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.

Let’s take a detailed look at The Manifesto: “Cycling should be both safe and pleasurable. Ministers, mayors and local authorities must build cities that are fit for cycling.”

The Times has launched a public campaign and 8-point manifesto calling for cities to be made fit for cyclists:

1. Trucks entering a city centre should be required by law to fit sensors, audible truck-turning alarms, extra mirrors and safety bars to stop cyclists being thrown under the wheels.
2. The 500 most dangerous road junctions must be identified, redesigned or fitted with priority traffic lights for cyclists and Trixi mirrors that allow lorry drivers to see cyclists on their near-side.
3. A national audit of cycling to find out how many people cycle in Britain and how cyclists are killed or injured should be held to underpin effective cycle safety.
4. Two per cent of the Highways Agency budget should be earmarked for next generation cycle routes, providing £100 million a year towards world-class cycling infrastructure. Each year cities should be graded on the quality of cycling provision.
5. The training of cyclists and drivers must improve and cycle safety should become a core part of the driving test.
6. 20mph should become the default speed limit in residential areas where there are no cycle lanes.
7. Businesses should be invited to sponsor cycleways and cycling super-highways, mirroring the Barclays-backed bicycle hire scheme in London.
8. Every city, even those without an elected mayor, should appoint a cycling commissioner to push home reforms.”

COMMENTS:

1.

MORE TO COME

 At this point I confess experience – I briefly held the honour of being the “National Rights Officer” for BC’s precursor, the British Cycling Federation (BCF). This post didn’t last long. The BCF and now BC are basically not geared up for addressing transport policy and safety issues involving cyclists in the way that the CTC has been over the last decade or so, let alone the various urban cyclists groups.

Some old letter head...

 The current campaign is based on 800 self-selected BC members giving their views. (An interesting feature of all membership organisations is the way that policy is decided by members opinions being collected in various ways).

 And these views have a lot to do with what is required to reduce danger to cyclists: reducing speeds from 30 to 20 mph in urban areas; trying to get drivers to be aware of the right distance required for safe overtaking; removing lorry drivers “blind spots”; and not having cycle lanes that end suddenly.

 The BC Chief Executive is also correct to echo the idea of Safety in Numbers put forward by the CTC “…evidence suggests that the more people who cycle, the safer it becomes.”. This is a notion based on the adaptive behaviour of road users to perceived hazards, explored by the road safety academic Reuben Smeed decades ago, elaborated here , and here and studiously ignored by the road safety establishment ever since.

Where it gets dubious is when it comes to our old friend “mutual respect”. We are, so we are told, All in This Together. The BC Chief Executive, Ian Drake, says:

“It’s essential that we get away from this sense of ‘them and us’ between motorists and cyclists. Most people who ride a bike also drive a car which suggests there should already be some mutual understanding. Now more needs to be done to build on this and create culture in which all road users can better respect each other.

“And it’s important to stress that cyclists have as much of a role to play in this as motorists, by ensuring they adhere to the rules of the road with regards to things like stopping at red traffic lights and signalling correctly.”

Let’s be clear about this: I’m all for courtesy and being polite to one another. It’s nice to be nice. If we all do the Right Thing (whatever that might be) then nobody will be hurt or killed. It will all be just peachy. To mix the fruit metaphors, life on the roads would be a bowl of cherries.

The only problem with basing on a strategy on this “even-stevens” approach is that it is at best rubbish and at worst a recipe for continuing danger wrapped up with victim-blaming. It won’t work.

Why, when I think it’s a good idea to be nice to people, do I say this? It should be obvious, but after 90 years of the “road safety” lobby, we need to explain.

The brutal fact of the matter is that we have power a differential on the road. This involves some road users (basically the motorised ones) having massive potential lethality and some others (generally speaking, those walking and cycling) having a lot less. This is apart from the fact that the latter – referred to as “Vulnerable Road Users” because, like the vast majority of travellers in the world, they happen to be outside cars – are particularly vulnerable to the danger posed by the former.

