My musings which really need tidying up but highlight how we have all the elements in place to deliver what I was working on in 1996 - 30 years ago - a way that older drivers can get a 'soft landing' through having easy access to use a bus pass for bus & coach travel or hiring the new EAPC as they relinquish their driving licences when their eyesight or other conditions make this essential
Likewise how the 24/7 express coaches, which also carry cycles can replace the option of a young driver making a late night journey home with mates - a known high risk issue
The UK and Scottish government is missing a major opportunity to bring down the toll of deaths and serious injuries on our roads, for both older and younger drivers in both cases through these groups being driven to get behind the wheel of a vehicle recognised since the death of Bridget Driscoll, knocked down & killed by a motor car driver in 1896 at Crystal Palace in London, when through age, having either failing sight or other capacity or the inexperience of youth, need to reduce the hazards they pose to themselves or others by driving a car - recognised since the 1903 Motor Car Act - which I'll happily expand on, and offer solutions for
This is unfortunately a lot to digest, and I've been trying to find ways to distill the detail from 6 decades of working in this field
I've spent over 60 years working in transport and engineering to manage that risk and deliver safer and less costly & harmful roads but despair at the failure to develop the opportunities to deliver this that are not being grasped. From my work in training railway staff to repair & maintain the new HST trains when they were launched in Scotland in 1978, I have gone on to work on the cycle training curriculum used by Cycle Training UK (in 1996) which was developed to deliver Bikeability, with other training material used in the bus driver (Class D vocational licences) training module for bus driver-cyclist risk management (2008 video big bus, little bike, which really needs a serious revision to recognise current developments. Since 2000 I've also applied the skills of objective investigation to review the fatal and serious RTC that continue to flood in, with far too many being a repeat of identical fatal or serious crashes - with an appalling 2 RTC just 8 weeks apart at exactly the same time and location in Greenwich, where both victims (both mature women both walking from local primary school to local shops) ended up under a bus, the first, trapped & badly injured, the second killed - through my report and work with Roadpeace we secured a Rule 28 report to reinforce the inquest findings. I have a portfolio of many further cases to expand on UK-wide
Scotland has some measures already quietly delivering this through the age ranges now offered the options of free bus & coach travel up to age 22 and over the age of 60, and available 24/7 to provide this alternative to driving
The policy in Scotland, the Saltire (National Entitlement Card) provides free travel on local bus services, AND the growing network of COMMERCIALLY RUN express coach services (which do not receive the embedded Bus Service Operators Grant - for registered bus services) where, in Scotland, we also have currently THREE separate operators providing 24/7 express coach services running fast & direct routes on the main motorway & trunk road routes across Scotland (see example later on)
A wider perspective runs back to the project I played a part in 30 YEARS ago, where we were delivering through the platform of the bus pass (the ITSO RFID card for the technology of the era - pre phone app and QR patch) which, in many parts of the world is delivering #TotalMobility at a fraction of the cost to the public and the government we are paying at present - too little space here, but a detail where I can demonstrate my personal hacking of the available systems to enjoy low carbon, faster, journeys across the galumaufry of every mobility mode,
including using new electric cars and vans hired, by the hour 24/7, using my bus pass, and over the past 6 years costing barely £400.... TOTAL vs the indcated average cost to own & run a decent car - £6000/year (£15/day)
With older drivers already aware that their stamina and abilities are making them a liability - for example greater difficulty with night time driving, and in need of a 'soft' landing to reduce the journeys currently made by driving a car. With the public hire bikes launched in Glasgow in 2014 I enabled my bus pass as the way to hire available bikes, to make local trips, especially when this was more direct and convenient than using a bus. As vision deteriorates a person can safely use the modern EAPC with a top assisted speed limited to 15mph and gently ease away from driving. Many visually Impaired people plus those banned from driving (eg epilepsy &c) gain the freedom of using public bike hire, PLUS bus & coach trips, to gradually move away from clinging on to driving, when they really need to let go - I know this from watching my late father's increasingly worrying driving performance, as we worked to persuade him to use coaches & trains for longer trips and step away from driving
A Total Mobility offer with examples I can highlight already can eliminate the number of young drivers, or drink impaired older drivers taking friends home at night - I've been delivering this detail for over 40 years through initiatives I've set up as well. When active with Edinburgh Festival Fringe (building and operating temporary venues) I used my transport connection with the MD of Lothian Buses (Charles Evans) to sell 1 and 3 week bus passes from the Edinburgh Fringe box office with the theatre tickets, and list the bus services for each venue on the Fringe programme. I also prompted this for the early T in the Park, which then delivered a 'Jazz Service' of 100 seat 15 metre buses running every 10 minutes from Central Glasgow and Edinburgh to a field in the middle of Fife, vastly reducing the need for car parking, and the resulting traffic jams
I saw the effect one Saturday morning (at 03.19!) as I loaded my pre-booked bike on the Ember E3 service to Dundee, which was easily 50% full, mainly with under 22 bus pass users returning, safely, home and using the 'request stops' along the M80/M9/A92 corridor to get to many smaller settlements (we dropped groups at Cumbernauld, Stirling, Dunblane, Auchterader!!! (at 04.30 with a 1½ mile walk, or bike ride?) then Perth, before I changed at St Madoes (05.00) to catch the 05.30 E1 service to Kinross (06.00) to meet friends for breakfast & a bike ride North to Perth, some of the young passengers were staying on all the way to Dundee, or even travelling through to Aberdeen!
In a real example of how Scotland's practical local pragmatism works the Glenfarg Community bus service (which uses regular B licence drivers who hold the MIDAS certificates to drive "large motor cars with no more than 16 seats") is offering a pre-booked connection at Kinross (AT MIDNIGHT!) for people returning from a night out in Edinburgh on the Ember E2 service to Dundee
All of this as solutions delivered by local communities using available systems creatively - to use the Latin motto "Medice cura te ipsum" ?
A lot to deliver & a development I've to crystallise with the team at Active Travel England over an even broader canvas
posts
