Why its time to treat road crime as true crime
Claire Stocks
Supporting Greater Manchester's Active Travel Commissioner. Also : freelance communicator, independent consultant, cargo bike cooperative director.
Today, I heard a son, still bereft and outraged at his mother’s senseless loss in a crash on England’s roads, speak at the launch of an all-party report into Road Justice in England and Wales.
This man’s mum, Carol, was 75 when she was killed while cycling her bike, hit by a driver who was later jailed for careless driving & using a mobile phone several times moments beforehand.
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Choking back tears and pausing to gather himself in order to speak the words strongly and clearly despite obvious distress, Chris described the day in 2016 he was told his mother had been severely injured, and dashed back from France where he was working, to get to her bedside at the Countess of Chester hospital.
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‘It was late. All was dark. I was trying to find my way in to the hospital. I found A&E and walked in and there was my sister holding my mother’s hand, now such a frail form for someone so active.
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‘She had been kept alive until I got there.
‘It was horrific.
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‘My son drove us home and my father wailed with grief, and he never recovered.
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‘And I, I kept it in a box for seven years, and that is why I am here.’’
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‘Here’, was Committee Room 17, a hot oak-panelled room with a green patterned carpet, high in the rafters of the House of Commons.
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And this man was Chris Boardman - England’s Active Travel Commissioner, Tour de France commentator, former champion rider and Olympian.
Father.
Son.
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Boardman chose to attend this All Party Parliamentary Group meeting in a personal capacity, to recount the terrible event of his mother’s death on England’s roads as part of the public evidence at the report’s publication.
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It makes 10 simple recommendations, and the work starts now to meet Ministers and Shadow Ministers to seek action, on at least some of them.
The 10 recommendations:?
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Sadly the reality is - especially with a Government in crisis - that progress on this agenda remains agonisingly slow.
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Despite the fact 1,200 children are injured within 500 metres of a school every month in the UK (source: Rospa )
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Despite the fact someone is killed or seriously injured on the roads about every 20 minutes.
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And that the number killed is around 1,700 - eight times those killed by knife crime.
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While not all these crashes are driver fault - many, many are.
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Yet in every way, from reporting to enforcement to sentencing, road crime is not treated as a real crime.
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Nor have planners and engineers in the past sought to design danger for the most vulnerable out of our roads, only make the traffic 'flow faster'.
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(eg the bin lorry effect, when you get vast swathes of tarmac that are terrifying and dangerous for pedestrians to cross - just to help the heavy bin lorry take the corner a little faster).
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Note for instance that the three broadsheet nationals chose to cover this report by running headlines singling out only one of the recommendations and positioning it as petty,; ‘penalising drivers for going 1mph over the speed limit’.
The Mail chose a photo of a motorway.
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That’s why is some quarters, patience has worn thin and grassroots activity has begun to take shape, to call for an end to this daily carnage.
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It began in Birmingham - where after a series of deaths and injuries everyday people took to the street to call for change.
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And now Better Streets Birmingham and many other groups from across the country are joining together to hold a day of action on 30th September under the strapline #SafeStreetsNow, calling for others to join in.
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Meanwhile, those behind this parliamentary report will continue to push for action - with party conference season approaching.
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One of them, UK Cycling's Duncan Dollimore, told the meeting that a review of road traffic offences was surely in order, given most of the recommendations sit not at the Department for Transport's door, but at the Ministry of Justice,
He reminded everyone, it’s been 10 years since they pledged to do just that.
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Detective Superintendent Andy Cox, a vocal champion for stronger and better roads policing, knew which two of the recommendations he would pick.
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He told the meeting he’d focus on appointing a Road Danger Commissioner and Removing the ‘Exceptional Hardship’ defence.
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When it comes to road crashes - Cox emphasised that the hardship ‘is not with the driver’, something we heard in painful detail from Yair Shahar, from Enfield, one of five case studies included in the report and present at the launch.
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Yair nearly died and still has life changing injuries, after a driver hit and drove onto him while he was waiting to turn right on his bike.
THAT'S exceptional hardship..
(The driver subsequently got off with a ￡90 speed awareness course due to police errors.)
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And yet we heard today via the report that a staggering 1 in 4 of drivers facing prosecution plead ‘exceptional hardship’ - as Dr Tom Cohen, who coordinated evidence for and authored the report said: 'the fact it’s so high clearly demonstrates the circumstances are not exceptional'.
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The report also shared other startling data:-
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These are among the small number of high-risk danger drivers out on our roads - knowing they face little penalty and ignoring all laws.
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And unlike other offences like burglary or drug dealing - there is no increase in sentencing for repeat offences. No deterrent for simply doing it again (which surely explains the high stats?)
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Rory MCarron, senior lawyer from solicitors Leigh Day, spoke about the fact that people who are victims of a road crash have no rights at all, unlike other crimes.
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That often police crash investigation reports will only feature interviews with a driver, not the person they hit.
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That victims of the crash have no rights to any case information and may not only not get any at all, but may even be treated with hostility and as a nuisance, by busy officers.
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‘But what they need is to be treated as truly a victim of a crime’.
As Boardman said:-
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‘People who commit road crime are not the ones we should be protecting. These recommendations will not affect those who respect the law.
‘I’ve just described the horrific consequences - I feel it, and I live it.’
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Chief Technical Services Officer. Company Secretary. BPA
1 年It was ever the same. There are more people killed and seriously injured on our roads than in flying and rail travel collisions combined. But who cares, apart from those involved? In 1986 European Year of Road Safety - remember that - I inspired with others a conference on behalf of what is now the Institution of Highways Engineers, entitled something like 'Road safety is everyone's business' and the national target was, I recall, to reduce fatalities on our roads from 6k/year to 2k/year by 2000. 2000 by 2000! The call from Road Safety and Traffic Engineers alike was "These things are 'collisions' with 'casualties' and not 'accidents'". It's possible to do something about many, if not most of them. And, just as it was back in1986, road safety is everyone's business.
Social Prescribing Lead at SSW PCN. Community builder. Passionate about making Somerset a healthier place to live and work.
1 年Yes, shocking and powerful testimony on the long-term impact on many people of a reckless drivers' actions, who was looking at his phone while driving. It should have been manslaughter but we treat it like "oh dear, accidents happen". The next day I heard the Today's programme Justin Webb attacking Wales' new 20mph speed limit in urban areas. The pro-car, anti-positive change lobby is strong in our country. Despite evidence that 20 kills far fewer pedestrians and cyclists.
Building Surveyor, Freelance
1 年It's incredible that the Government shows such a lack of interest in this, compared to the investigations into a handful of deaths that occur on building sites or railways.