February 2003

Our Manifesto

Every year over 3,400 people are killed on our roads. According to hospital data evaluated by Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), as many as 464,000 people are slightly injured and a further 102,000 seriously injured, each year in road crashes.

Speed, drink-driving, falling asleep at the wheel, red light violation and the use of mobile phones are all significant causes of death and injury on our roads. In particular, over 1100 people die and over 12,000 are seriously injured in road traffic crashes in which speed is a major contributory factor.

Traffic â€" including that which is speeding or which endangers lives in other ways â€" in urban areas and on country lanes, reduces the freedom to enjoy the health and environmental benefits of walking and cycling for all of us, but particularly children, older and disabled people. It blights many town and city centres, as well as rural villages. Communities may be severed and experience excessive noise and air pollution as a result.

The organisations listed below are concerned at the impacts of traffic, in terms of both casualties and broader quality of life issues. Together, our organisations represent the concerns of many millions of people. We note that:

• In 2001, almost 5,000 children were killed or seriously injured on British roads. Child pedestrians from low-income families suffer greater exposure to traffic which makes them at least three times more likely to die in road traffic crashes than child pedestrians from higher income families.
• For those people unable to drive, including many older and disabled people, a safe pedestrian environment is crucial to independent mobility. Many people can feel intimidated by traffic that makes it dangerous to walk along roads or cross the street. 60% of older blind people do not get out alone and nearly half find loneliness a particular worry. Pedestrian safety is further impaired by poor pavement quality, cars parked up on pavements and poorly designed, badly sited or excessive amounts of street furniture, all of which can impede wheelchair users, those with push chairs, blind and partially sighted people, and others.
• Excessive and/ or speeding traffic can make people feel it is too dangerous to walk or cycle. As a result, children are kept indoors or ferried everywhere by car, and older people may be isolated in their homes. This loss of independent mobility leads to a loss of fitness and poor health. Many of the children ferried around by car today will consequently suffer from heart disease, obesity, stroke, diabetes and osteoporosis when they are older.
• In a survey of women in rural communities, carried out by the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, many said they wanted to see lower speed limits in their villages. We know from experience in Suffolk that village speed limits of 30 mph can cut crashes by a fifth. Yet in many villages elsewhere, speed limits of 40 mph, 50 mph, or 60 mph are the norm. Actual speeds are often even higher. In one survey, less than one in five local authorities had introduced 30mph speed limits for all villages, with bureaucratic obstacles remaining a problem to their widespread introduction.
• Families can be suddenly torn apart by the loss of a loved one in a road crash. Their grief is often compounded by the inadequate treatment they receive from the legal system, in comparison to that received by other victims of serious crime. In addition, the financial cost to society is enormous and would be even greater if the impact, both short and long term, on the affected families was calculated and included.
• The number of people killed and injured in road crashes is widely thought to be much higher than the official statistics (based on police records) show. Hospital road casualty figures would represent a far more reliable record of road crash incidence and a three year study by TRL (Report 173) comparing hospital and police data has concluded that the numbers of people injured in road crashes may be as much as double the official figures, with those of seriously injured almost three times higher.

All of us are united in believing that the Government should act firmly to reduce road danger. We broadly welcomed the launch, by the Prime Minister, of the road safety strategy in March 2000 (and the accompanying speed management review), which recognised both the casualty reduction imperative as well as the social and environmental consequences of activities such as speeding. ,and Government targets include pledges to reduce child deaths and serious injuries on our roads by 50% and to reduce other deaths and serious injuries in road crashes by 40%. We welcome the government’s support for 30mph speed limits in all villages.

Since then, we have seen the work by the Social Exclusion Unit on transport policy which has drawn attention to the impact of traffic, particularly for low-income communities and an enquiry by the Transport Select Committee which highlighted the extent of the problem of speeding traffic. Government has recently announced its intention to ban the use of mobile phones whilst driving and to increase the penalties for speeding offences.

We are concerned, however, that the Government has not yet put in place all the policies required to either meet the casualty reduction targets or to deliver a better quality of life for traffic-affected communities. We are particularly aware that the most recent road traffic crash statistics (for the year 2001) demonstrated that fatalities have actually risen in the last year, with an almost 50% increase in child passenger fatalities.

As a minimum, we would like to see:

• Real Government leadership on this issue. Policies must reflect both the road danger and casualty reduction imperative as well as the wider health, environmental and social benefits of reduced speeds. This will require much more effective joined-up government action than in the past, with commitment of ministers from areas such as health, education, employment, environment, urban and rural affairs, working together to make our streets safer.
• A review of speed limits across the country, to introduce speed limits which are appropriate for each road. We expect that this would confirm 30mph limits in villages and much wider use of 20mph limits e.g. in residential areas, around schools, on main shopping streets. We would also expect to see significant reductions in the speed limits on a very large number of our rural roads through a lowering of national limits and the re-assignment of roads according to a new rural road hierarchy.
• Enforcement of speed limits given a much higher priority e.g. through the use of cameras, more resources for the traffic police, and more frequent and stiffer penalties for speeding offences, to act as a deterrent.
• Collection of statistics, which would accurately reflect the true level of death and injury on our roads.
• A recognition of the fact of death or injury in the charges brought against a driver responsible for road death or injury.
• Increased funding for well-designed traffic calming in town and country and pedestrian priority schemes which take into account the needs of all pedestrians and cyclists, as well as for measures such as safer routes to school and workplace travel plans which reduce overall traffic levels.
• Government taking a lead on changing attitudes to dangerous driving (in particular to speed) and more generally to over-dependence on cars, e.g. by making substantial revenue funding available for local and national awareness campaigns on these issues.

It has been suggested that motorists will object to efforts to reduce traffic speeds. What this line of argument forgets is that motorists are also parents, residents, cyclists and pedestrians. Indeed measures to reduce speeds on the rural road network will especially benefit motorists and passengers , who make up the biggest proportion of fatalities, and where progress in reducing casualties has been slowest .

Signatories

Age Concern
Children’s Play Council
Civic Trust
Campaign for the Protection of Rural England
Child Accident Prevention Trust
CTC (the national cyclists’ organisation)
Friends of the Earth
Guide Dogs for the Blind Association
Help the Aged
Institution of Civil Engineers
JMU Access Partnership and the Joint Committee on Mobility of Blind and Partially Sighted People
Living Streets
London Cycling Campaign
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
National Federation of Women’s Institutes
National Heart Forum
Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety
RNIB
RNID
RoadPeace, the national charity for road traffic victims
ROSPA
Slower Speeds Initiative
Sustrans
Transport 2000
Whitby Bird & Partners Engineers