We can't need 2 tons of metal to feel safe on our roads

My latest email to BirminghamLive subscribers - you can sign up here .

Modern cars can give you a sense of security. They'll undergo thousands of safety tests before you even get to sit in them. It's all very reassuring.

Being a pedestrian on?the other hand, or a?cyclist, can be a different?story.

I write, of course, after a?spate of tragedies on?Birmingham's roads .

There is growing anger after four people, including two children, died and four were seriously injured by drivers in separate incidents across the city in just a month.?

This is clearly a divisive issue - when we recently organised a Facebook Live debate on our roads, we were?deluged with messages about lining up people who are "anti-car".

I don't know if that was fair - I also don't know if balance is really what we need.

Elsewhere, hundreds of local residents attended a demonstration led by Better Streets for Birmingham in Kings Heath recently after a woman and child were injured crossing the road.

They demanded better behaviour from drivers, enforcement from police and safety infrastructure from the council.

There is a problem here - that makes our lives more difficult.

Well, I am a driver. I drive on Birmingham's roads - and I do so pretty safely,?I think. However, were I the type of person to exceed the speed limit, I am not sure I'd fear the upshot that much.

We have only a handful of operational speed cameras in the West Midlands. We recently ran a story about the number of?people with nine points on their licence?and I wondered how it?could possibly be the?case.

Then I looked out of my window and remembered why. We all see it all the time - people driving too fast, overtaking in poor places, not being careful at junctions and so on.

In fact,?we have been out and about watching a lot of driving recently .

Nobody's perfect - I am not saying I am - but we are playing with loaded guns here.

Hussein Nur Teklise, 45, father of a two-year-old boy,?Azaan Khan, aged 12, and a four-year-old boy from Erdington all paid with their lives on the roads.

I am not assigning blame here - but these are real lives, real families.

Our region needs to gradually get away from its reliance on cars but frankly we are some way away from that.

In the meantime, we need to see more police officers in areas where cyclists and pedestrians are more vulnerable, to reassure safety.

I also think the law needs more teeth. We need the fear.

Driving is a privilege. If you get to use our roads, you should have to treat them with respect. If you drive terribly, you shouldn't fear getting points - you should have to worry about being allowed to drive at all.

Pedestrians and cyclists have to feel safe - if that has to disadvantage drivers - me included - so be it.