This absolutely fundamental feature of safety on the road has been systematically glossed over by the “road safety” lobby throughout its existence. We should all just try to be nice to each other. The fact that some types of road user are inevitably going to pose a threat to others, and that these others are going suffer however well they try and behave – whereas the converse is not true – is just left out of the picture.

But it gets worse. Far worse.

For at the same time as it advocates everybody being nice to each other, this same lobby has insisted that motorists are so inherently likely to break the rules and regulations – that they are inherently unwilling to and/or incapable of doing so – that their danger must be accepted and accommodated. It must be colluded and connived with.

Basically this comes down to engineering the vehicle and highway environment to idiot-proof motoring in the full knowledge that doing so will produce the idiots and exacerbate their idiocy. The relatively non-dangerous are urged to obey rules while the far more dangerous to others (let’s call them Dangerous Road Users, or “DRUs”) are actually being accommodated in their rule breaking.

This is then accepted by those claiming to be interested in the safety of their members: note the way in which a cyclist disobeying  traffic signal is put on the same level as far more lethal behaviour by motorists.

Or take the support for BC’s campaign by the representative of an organisation which came into being to pass through legislation (compulsory front seat belt wearing) based on the assumption that motorists are inherently likely to crash their cars. And which has been shown to increase danger to cyclists and pedestrians, actually being associated with more cyclist and pedestrian deaths immediately after it was introduced.

(The following is quoted without comment by the normally sensible BikeBiz site  “The findings were also welcomed by Rob Gifford, Executive Director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, who said: “This is very consistent with what we know about how best to further improve road safety and I think that the overall theme that measures should promote mutual respect and understanding between road users is exactly right.” )

Exploring these background issues may seem irrelevant, but I believe it is absolutely necessary in order to work out what may, or may not, be achieved. Take the “I’m also a motorist” trope: “Most people who ride a bike also drive a car which suggests there should already be some mutual understanding.” This may be true for adult BC members, but not necessarily the rest of humanity, but let’s leave that for the moment – let’s look at people who use different modes of transport.

Motorists who ride bicycles may – and I repeat “may” – may be aware of some relevant problems for cyclists, such as overtaking too close, but that doesn’t mean they will become better drivers generally. Most of the problems created by motorists for other road users do not involve general bad intent towards others, and feature a general lack of ability or unwillingness to obey the regulations. Most motorists are pedestrians, but that does not mean they obey the regulations and laws whose infringement threatens pedestrians.  

In fact, it could make them more unlikely to support measures necessary for cyclist safety. Note that the measure to support 20 mph is qualified: “The reduction of urban speed limits from 30mph to 20mph would reduce the severity of injuries sustained in any accidents, although it was acknowledged that drivers might become agitated if they had to drive at that speed.”

So what will happen to this campaign? How exactly will it be pushed forward? I confess to having doubts about the best based of campaigns. And it is crucial that a campaign is based ona real understanding of – and willingness to confront – the power structures that underlie transport policy and safety on the road.

 I leave you with a new website which preaches a benign attitude by cyclists towards motorists – but, as its name implies, doing so from a position where cyclists claim a position of power and entitlement. This kind of claim is not evident in campaigns such as the one by BC.

We hope to be writing an extensive review of the Department for Transport’s major programme of studies carried out in 2008, 2009 and 2010 on Cyclist Safety. We think that there are a number of serious problems with what was produced and how the programme was structured – most notably the emphasis on the work on helmets, which we see as being fundamentally misconceived and executed.

 While preparing this I was reminded of some DfT-commissioned evidence-review of the (in)effectiveness of road safety education: The Development of Children’s and Young People’s Attitudes to Driving: A Critical Review of the Literature by Kevin Durkinand Andy Tolmie

 “Children may learn to respond to wearing safety equipment by increased risk compensation (Morrongiello, B. A., Lasenby, J. and Walpole, B. (2007) Risk compensation in children: why do children show it in reaction to wearing safety gear? Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 28(1), 56–63). This is a familiar phenomenon to analysts of road-user behaviour. Risk homeostasis theory (Wilde, 1998) holds that individuals maintain an acceptable level of risk and that, if the risk is moderated in some way (e.g. by the intervention of a safety restraint) then they adjust some other aspect of their behaviour to restore the acceptable risk level. While this model is controversial and it is uncertain how extensively children’s behaviour conforms to the predictions of risk homeostasis theory (cf. Pless, I. B., Magdalinos, H. and Hagel, B. (2006) Risk-compensation behaviour in children: Myth or reality? Archives of Pediatrics and adolescent Medicine, 160(6), 610-614. ), it is very plausible that patterns of balancing risk/preferred behaviour are established in the course of development.

