[The text of a mini article I've just added to the ELAM website. If anyone wants to steal it for newsletters, etc, just help yourself]
Hitting the pedestrian, missing the point
I was quite appalled to see the latest road safety TV ad in which a woman pedestrian is hit by a car as she crosses at a zebra. Not because it is graphic in its portrayal of the the impact -- I'm all in favour of ads which make people aware of the realities of serious accidents -- but because it completely misses the point.
The accident was caused by the combination of two acts of stupidity. First, a car driver who is driving beyond the limits of his vision, and so is unable to stop by the time the pedestrian enters his field of view. Second, a pedestrian who steps out into the road when she cannot see what might be coming the other way.
If the ad had ended with the lines 'Always be able to stop within the distance you can see to be clear' and 'Even on a zebra, don't step into the road when you can't see what's coming', I'd have considered it a valuable contribution to road safety. Instead, it tells us how much more likely we are to kill a pedestrian if we hit them at 35mph instead of 30mph. The implication is that we can't stop the accident happening, only lessen the consequences. What a depth we've sunk to when this is what passes for a road safety message!
Nor is this an isolated example: it's part of a whole series of 'speed kills' messages. Speed does *not* kill. Let's look at the accident stats, shall we? Safest form of transport? Airliners. Typical speed? 600mph. Well, maybe that's a glitch, shall we try the second safest? Trains. Speeds? Up to 130mph in the UK, up to 240mph in countries like France, Germany and Japan. Ok, maybe we should look at the other end of the scale. Most dangerous form of transport? Road. Average speed of a serious road traffic accident? 27mph.
Speed does not kill. Careless driving kills. That may include driving faster than is safe for the circumstances, but a safe speed might be 10mph past a primary school at 8.45am on a weekday morning in fog or 150mph on that lovely M6 stretch through Cumbria at 7am on a sunny Sunday morning in June.
Blanket speed limits, rigidly enforced by devices incapable of exercising judgement and reinforced by simplistic and misleading slogans, are an admission of defeat. We're saying that driving standards are so low that the best we can hope for is to try to minimise the consequences of the accidents we consider inevitable.
I accept that my dream of a much higher-standard driving test, coupled to much harsher penalties for causing an accident in which a third party is injured, may remain a distant dream. The former would be political suicide for a government unless it could attract all-party support, and the latter seems beyond the will of magistrates who appear to take a 'there but for the grace of god' attitude to drivers who put people into hospital. But surely it's not too much to ask for to have some meaningful road safety messages? Ones which might prevent the pedestrian being hit in the first place instead of ones which mean she ends up in a wheelchair rather than a coffin?
Ben
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Ben 'Darth' Lovejoy
| Bike: CBR600F3
ben@lovejoy.demon.co.uk
| Ex-bike: GPZ400R
http://www.lovejoy.demon.co.uk/elam/ | Honorary bike: MX-5
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