Safe Speed Forums

Im afraid I have no links but on my regional news on the BBC (the north east) they claimed that the climbing percentage of kids being drove to school isn't from lazyness but because they are too afraid to walk from fear of speeding drivers.
BRAKE was mentioned so they may just be quoting stats from them, personally I've never heard such emotive nonsense.

Utter W**K again.

I used to walk to school 20 odd years ago I don't believe for a second that cars were incapable of exceeding the 30mph limit then!

In fact it was probably safer then because there were fewer people taking their kids to school!!!!

That is complete codswallop.

Even if that conculsion was drawn from a genuine and representative survey, chances are that most people would make up any excuse rather than admit they run their kids to school out of pure laziness.

And even if it IS true, what we should be worried about is the fact that so many parents don't trust their kids to cross the road safely. I would be worried if my kids didn't know how to cross the road.

Blindly blaming car users for all our problems, regardless of the actual cause, is solving NOTHING.

_________________
“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

I'm going to go against the grain here, because I believe it.

Look at it from the perspective of an 'ordinary person', or an underskilled driver or a non-driving single mother. They see the official speed kills propaganda, and the government making strenuous efforts to curb the menace of speed. Why should they disbelieve the government? What alternative views have they ever heard? It's obvious that there's going to be a reaction: fear of speeding traffic.

But the cause is misinformation causing the fear. It just goes to show how pernicious road safety lies can be.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Let me provide an example:

Holmesdale work 'will make cross an island'

RESIDENTS are bracing themselves for traffic mayhem with major work beginning on the Holmesdale Tunnel on the M25 at Waltham Cross in the new year.

The Highways Agency had originally intended to begin full-scale improvement works on the tunnel - just yards from junction 25 of the busy motorway - this month.

But a spokesman said this has now been re-scheduled for early next year.

Angry residents, who are already reeling from News International's £600m printworks development of the Park Plaza site near junction 25 for publication of The Times, Sunday Times and Sun newspapers, can foresee a four-year traffic "nightmare".

Maria Mendrys who has led the Park Plaza Action Group campaign with husband Steve, said she has warned her children she will not be able to run them to Cheshunt School in College Road once work begins.

And she added ominously: "It's a condition that News International cannot widen the A10 until the Holmesdale Tunnel is complete. Then there will be the A10 widening. We will have four years of disruption."

General maintenance work is currently being carried out in the Holmesdale area of the motorway prior to the tunnel revamp

But when the major £57m engineering works start in January to create three lanes instead of the current two lanes, both entry and exit slip roads on the tunnel side of junction 25, will be closed.

Motorists will have to find alternative routes while the work, expected to take 18 months, is carried out.

Exasperated mum-of-six Mrs Mendrys, of Park Lane, whose home backs on to the Park Plaza site, stormed: "It's an absolute nightmare! Waltham Cross will become an island!

"You just will not be able to get round it. People who live in the Cross will not be able to get in or out.

"We have told our children that when work starts on the tunnel, they will have to walk to school. Then you have the added pressure of their safety. Obviously, we will not be the only ones affected."

Ron McCole, chairman of Broxbourne Constituency Labour Party, said drivers will have to find detours through Potters Bar, Waltham Abbey and Waltham Cross.

"It's going to be absolutely awful for ages!" he said.

Can't these people afford a television????

_________________
"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

I've heard the "Roads are so unsafe I have to drive my child to school" before. I can sympathise; I've seen some truly terrifying driving from school run mums.

It strikes me as simple game theory. If nobody drove their kids to school, the roads would be a lot safer, but each parent would make their own child safer by driving them in.

When riding my motorbike i find that most young children smile & wave ( especially if i blip the throttle ), they don't seem at all scared.

It is the anti-car/bike "Road Safety" groups that create any fear in children as they grow older.

Absolutely right. Last night on BBC Midlands Today there was a goup of people, I think from Brake, busy indoctrinating kids with "speed Kills" and handing out teeshirsts with "SLOW DOWN" written on them in large letters.

Catch kids young enough with your propaganda and they won't be equipped to be critical of it.

Is that why they are plaaning a National Curriculum for 2 year olds?

When I was a child, I walked almost two miles each way to and from school, along a road with a 40mph limit that was widely ignored and many people did 45-50mph along it. That road now has a 30mph limit, and speed cameras. Presumably when people speed up to 32mph in between cameras, these speeding motorists are mowing down pedestrains in droves, and a road that used to be perfectly safe to walk along with 45-50mph traffic is now a major danger zone due to cars driving at such extreme speeds as 32mph in places.

Per Bolton paper - parents of two girls who died whilst crossing a road in February 2004 and march 2004 joined Brake and have encouraged a local school to participate in wearing Brake orange Slow Down T shirts.

Did not see the news story relating to one of them - but the second girl died at 11.30 pm after consuming vodka. The driver was speeding but escaped a dangerous driving conviction because the girl was so drunk she never even looked for traffic. Story is on PH as I posted it there at the time - complete with links from Bolton and Bury newspapers.

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

Another little snip in the Bolton press says that another school in the area is giving out fluorescent arm strips to their pupils to ensuire they are are least seen in the dark

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

It's in the way the questions were phrased, very much "leading the witness". I bet it was something like "are you worried about being knocked down on the way to school?" I've asked BRAKE for a statistical analysis of the KSI figures supporting their statements, let's see what the reply brings.
BRAKE are getting more and more emotional- their latest onslaught accuses motorbikes of killing kids, without a scrap of evidence; they can't even say how many, let alone say that the bike was at fault. Emotive bilge that needs disproving, forcing a retraction.