Safe Speed Forums

Motoring crime is still not taboo. Thanks for nothing Tufty

IT'S JUST after rush hour and the streets are eerily quiet. Suddenly, something remarkable happens. A large car veers slowly across the road and hits a lamppost, while its driver sits slumped - apparently unconscious - over the wheel. A few bypassers stop and stare. But one man knows what to do and within seconds he has opened the car door and hauled the comatose motorist onto the pavement. "Help me get him up!" he gasps, as he hauls the heavy figure into a sitting position. Someone suggests calling 999. "Are you mad?" barks our hero. "He's obviously drunk. He could lose his licence ..."

In the end, common sense prevails. The emergency services are called and the attending officers don't seem interested in criminal investigations. Instead, they are muttering ominously about diabetic coma - the alcoholic odour being a possible effect of ketones accumulating in the bloodstream.

These events happened a long time ago and I am ashamed to admit to having been one of the witless bystanders who hesitated before running to the nearest phone box. I never found out what happened to the driver, but his chances can't have been improved by that misguided attempt to save his licence, rather than his life.

It would be nice to think that such woeful ignorance wouldn't be tolerated today. After three decades of government campaigns, drink driving has supposedly become socially unacceptable (despite research showing that a third of middle-aged drivers still admit to sometimes motoring while over the limit), and I doubt whether anyone disagrees that departing Livingston chairman Angelo Massone got what he deserved when he was fined £800 and banned from driving for a year after being found slumped over his steering wheel, reeking of booze.

What, though, are we to make of the sentencing of Ian Shennan, the van driver who killed father-of-three Paul Anderson and his four-year-old granddaughter? Convicted of dangerous driving at Edinburgh's High Court, Shennan had his licence removed for five years and was sentenced to 28 months imprisonment: a term Anderson's widow considers grossly inadequate.
We don’t care enough about our children to enforce rules that are designed to keep them safe. In fact, our whole approach to child road safety is flawed

The bereaved, of course, can be forgiven for thinking any punishment is too small. And for his part, Shennan appears deeply contrite about what his defence lawyer called "a tragic error of judgment". So what would be gained from subjecting him, and others like him, to the kind of sentences that are routinely doled out to people who kill with fists, knives or guns?

Shennan didn't mean to kill and it could be argued that in making a botch-up of overtaking on the A9, he was no more wicked than any motorist who takes a calculated risk; Shennan was just unlucky enough not to get away with it. It's the "there but for the grace of God" argument, and it's the reason why motoring offences are routinely downgraded in this country. Simply put - most people drive and most drivers, at least occasionally, break the speed limit, talk on their mobiles or take their eye off the road to change radio stations. So what are we going to do: bang them all up?

Having seen the pictures of a distraught Shennan leaving court, I haven't the heart to bay for a throw-away-the-keys-style blood-letting. But I do think he should have lost his licence for good. The 59-year-old has plainly rescinded the right to be let loose on the roads, and while it's unlikely he'd ever take a stupid risk again, a signal needs to be sent out that motoring offences are not trivial; that, in fact, careless driving is an efficient method of killing people.

Speed wasn't involved in the Shennan case, but it's by far the most common contributory factor in fatal road accidents. Yet according to an RAC survey, 75% of motorists think speed cameras have more to do with raising money than saving lives. All this proves, of course, is that 75% of motorists are monumentally arrogant.

Most people seem to think that getting caught breaking the speed limit is akin to being rumbled for chewing gum at the back of the class, despite the glaring evidence to the contrary: a child hit at 40mph has a 90% chance of dying compared with just 3% at 20mph. What part of that statistic do people not understand?

On the evidence of the pathetic conviction rate for speeding offences, we don't care enough about our children to enforce rules that are designed to keep them safe. In fact, our whole approach to child road safety is flawed. And in my opinion, the blame lies squarely with Tufty the Squirrel.

Launched in 1961, the Tufty Club was an early road safety initiative which encouraged children to follow the example of a cute but impossibly goody-goody talking rodent. Tufty always did his kerb drill - unlike bad Willy Weasel, who, if memory serves, got knocked down in every single story because he was forever careering off the pavement on his tricycle or dashing recklessly across the road to the ice cream van.

