How are you going to cope?

The car dominated transport policies of New Labour continue – with knobs on! We have the added feature that those now in charge appear to think that we had “a war on the motorist”. Similarly, “road safety” policy is still often an inversion of reality: greater danger can be presented as a “better road safety record”.

Then your job as a transport professional, funded (directly or indirectly) by Government, is under threat, as is the support for any voluntary sector backed campaigns that you may be involved with.

Tackling global warming? Making those responsible for danger on the roads accountable? Having some UK cities with a cycling modal share just somewhere remotely near that of, er, Cambridge? Accepting that the aggregated number of “Road Traffic Accidents” may not be a good measure of how safe a road is?

A civilised road safety and transport policy seems as far away as ever.

So how are you going to cope? Continue reading →

Read this book!

 

At the founding of the RDRF in Leeds in 1993 we were confronted with the issue of, well, what would our name be? Would anybody understand or use the phrase Road Danger Reduction? I think we can give ourselves a pat on the back: RDR has been formally endorsed by (among others) the CTC (National cyclists’ organisation), London Cycling Campaign, RoadPeace, Living Streets, Twenty’s Plenty, the Environmental Transport Association, and the Road Danger Reduction Charter signed up to (if not actively pursued) by a number of local authorities. Of course, getting the approach understood – differentiating us from “road safety” and publicising the sustainable transport agenda – is another issue from getting it accepted by the powers that be.  After the Comprehensive Spending Review, it looks like we’re going backwards – or at least not forwards…

But now the good news: if we can’t actually get the RDR programme on the official agenda, we have got a forceful endorsement of RDR in this superb book: “Real road safety means reducing road danger, which implies far fewer motor vehicles travelling at much lower speeds” (p.84) and, on the twinned themes of the book:” The only practicable response to climate change and population weight gain is that walking and cycling are re-established as the predominant modes of urban transportation“(p.119).

Epidemiologist Professor Ian Roberts of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is well known to us for his work on the effects of 20 mph zones and his critique of  the pressure for road building from the global “road safety”/car industry lobby in developing countries. As with his previous work, the links between different parts of the effects of mass motorisation are established. Except it is not just the two main themes of the health disbenefits of mass car use and the greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles, but road danger, the effects on local community, and dependence on oil. On top of this, obesity and global warming are shown to be linked more intricately and deeply than we might have ever thought. All of this is presented in a polemic fuelled by (justifiably) righteous anger and backed up by a solid evidence base.

We have some criticisms (see below) but this short book is a must read for transport practitioners with a conscience and a genuine interest in the problems of the current transport system – and at least an indication of what we can and should do about it. Continue reading →

Health on the Move

THSG_logo2

Take a look at this report from the Transport and Health Study Group: http://www.healthandtransportgroup.co.uk/research/research20_july2010.php. Health on the Move: Active travel – a preliminary report from the THSG. February 2010, by N Cavill, A Davis, M Wardlaw, S Watkins, J Mindell.

So far just the first three chapters are published, but we understand the whole report will be out later this year. The health benefits of the “active travel” modes are a key argument in the sustainable transport case, and are presented here by some of the top experts in the field in the UK. Continue reading →

War on the motorist?

Alright, now that Transport Minister Philip Hammond has repeated his claim that he would reverse New Labour’s “war on the motorist”, it really is time to comment on what is nothing less than an inversion of reality. Seasoned campaigners and hardened professionals alike were gob-smacked when he first mentioned this phrase. But as – we hope – polite professionals who work, one way or another, with Government, we desisted from saying what first came to mind.

But now we are prompted by a rather good Editorial in the 2nd September Guardian which leads: “Unthinkable? Declaring war on motorists: When the transport secretary said ‘We will end the war on motorists’, the obvious question was: what war on motorists? Regrettably, the article restricts itself to suggesting the subsidising of public transport, but does at least refer to the reduced cost of motoring brought in by the previous Government.

