Safe Speed issued the following PR at 4:14am today:
PR429: Individual responsibility is a key road safety factor
news: for immediate release
Quoted in The Times today, Owen Paterson, shadow roads minister said: "Instead
of the State laying down the rules, we need to give responsibility back to road
users." Safe Speed says that this is a crucial road safety 'truth'.
Individual responsibility is one of the three road safety key factors that have
been squandered by recent policy. The other two are 'skills' and 'attitudes'.
Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(
www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "We have to get back to road safety policies which
recognise and develop the three key safety factors - skills, attitudes and
responsibilities. Road safety is a psychology subject, not a physics subject."
"Widely applied policies based on the idea that 'speed kills' have tended to
remove individual responsibility, worsen attitudes and de-skill the driving
process. This is a deadly mistake that has, on average, made drivers worse and
cost thousands of lives.[1]"
"I'm looking forwards to the Conservative's green paper and have my fingers
crossed that it will properly recognise the true key road safety factors."
<ends>
Notes for editors
=================
Article in today's Times:
"'Naked' streets are safer, say Tories"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 40,00.html
[1] Based on a simple extrapolation of earlier trends in road risk values,
annual national road deaths would be down to around 2,000 per year by now. Safe
Speed research strongly confirms the hypothesis that the loss of trend is due
to 'bad policy'. The departure from long term trend stated at the same time
that we adopted policies based on the oversimplified idea that 'speed kills'.
Here's the page we published when we found the loss of trend in 2003:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/fatality.html
In the 2005 report. TRL629, TRL confirmed the Safe Speed claims that the loss
of trend was due to 'drivers getting worse'.