At the risk of being strung up by the red squirrel protection league, I'd say Tufty and his pals have a lot to answer for. There's nothing wrong with road safety education, of course, but the problem is that by placing the emphasis on teaching them how to stay out of harm's way, these campaigns signalled that responsibility for keeping children safe lay with the children themselves, rather than the adults who designed the streets and drove the cars.

Instead of devising ways of keeping down traffic speeds, we have demonised two generations of Willy Weasels for having the cheek to behave like children, while tolerating juvenile nonsense from the so-called motorists' lobby. Listen to this from anti-speed camera group Safe Speed on the government's drive to cut residential speed limits to 20mph: "If you make drivers go at a speed where they are not comfortable, they will be distracted and inattentive and that is what causes accidents."

As National Road Victim Month gets underway, Safe Speed and their ilk should shut the hell up and allow local communities to make their case for getting their neighbourhoods into a twenty's plenty zone.

Where these limits have been introduced, child fatalities have plummeted by around 70%. Once again: what part of that statistic does Safe Speed not understand?

Most people seem to think that getting caught breaking the speed limit is akin to being rumbled for chewing gum at the back of the class, despite the glaring evidence to the contrary: a child hit at 40mph has a 90% chance of dying compared with just 3% at 20mph. What part of that statistic do people not understand?

Let me lay out why it is such a stupid analogy, if I drive at 40mph in a 40mph limit am I speeding? No, is a child less likely to die because I am not speeding? No! So what part of this do the speed kills brigade not understand?

If we were really concerned about the safety of our children we would put an end to the "school run". Or, at least, ban stopping within a hundred meters of a school. The congestion caused by parents' cars is a serious hazard. Not to mention the health benefits of walking

Banning the school run would do more for road safety and child health than any policy we currently have. I too advocate banning the school run, and making a school bus scheme mandatory for children with longer journeys that are not practical for walking.

When my daughter was at primary school my wife used to lead a "walking bus" for about a mile. The encouraging thing was that several of her "passengers" could have gone to school by car but chose to walk. They really enjoyed the walk, the opportunity to talk to friends, pick hedgerow flowers, look through peoples windows.

Speed wasn't involved in the Shennan case, but it's by far the most common contributory factor in fatal road accidents.

All this proves, of course, is that 75% of motorists are monumentally arrogant.

Most people seem to think that getting caught breaking the speed limit is akin to being rumbled for chewing gum at the back of the class

Launched in 1961, the Tufty Club was an early road safety initiative which encouraged children to follow the example of a cute but impossibly goody-goody talking rodent.

we don't care enough about our children to enforce rules that are designed to keep them safe. In fact, our whole approach to child road safety is flawed.

the problem is that by placing the emphasis on teaching them how to stay out of harm's way, these campaigns signalled that responsibility for keeping children safe lay with the children themselves, rather than the adults who designed the streets and drove the cars.

Where these limits have been introduced, child fatalities have plummeted by around 70%. Once again: what part of that statistic does Safe Speed not understand?

To me, it shows an arrogance were they don't care about road safety. I've witnessed dozens of teenagers who just walk out in front of you with the the attitude and look in their eyes that says..." You'll stop for me...you have to!"

Banning the school run would do more for road safety and child health than any policy we currently have. I too advocate banning the school run, and making a school bus scheme mandatory for children with longer journeys that are not practical for walking.

“a child hit at 40mph has a 90% chance of dying compared with just 3% at 20mph. What part of that statistic do people not understand?”

“I'd say Tufty and his pals have a lot to answer for. There's nothing wrong with road safety education, of course, but the problem is that by placing the emphasis on teaching them how to stay out of harm's way, these campaigns signalled that responsibility for keeping children safe lay with the children themselves, rather than the adults who designed the streets and drove the cars.”

“I'd say Tufty and his pals have a lot to answer for. There's nothing wrong with road safety education, of course, but the problem is that by placing the emphasis on teaching them how to stay out of harm's way, these campaigns signalled that responsibility for keeping children safe lay with the children themselves, rather than the adults who designed the streets and drove the cars.”