Morrongiello et al. (2007) found that children (ages 8 to 11) offered a range of reasons to explain why wearing a helmet when bike riding would be protective, all of which indicated a risk compensation bias. These included suggestions that they were more competent when wearing safety gear (‘Because when you are wearing a helmet you have more balance’), or that they were invulnerable (‘Because you just wouldn’t fall off your bike or get injured’), or that the protection would reduce injury severity in the face of an accident (‘Because if I fall, I wouldn’t get hurt as much if I wore a helmet’).

Interestingly, Morrongiello, B. A. and Major, K. (2002) Influence of safety gear on parental perceptions of injury risk and tolerance for children’s risk taking. Injury Prevention, 8, 27–31 found that parents tended towards the same biases. Thus, parents allowed their children to engage in greater risk-taking in activities such as bicycling when wearing safety gear than when not, and the parents’ explanations showed that they assumed the gear would fully protect their child – including even parts of the body not covered (e.g. a bike helmet would protect limbs) – and prevent injury regardless of the child’s level of risk taking. This optimistic, almost magical, reasoning seems to be shared by children and their parents during periods that may be formative in the development of safety orientation. (my emphasis)”

And yet other sections of the report still make the assumption that it’s important to persuade children to wear helmets…!

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? 

Let’s take a look at the article first. Some good points from Hitchens:

1. A realisation of the difference in the danger to others between errant cycling on the one hand, and errant driving on the other – something largely denied by official “road safety” discourse.
2. A correct awareness of the effects of “safety improvements” to car engineering on the behaviour of motorists (“I think this has encouraged a subconscious carelessness which is really, really important where there are pedestrians or cyclists within range”).
3. An honest and welcome  – unusually from a motorist – willingness to accept his own fallibility and potential danger to others when driving.
4. An understanding that the road environment is now not necessarily safer – particularly for people outside cars – just because the aggregate casualties per head of the population are lower.

One would like to think that Hitchens has been informed by “Death on the Streets: cars and the mythology of road safety”, a copy of which he received some years ago.

We may take issue with his central theme of assault – although that is how many victims of danger on the road feel. And if motorists do demand rights as individuals they need to accept responsibilities as individuals.

I would suggest a more appropriate analogy would be with a failure of appropriate health and safety procedures: in a highly risk-averse culture the one area where there is little enforced requirement to not endanger others is on the road. Hitchens is absolutely correct to point out the difference between what is apparently acceptable to motorists compared to what is acceptable to ordinary citizens who are not driving.

 Of course, the cry of “I hate cars” doesn’t take us very far: we could do with suggestions as to how to get us away from where we are.

But that may be carping at a welcome refusal to countenance  – at least some of – the depredations of car culture without protest.  There’s nothing wrong with a primal scream at the problem. All in all, this article is not at all bad for any publication, and remarkably good for the Daily Mail.

Which brings us to the charge of hypocrisy.

Hitchens is known as a man of principle. In particular, his career has been marked by his departure, in December 2000, from the Daily Express in response to the title’s acquisition by Richard Desmond. Hitchens felt that his own moral and religious conservatism was incompatible with Desmond’s ownership and publication of sex magazines and TV outlets.

He has since been a columnist on the Daily Mail. For those not familiar with this publication, it epitomises all that is worst about modern car culture. Motorists are continually presented as victims of the non-existent  “war on the motorist” . Motorists are seen as victims of unnecessary control by the law, for example in its relentless criticism of speed cameras. Cyclists are seen as the danger to pedestrians.

It is a world where the oppressor sees himself as oppressed and the subsidised as taxed. It is a world of self-pitying victim wannabes. It is a world where reality is turned upside down.

