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 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 »

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 »

       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.

I’m pleased to report that Local Transport Today, the fortnightly journal for transport practitioners, has given us a significant outlet for publicising Road Danger Reduction (RDR) in it’s special supplement “Road Safety: Towards 2020″, out now (LTT570 06 May – 19 May 2011). Below I reproduce the published article of your Chair’s description of RDR- and how it differs from the rest of the contributions in the supplement. The supplement also includes a piece by Norma Fender, the UK’s first Road Danger Reduction Officer, on RDR work at LB Lambeth. Thanks LTT! Read more »