Of course, in a sense there has been a “war on motorists”: a continuation of unnecessary levels of danger on the road which many motorists are prepared to oppose and from which they may suffer.

Many would like to have a greater option for themselves and their families to use more sustainable transport and to have more people-friendly communities. They might not want scarce public money to be squandered on road building, or the damage to public health and the local and global environment from current levels of car use. Although they may be a minority of the motoring public, they are still motorists and want a more civilised, less car-centred society: they have had a war against them.But that’s not what the Minster is talking about. So perhaps the following could be pointed out – and they really are just a few parts of the story:

These are a few points which could be brought to the attention of the Minister. As with so much in transport policy and road safety, what we have is not so much a mistake as – this needs to be repeated – an inversion of reality.

Continue reading →

Bicycle Politics Conference at Lancaster University

boris-johnson-and-bob-davis

RDRF Chair Dr. Robert Davis was privileged to give not just one but two papers at this conference hosted by Drs. Dave Horton and Aurora Pereira-Trujillo at the Centre for Mobilities Research last month. One was on the general principles of Road Danger Reduction, the other on cycling in London (see photo above: I’m the one doing something funny with his hands, I can’t remember what). For a report go to http://thinkingaboutcycling.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/bicycle-politics-workshop-report/ and while you’re there, take a look at Dave Horton’s blog “Thinking about Cycling” http://thinkingaboutcycling.wordpress.com/, particularly the excellent article “Fear of Cycling”.

RD 2nd October 2010

RDRF supports "Hedgehog"

Transport professionals can spend too much time debating among themselves in the specialist transport press .

So RDRF Chair Dr. Robert Davis thought it time to give some support to the columnist “Hedgehog” in the mass circulation Private Eye. “Hedgehog” had been opposing proposed cuts in speed cameras and pointed out, among other things, that existing criteria for installation  are far slacker than those required in safety regimes other than those of “road safety”. Unusually for a mass publication, he has also raised the central RDR issue of low cycling and walking casualty numbers  often being associated with more, not less, danger on the road deterring walking and cycling. This drew the wrath from the usual quarters, so here’s the reply: Continue reading →

Christian Wolmar gets it right on Cycling England

The RDRF has had a friendly enough relationship with top transport commentator Christian Wolmar for some time – he gave the keynote speech at our Leicester conference way back in the 90s –  although I’ve been disappointed that he’s stayed too far over in the “road safety”, as opposed to road danger reduction, camp.

But there’s no doubt about his latest piece for Transport Times http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/2010/09/norman-save-cycling-money/ where he is absolutely spot on in opposing any threat to the existence of Cycling England. Continue reading →

A revealing issue

 bikesmbikes.jpg

Previous posts have described the record of Transport for London and the Greater London Authority under Mayors Livingstone and Johnson with regard to cycling. Whatever the verdict on this record is, there is one two-wheeler group that has done well in London since 2000 – motorcyclists. Motorcyclists have profited from virtually unhindered access to supposedly cycle-specific facilties such as Advanced Stop Lines and cycle gaps in road closures. Press attention is drawn to pedestrians killed in collisons with cyclists, but not the larger number in incidents involving motorcyclists. While cycling is persistently portrayed as hazardous, motorcycling – with far higher casualty rates – is not.

TfL’s pro-motorcycling agenda is shown up well in the saga of allowing motorcyclists into bus lanes.  While the details may tend to bore all but the most hardened transport professional, this episode tells us a lot about how some road user groups can get their way, irrespective of the evidence supposedly required to justify legal changes. Time and again we can see in the history “road safety” how a safety benefit is consumed as a performance benefit. In this case it is even dubious whether any safety benefit for the measure taken has ever existed: we simply move to the performance benefit (of motorcyclists having extra road space) while using “road safety” as a justification.

 Below Colin McKenzie summarises the latest stage in this story: Continue reading →