Now, obviously we can’t expect every journalist to be held responsible for the views of the publication they happen to write for. But at some level – and Hitchens, as we have seen, is a man who cares deeply about fulfilling personal responsibility – this issue does come up. And for a man who publicly left his paper because of the activities of its proprietor, all the more so.

At the very least Hitchens could explicitly criticise his paper’s coverage of motoring matters. He could demand that there are regular counterblasts to anti-cycling prejudice and motorist irresponsibility. We can supply the columnists.

Over to you, Mr. Hitchens.

RDRF is pelased to have supported Martin Porter in hisaction described below in his press release:

PRESS RELEASE:  HELMET CAMERA SECURES CONVICTION OF MOTORIST FOR A PUBLIC ORDER OFFENCE

Today at West London Magistrates Court, Scott Lomas was convicted of using threatening or abusive words and behaviour contrary to the Public Order Act 1986.  He was sentenced to a fine of £250, a victim surcharge of £15 and prosecution costs of £300 (a total of £565).

 The circumstances that gave rise to the conviction took place on the A315 near Hounslow in West Londonon 4^th November 2010.  Lomas had hooted at, and then shouted abuse at, a cyclist, Martin Porter, when he was unable to pass at a restriction in the carriageway width caused by a central traffic island.  The cyclist and motorist had passed and repassed each other several times with Lomas shouting abuse that culminated in a threat to kill Mr Porter.

 Porter recorded the incident on a helmet camera and later the same day reported the incident to the police who were disinclined to investigate.  After casual contact with the CPS in Hounslow the officer responsible for investigating the case decided upon ‘no further action’.  Mr Porter, who is a practising QC, wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions and the CPS then required the police to investigate the offence and to submit the evidence to them.  Following an investigation, the same investigating police officer declined to defer the decision to the CPS and again chose ‘no further action’.    Only after a further complaint from Mr Porter, did a more senior Metropolitan Police Officer refer the file to the CPS, who agreed that a prosecution should take place.

 Lomas denied the charge against him until his submission that the case should be dismissed as an abuse of process, because the police officer had indicated to him that there would be no further action, was rejected by the Judge.  Thereafter he changed his plea to one of guilty.

 Lomas, who was aged 24 at the time of the incident, was in breach of a suspended prison sentence imposed by the Crown Court in April 2010 following his conviction on a count of malicious wounding.  It was decided not to refer the matter back to the Crown Court for possible implementation of his suspended sentence.

 Commenting after the verdict Martin Porter said

            “I am pleased that justice has now been done and that the Crown Prosecution Service had the moral fibre to reverse the Metropolitan Police’s attempts to drop this case notwithstanding the strength of the evidence.  It is sadly too much to hope that all mindless aggression and violence directed at cyclists will instantly cease but at least this conviction may help to discourage similar incidences of mindless ‘roadrage’ against vulnerable road users.”

            “I am very grateful to prosecuting counsel (a cyclist it transpires!) who dealt with the case efficiently and courteously. I am grateful too for the moral support I have received from the CTC, Roadpeace, The Road Danger Reduction Forum and the vast majority of cyclists who have contacted me.”

 Martin PorterQC is a leading personal injury lawyer practising at 2TempleGardens,LondonEC4Y 9AY and is also a keen amateur racing cyclist with Thames Velo.  All enquiries should be directed to his chambers on 020 7822 1200.  Martin is considering writing an article about his experience, as a victim of a crime, at the hands of the police and if you would be interesting in publishing such an article to a wide audience please contact him at mporter@2tg.co.uk

 ++++++++++++++

Dr. Robert Davis writes: A number of RDRF supporters have commented that this case only came to court because:

1. The victim was a practising QC with an interest in safety on the road.

2. This person was skilled enough in his knowledge of the law to write to the CPS and the DPP in a way which would make sense to them, and to persist after an investigating officer had twice declined to proceed.

3. He had to provide evidence from a camcorder.

Most people will not be in this position, although many will be members of cycling organisations like the LCC or CTC which can give the neccessary assistance.

