Author Archives: rdrfuk

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.

What A Nerve!: How dare the AA lecture cyclists on safety!

The Automobile Association (and the other organisation for irresponsible motorists, the Royal Automobile Club) has a long history being part of danger on the road. Take a look at this clip to show how it proudly flouted road traffic law:This Motoring . The current, particularly grotesque, example of the AA offloading its responsibilities on to the actual or potential victims of rule and law breaking by AA members (and other motorists protected from proper regulation and controls by the AAs refusal to support real road safety)

The latest episode is simply part of this tradition. Of course, it is par for the course in a world where “road safety” is often about victim-blaming and avoiding motorist responsibility, despite lack of evidence for supposed benefits: it can be telling your potential victims to get out of the way – for their own good, of course. But that’s no reason to accept this nonsense, as it is part and parcel of maintaining unacceptable levels of danger on the road. Continue reading →

London LIPs: if Northern Ireland can suggest it…

Most London Borough’s Local Implementation Plans (LIPs) for the next five years have gone through the consultation process, so it’s probably too late to make comments now. But it’s still worth commenting on what was put into them as indicators of how far Road Danger Reduction (RDR) is being considered by London Boroughs. We have commented on how much RDR is being referred to before . LB’s Lambeth, Southwark, Ealing, Haringey, Brent and Corporation of London all refer to the RDR approach. But most are failing  to push through RDR policies, or even set out a full RDR agenda. Below we look at what’s going on… Continue reading →

Saying No to Ed Balls’ Balls-Up on Fuel

Balls

Ed Balls

We have pointed out  – and it appears we will have to keep on repeating ourselves – how much cheaper motoring in Britain has become  over the last decade or so. This decline has not only occurred with a more recent increase in the cost of public transport, but with increases in the price of housing and a variety of other living costs – and this before austerity cuts begin to bite. Yet, with enormous scope for increasing the cost of fuel for reasons of equity with non-motoring modes, reducing emissions from motor traffic, raising revenue  etc. Labour’s Ed Balls has been calling for cuts in the cost of petrol : in effect (given the massive external costs of motoring) a further subsidy for motoring. Continue reading →