of mass car use, not least the “road safety” engineering of the modern car and its environment. I recommend that you read his latest piece on the subject. In such a piece you get more human insight into car and road safety culture than in so many professional articles. But there are -as always – problems. In fact, we should wonder: Is Peter Hitchens not something of a hypocrite on this subject? Read more »
Headcam footage
RDRF is pelased to have supported Martin Porter in hisaction described below in his press release: Read more »
It’s time to write again about the costs of motoring (no, not to its victims, just to car users), as we are in another spasm of a particularly unpleasant feature of car culture. This is the presentation of alleged motorist victimhood through the mangling and abuse of the English language. It’s worth examining this self-pitying culture as we have – as so often with “road safety” ideology and parts of car culture – an inversion of reality displayed to us.
According to Robert Halfon MP, families are being “crucified” by high petrol prices But should we see the Great British Motorist as Jesus nailed to the cross?
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World Transport, Policy & Practice is always an interesting read: the current issue, however, excels in revisiting an important classic text: Donald Appleyard’s seminal work on Livable Streets and its application in the streets of Bristol. Read more »
A debate on the reasons for declines in road traffic casualties continues in the practitioner’s fortnightly Local Transport Today. The current issue contains my weighing in as RDRF Chair on the side of those recognising that risk compensation exists… Read more »
I was interviewed by Jack Thurston about Road Danger Reduction and cycling for the entire July 4th 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 »
"Road Safety", Cars, Costs of motoring, Cycle helmets, Cycling, Health, HGVs, Law, Motorcycles, Road Danger Reduction, Walking
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 »
The continuing saga of Blackfriars Bridge has revealed a more high profile and combative London Cycling Campaign, preparing a new strategy for the organisation the year before the Mayoral elections. Will this be the way towards getting “the cyclised City”?
Consider LCC CEO Ashok Sinha’s approach as described in London Cyclist June-July 2011 (pp.16 – 18). Having stated that London is indisputably not a cyclised city, and not on a trajectory towards becoming one, how are we to remedy the situation (an issue we have addressed before here , here , and here ? The answer for him is “everything” Read more »
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The devotion of a whole front page by The Times to cyclist safety is quite extraordinary. RDRF has, along with other organisations and 17,000 individuals as of today (05/02/2012) signed up to it. But will this campaign fizzle out like the ones waged by The Independent and the London Evening Standard – let alone safety campaigns launched throughout the last century? At the risk of seeming overly negative, we have to question features of this campaign and ask what will be required to effectively pursue the good intentions that exist. 
