Monthly Archives: May 2011

What’s wrong with the UN “Decade of Action for Road Safety” – Part Two

Helmetedkidswalking

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: Continue reading →

What’s wrong with the UN “Decade of Action for Road Safety” – Part One

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?”. Continue reading →

A bad day for safety on the roads

       PRESS RELEASE   Wednesday May 11th 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.

Major article on Road Danger Reduction in Local Transport Today

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! Continue reading →

RoadPeace event

Saving people and planet

a road danger reduction approach for a safer fairer world

So here’s some good news for a change – an event promoting road danger reduction : do get along to this event next week (May 11th at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) organised by our friends RoadPeace. Read about it here. It is based on a very traditional “road safety” initiative which hopefully RoadPeace will distance itself from.