The main point for me was that a police officer did not take this case at all seriously enough – an example of institutionalised discrimination against cyclists / for unlawful motorist behaviour - but that the police were pressured into doing so. Hopefuly this case will elad the Met and other Police forces to take this sort of incident more seriously in future.

First, look at Table TSGB0123  . With the Retail Price Index (RPI) set at 100 in 1997, when New Labour came to power, we have the RPI  at 141.9 in 2010, with the costs of rail  and bus/coach at 166 and 176 respectively: so the costs of rail travel in so-called “real terms” ( accounting for inflation measuring by RPI) have gone up, and bus/coach by even more. By contrast. the costs of motoring are at 132.5 – a drop to 93% of the 1997 costs to the motorist. Largely becasue of the dramatic drop in the cost of cars, the motoring costs measured have fallen.

Secondly, look at TSGB0121 .

This gives the costs of motoring adjusted for inflation to have gone down by 88% between 2000/2001 and 2010.

The percentage of household expenditure on transport is down from 14.5% to 13.7%. My calculation is that  motoring costs in 2000/2001 were 12.4% of household expenditure, in 2010 this had gone down to 11.3%.

Of course, this is not the whole story: motoring costs could be substantially reduced by measures we have drawn attention to in this series on the Costs of Motoring:

* Driving in a more fuel efficient manner.

* Driving carefully to bring down costs of 3rd party insurance

* Reducing unneccessary car journeys.

* Choosing already existing more fuel efficient models.

One other point: this is the costs of motoring to the motorist – not the costs of motoring (economic and otherwise) to society.

SO: while the age of austerity bites with reduced incomes, higher unemployment, reduced pensions, increasing costs of housing – the cost of motoring has – as both a proportion of household expenditure and related to inflation – been dropping.

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?

According to Halfon:

“High petrol and diesel prices are crippling our economy. Many motorists now pay a tenth of their income just to fill up the family car, and millions of families are suffering. Businesses are under immense pressure, especially the road freight industry. But petrol and diesel are now so astronomically expensive; it is COSTING the government money. This is because fewer people can afford to drive, leading to lower tax revenues. Therefore, this petition calls on the government to: 1) Scrap the planned 4p fuel duty increases, which are scheduled for January and August 2012. 2) Create a price stabilisation mechanism that smooths out fluctuations in the pump price. 3) Pressure big oil companies to pass on cheaper oil to motorists. 4) Set up a commission to look at market competitiveness, and radical ways of cutting fuel taxes in the longer term”…

So what exactly is actually happening? While a well organised campaign is orchestrated to present motorists as having the status of an oppressed minority, with little or no opposition, a quick fact check should be in order.

1. Over the New Labour years the costs of motoring fell dramatically.  While some price rises over the last few years may have slowed the overall reduction in the cost of motoring, overall the cost has fallen.
2. By comparison – and I’m talking about before the current government’s austerity packages were introduced – over the same period other financial problems became worse. For example: a massive increase in the costs of housing, both for sale (pushing a generation into money down the drain in renting, and in renting itself. Or the loss of private pensions. Or the need to pay far more for university education. More recently, the freezing of public sector workers pay – to take, again, just one example – is hitting many “ordinary families” just as much, if not more.
3. Then we have had numerous costings – using quite conventional methods of cost-benefit analysis, which normally tend to support the status quo - of the economic costs of motoring which far exceed the revenue raised from motoring.
4. A lot of the costs of motoring could be easily reduced – and should be – by more careful driving (to reduce insurance premiums) and more fuel-efficient driving. Most motorists could reduce some of the mileage they do. Then there is selecting more fuel –efficient vehicles. Or car sharing. Or walking and cycling short journeys.

But ultimately, rational argument is of limited value. Even the Daily Mail, in a typical rant has to quote that: “the relative tax take has been going down for a while: for every pound drivers spend at the forecourt, about 60p is now going to the Treasury compared to around 80p in every pound between 2001 and 2003”. It won’t stop the flow of inverted reality. Facts are not relevant.

