Road safety weak/week

[Cyril Haearn]

Anyone realised, this is nearly over, whatabout the other 51 weeks?

'Experts' advise sticking to the speed limit. Sickening

[Jdsk]

Road Safety Week:
http://www.roadsafetyweek.org.uk

Humans respond much more strongly to new things than to steady things. This can be very helpful in campaigns. There's no reason why it shouldn't be used in such an important matter of public health as road safety.

Anyone here working on this locally or nationally?

Jonathan

[atlas_shrugged]

Completely agree with the OP.

It looks like this family would also agree:

https://twitter.com/allpartycycling/sta ... 8126488577

Very little action is taken in the event of fatal accidents.

[Jdsk]

What's the point with which you're agreeing, please?

Thanks

Jonathan

[atlas_shrugged]

er Road Safety Weak?

[Cyril Haearn]

Yes I deliberately spelt it 'weak'

[Jdsk]

Yes, I saw the pun.

But why do you think that Road Safety Week is a bad idea? Here's this year's key theme:


http://roadsafetyweek.org.uk/our-theme

Isn't that a message that you often promote in this forum?

Jonathan

[mjr]

The two key problems are that

1. Road Safety in general and Brake in particular would be quite happy to "improve" safety by victim blaming and loading active travel down with gadgets and geegaws until no one does it and all these pesky victims drive instead;

2. Road Safety groups have opposed alternative better approaches such as Safe Systems, Sustainable Safety, Vision Zero and Road Danger Reduction. They deserve to be sidelined. They are predominantly drawn from the killer user types.

http://roadsafetyweek.org.uk/our-theme is curiously missing any mention that most speeding and injury is done by a particular class of vehicle and it dog whistles to the ABD (Awful Bad Drivers?) by using the loaded term "safe speed" explained at https://www.safespeed.org.uk/background.html

It's also only a few years since speeding was their theme. Why keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

[Cyril Haearn]

It could achieve less than nothing through the pretence/charade of appearing/pretending to do something

[atlas_shrugged]

I agree with mjr on what he has just written. I joined some of the road safety groups. I think the one I joined was very genuine in providing comfort for the survivors. They also wanted tougher sentences. My interest was in preventing future accidents and I could get no interest in this from the groups I joined.

[mjr]

I agree with mjr on what he has just written. I joined some of the road safety groups. I think the one I joined was very genuine in providing comfort for the survivors. They also wanted tougher sentences. My interest was in preventing future accidents and I could get no interest in this from the groups I joined.

Yes, many of the charities involved do great work in victim support, rehab and so on. However, they seem hamstrung by the need to get donations from the motoring majority which makes them very conservative, probably overestimating the potential backlash from the minority of killer drivers if road designs are improved.

They mostly seem to prefer to cling to the "bad apples" theory that current road designs would be safe if only the incompetent could be removed, which ignores that people make mistakes and that the lack of driver retesting means they would only be removed after causing harm. We need to reduce the harm done by mistakes.

[Cyril Haearn]

@atlas
Were you involved with RoadPeace? Care to tell us more about your experiences?

[atlas_shrugged]

Yes I was involved in Road Peace.

I guess my experience was as stated. I think they are very good for supporting survivors/relatives and they also campaign for tougher sentences. I was looking for organisations that would reduce fatalities and serious injury to zero. I would like better tolerance in road design for drivers who make mistakes.

So I am not criticising these organisations at all. I would like to find organisations that want to implement vision zero.

[Cyril Haearn]

Time to start such an organisation, for none exists now, although many organisations and individuals might support it in theory

The 'professionalisation' of pressure groups and charities (brake, CTC) seems to be a problem (or opportunity?)

[John Holiday]

Our local Community Speed Watch team have been busy in North East Wales this week in support of Brake Road Safety week.
Logged our usual mass of inconsiderate drivers exceeding the limits, although as the number recorded is diminishing slightly, perhaps they are getting the message.
However, without enforcement & penalties, I fear nothing much will change.