But let’s examine the language:

• “Crucified”. Crucifixion was a particularly nasty punishment, quite apart from the iconic suffering of Jesus. Is being nailed alive to a cross really the same as having to pay as much for driving as you did a few years ago? Or having to drive in a more fuel efficient way? Or driving carefully to bring your insurance down? Or maybe working out a way to drive 5 or 10% less miles to bring your costs down? The self-pity is, of course, a special feature of car culture. As one blogger notes, train fares are rising rather more than the cosst of motoring: somehow train passengers are not being “crucified”.
• “Astronomically expensive”. Not compared to the costs it incurs, even by conventional cost-benefit analysis. And the costs of motoring have declined not just  compared with inflation over the years since New Labour came to power, but compared to vital areas of expenditure such as housing, or compared to the decline in pensions in the private sector, to take just one example.
• “It is COSTING (note block letters) the government money”. What is actually costing the government money is the usual billions of road building expenditure. Or the costs to the NHS of the adverse health effects of mass car use. Or not getting enough revenue in because the taxation on motoring is not high enough – massively raising the cost of petrol  would be a great way of pushing those still driving into far more fuel efficient cars with more revenue to government as well as the other benefits arising.
• “Crippling the economy”. That’s right: our disabled economy is in its wheelchair not because of the crises in finance capitalism, the collapsing Euro or any of that – it’s that motoring might not be getting progressively cheaper. That’s why “millions of families are suffering”.

But it isn’t. And this latest orgy of getting hold of the wrong end of the stick has to be seen for being just that. We do not have, “A War on the Motorist”. We have a war for the careless, rule and law –breaking motorist with a thoroughly inequitable system of funding transport choices

For if you have decided to become more and more car dependent – or just failed to question this process – anything that fails to fulfil ever more car dependency will disappoint.  Locked into the cycle of addictive behaviour, the feelings of victimhood – whatever the reality may be – are ever present.

I quote the blogger again: “Lowering fuel taxes may give a small amount of temporary relief to motorists who have no choice but to drive and are spending a lot of their income on fuel, but it will also disproportionately benefit motorists who are not very hard-pressed, choose to drive big thirsty cars and can well afford to fill them up. Also, taxes will have to rise elsewhere to compensate, at a time when there are calls to lower them to stimulate the economy.

Instead of debating the cost of fuel, which is largely out of the control of the Government, we should be debating how we manage down the use of fuel. Oil dependency is the underlying problem, and it’s what is delivering blows to the economy every time the underlying price of oil goes up”.

If your life, and your economy, is bound up with shifting more people and stuff further and faster, maybe the thing to do is to think about having different kinds of economy and ways of living. An abeyance of feelings of suffering and paranoia ( fed by endless descriptions of how you as a motorist are “hammered”, “punished”, “squeezed” etc.) would be just some of the benefits. Not to mention a rather more realistic view of the world, and less abuse of the English language.

House of Commons Transport Committee: Reply by Road Danger Reduction Forum to “Call for Evidence” into the Government’s “Strategic Framework for Road Safety”.

 30^th October 2011

SUMMARY OF MAIN POINTS:

• While there are fundamental flaws in the Government’s approach to safety on the road, nevertheless we can say that:
• The absence of traditional road safety targets being set is not necessarily a problem: however, there is a need for alternative targets to be set to reduce danger on the road, and they have not been.
• The decentralisation programme of the current government will impede any efforts to reduce danger on the road.
• The current legislative framework, combined with inadequate levels of traffic policing, is utterly insufficient to properly reduce danger ion the road, particularly towards cyclists and child pedestrians.
• The action plan will not be able to achieve reduction in the chances of cyclists and child pedestrians being hurt or killed on the road.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

1.  Introduction: The Road Danger Reduction Forum (RDRF)   

1.1     The RDRF was formed in December 1993 after the “Is it Safe?” Conference organised by Leeds City Council, itself prompted by the publication earlier in the year of “Death on the Streets: Cars and the mythology of road safety” by Dr. Robert Davis. The RDRF exists for professionals working in and for local government as highway and traffic engineers, road safety officers and others supporting road danger reduction (RDR) as part of the sustainable transport policy agenda. It has 20 local authorities as members that have signed the Road Danger Reduction Charter.

1.2      We also try to form partnerships with organisations that support the RDR, or “real road safety” agenda, such as the national cyclists’ organisation CTC, the Environmental Travel Association, London Cycling Campaign, the national road crash victim’s charity RoadPeace, Slower Speeds Initiative, etc.

1.3      Road Danger Reduction (RDR) – the “real road safety” agenda: We believe in “Safe Roads for All”, and that much of traditional “road safety” has been part of the problem of danger on our roads. We highlight these problems as they appear in the text of“A Safer Way: Making Britain’s Roads the Safest in the World”, as shown on our website www.rdrf.org.ukMore detailed explanations of road danger reduction and the steps required to achieve it are elsewhere on www.rdrf.org.uk The principal feature of RDR is the commitment to reduce danger at source – the inappropriate use of motor vehicles.

1.4      As such, we have fundamental problems with the Government’s strategic framework for road safety which we are asked to comment on. These are detailed at http://rdrf.org.uk/2011/05/a-bad-day-for-safety-on-the-roads/ and  http://rdrf.org.uk/2011/05/what-else-is-wrong-with-the-strategic-framework-for-road-safety/. Nevertheless, there are some comments we believe we should make:

1. 2.   “Whether the Government is right not to set road safety targets and whether its outcomes framework is appropriate.”

2.1       There is substantial evidence, as evidenced in the Smeed curve, and discussed at length by us and authorities such as Professor John Adams, that road deaths per head of the population decline over time irrespective of the type of road safety intervention introduced by Government. We believe it likely that road deaths will decline with a likely decline in general levels of societal risk, which appears to be associated with a likely reduction or stagnation in economic activity.

2.2        It is also the case that many “road safety” interventions shift the burden of risk from the road users more dangerous to others (the motorised) on to the more vulnerable and benign modes (walking and cycling). It is therefore the case that reductions in overall road deaths can be at least partly due to a smaller share of the traffic mix by walking and particularly cycling.

2.3       As such, the absence of “road safety targets” by Government may not be a problem. Nevertheless, there are objectives which can be quantified which should be specified by Government as aims. These are:

2.4       (a)The targets referred to as “rate-based targets”, that is to say casualties (Killed and Serious Injuries – KSIs) expressed in relation to levels of exposure, e.g. casualties per journey or distance travelled. These should be the desired primary targets for reduction for cyclists, with more importance than the overall numbers of KSIs for cyclists nationally or in local areas. These can be used in areas where there are significant amounts of travel by bicycle and where there is therefore adequate data.

     (b) For pedestrians, where data on numbers of journeys is more difficult to secure, the target should be casualties per journey at specific sites.

     © Even where the “rate-based target” is used, this does not adequately refer to the danger to cyclists and pedestrians. It is possible to illustrate the rate-based targets by referring to the issue of legal fault: the long-term aim should be to reduce the rate of cyclist and pedestrian casualties where other road users are primarily legally at fault.

     (d) As a subsidiary target, it should be desirable to survey people as to whether levels of road danger are high enough to dissuade cycling and walking for them and their children.

2.5     Other targets which should be used are those relating to levels of dangerous behaviour, principally rule and law breaking behaviour by motorised road users, such as reductions in proportions of drivers and motorised riders who are:

(a)         Breaking speed limits.

(b)         Consuming alcohol or drugs (proprietary and prescribed psychotropic drugs as well as recreational).

(c)         Having inadequate eyesight.

(d)         Having medical conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.

(e)         Engaging in inappropriate behaviour in the vicinity of cyclists such as breaking Highway Code recommendations with regard to overtaking distances, opening of car doors inattentively, etc.

2.6    Interventions to achieve the reductions which we refer to as desirable should be financed by central Government. Precise amounts can be related to savings in the normal manner, but should also include the costings in terms of health benefits of increased cycling and walking which can occur as a result of increased safety on the road.

1. 3.   “How the decentralisation to local authorities of funding and the setting of priorities will work in practice and contribute towards fulfilling the Government’s vision.”

3.1     We think that the current decentralisation strategy will involve a reduced level of economic activity and – for the reason referred to above (2.1) – will, in that sense, be associated with a decline in overall reported road casualties. It will not, however, be associated with the desirable objective of achieving safety for all by reducing danger at source, and will not increase real road safety.

3.2      The decentralisation strategy will inevitably involve a reduction of spending on attempts to reduce danger on the road by local authorities. We notice that this is already happening with our supporters in various local authorities.

3.3      We are asked to “ensure that … the relatively high risk of accidents amongst some groups, such as cyclists and children from deprived areas, is quickly reduced. The Committee will examine whether the strategic framework will fulfil this vision.” This will not happen with the current decentralisation programme.

1. 4.   “Whether the Government is right to argue that, for the most part, the right legislative framework for road safety is in place, and, in particular, whether the Road Safety Act 2006 has fulfilled its objectives (see Post-Legislative Assessment of the Road Safety Act 2006, Cm 8141, published by the DfT, July 2011)”

4.1      We do not think that the Road Safety Act 2006 can be said to have achieved its objectives.

4.2       We do not believe the correct legislative framework is in place, because:

4.3       The current and likely future decline in levels of policing mean that already inadequate levels of enforcement will be unable to give the required levels for legislation to have a proper effect.

4.4       In order for danger to be properly reduced for cyclists and pedestrians, it will be necessary to have collisions between drivers on the one hand, and pedestrians and cyclists on the other, defined as offences of strict liability for the driver. This should be the case under civil law, and as far as is possible under criminal law.

4.5       It will also be the case that in order for legislation to be effective, adequate forms of evidence gathering, such as with on-board “black-box” type collision recorders will have to be in place.

1. 5.   “Whether the measures set out in the action plan are workable and sufficient”.

5.1      The measures set out in the action plan are in no way sufficient to: “ensure that …  the relatively high risk of accidents amongst some groups, such as cyclists and children from deprived areas, is quickly reduced.”

We are available to expand on any of the above issues to the Committee.

Dr. Robert Davis, Chair, Road Danger Reduction Forum www.rdrf.org.uk  

CONTACT ADDRESS: chairrdrf@aol.com  PO BOX 2944, LONDON NW10 2AX

Faculty of Engineering, Science and the Built Environment, Department of Urban Engineering:    Extra-curricular transport lectures series

“What’s wrong with the ‘road safety’ industry?”

A lecture by Dr Robert Davis

Chair of the Road Danger Reduction Forum

Thursday 27^th October 2011 12.30pm to 1.30pm Room LR375

LSBU London Road Building, Building Number 11 on the map at

http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/about/maps.shtml (Access via London Road only)

 Synopsis

 Dr Davis will argue that the ideological and institutional basis of what is officially known as ‘road safety’ is actually part of the problem of danger on the roads. A radical reappraisal of the theory and practice of ‘road safety’ is necessary to formulate a civilized approach to safety on the road – for real road safety – for the 21st Century.

 Biography

 Dr Robert Davis is a founder member and now Chair of the Road Danger Reduction Forum www.rdrf.org.uk, set up in 1993 after publication of his ‘Death on the Streets: Cars and the mythology of road safety’. He has worked as transport planner in local government the last 25 years.

 If you would like to attend, please inform Professor John Parkin so that your name may be added to the list for access purposes

(j.parkin@lsbu.ac.uk, 020 7815 7160)

Subject: RE: 70mph National Speed Limit

Dear Mr Parkin

I am not sure if anyone from another department has responded to your email, but I have now been informed that the notices are being removed from all our vans!

Best regards

Nuala Keys

Business Development Assistant

J Murphy and Sons Limited Hiview House Highgate Rd London NW5 1TN

T: +44 (0)20 7267 4366 F: +44 (0)20 74823107 M: +44 (0)

Safety underpins everything that the Murphy Group plans and delivers.

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While we are on this matter, why do BT vans have these signs?:

Isn’t , as we said in the last post, because it is illegal to go over 70 mph now?

And… how often do Royal Mail vans go on motorways anyway?:

Still, a small victory: thanks to John Parkin, Graham Paul Smith and others who wrote in.