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A thread to collect all of the many stories of child deaths and injuries caused by motorists.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-19310014
A two-year-old boy and his 10-year-old sister were critically injured when they were knocked down in a hit-and-run in Leeds.
Why does it always seemt o be hit and run? Does the nation really contain so many people prepared to drive over children then leave them lying there?
Do we have to? This is a cycling forum not an anti-motorist forum, I hoped.
It is how the Dutch got their infrastructure.
So we should ghoulishly track the injuries and deaths of children in the offchance that some council person happens across the thread, slaps their palm to their forehead and says "my god, my eyes are opened, we will build a segregated cycle system"?
Not for me thanks.
Well don't post on it then.
Unfortunately I can't delete it from the list of threads on the forum. I guess if others want it then it will flourish, until then I'll do my best to ignore it from now. Sorry.
I can't be arsed with this. Chdot, can you please delete this thread and I will collect the stories by bookmarking?
That is such a sad story, Especially at Eid. (think kids run over on christmas eve).
Kids should not have to suffer agony like this unnecessarily.
So many of these accidents when kids are hurt are entirely preventable - so I'm with any schemes that help prevent them. 20s plenty is a good example. But i'd also like to see people having to be retested periodically to hold their drivers licence.
Being against children being killed does NOT mean being against motorists.
Rather, we need changes (to roads, laws, enforcement) so that drivers of motor vehicles and bicycles are guided into behaving safely. Into cooperating and coexisting rather than competing for road space.
Although I don't disagree with it being a bit morbid, it surely shows how much of an uphill struggle we've got when people who ride bikes in traffic are wary of campaigning for change by highlighting needless deaths because that's anti-motorist....
I live on a 20's plenty street.
Joe public typically drives past at 30-45 mph
The boy racers go past at 50-60mph
No 20mph limit enforcement by the cops, ever.
It seems like a fairly reasonable request: can we please stop running over children?
But should we gather up all the cases and data? Hmm, ponders, hmm, hell yes. But mainly for the cynical reason that the only road safety strategies that have any impact are those where drivers are made to feel like shits for killing a child.
In the 1970s when the Stop de Kindermoord campaign started, 345 children were killed on Dutch roads. In 2011, there were 2,412 children killed or seriously injured on GB roads.
I couldn't find the split between child deaths and serious injuries last night. In 2010, across Great Britain, there were 55 child deaths and 2,400 serious injuries on the roads.
Instography: that is shocking. :-(
The Netherlands in 1970 had a population of about 13 million (says the internet) so, just multiplying that by 60/13, you get 1,592 deaths. Your actual figure of 2,412 is slightly more than 50% greater than this. Our child death rate is over 50% higher than the one which made the NL do a U-turn in transport policy.
Bax: are you on twitter? Regular reports of this gross speeding, with the name of the street, and the council's official #edtravcyc hash tag, may prompt some action. It certainly gets councillors' attention.
(Not that we should have to resort to twitter to get our public authorities to work for us, but this seems like a vaguely effective method - there has been the occasional sighting of law enforcement on Causewayside since I started moaning about the QBC on twitter, and I've had a reply from a councillor.)
No, the two figures aren't comparable. That's why I wanted to see how many children were dying in Britain not the KSI figure because I know most of the KSI figure is serious injuries.
The comparison would be the 55 deaths compared with the population adjusted equivalent of the Dutch rate from the 1970s of 1,592. We're a million miles away from the Kindermoord. Of course, only some of that is positive improvements in safety. Most of it is children being kept away from roads - not walking or cycling because it's too dangerous.
"Most of it is children being kept away from roads - not walking or cycling because it's too dangerous."
Also because of 'fear of danger' - which isn't quite the same thing.
A whole lot of 'stranger danger' paranoia has been built up over recent years when there was little evidence of increased risk. I believe it's still the case that (apart from road 'accidents') children are more likely to come to harm due to family or 'friends' than random strangers.
Meanwhile more kids are kept in, driven everywhere and getting fatter.
"... it surely shows how much of an uphill struggle we've got when people who ride bikes in traffic are wary of campaigning for change by highlighting needless deaths because that's anti-motorist"
I'd agree with that. It's surely 'anti-child-death' rather than 'anti-motorist'?
In much the same way that drink drive campaigns are anti-drink-driving rather than anti-motorist. I still remember, as a kid, the public safety film with the kid throwing his frisbee into a sub-station. Never saw the ad as anti-frisbee, or anti-electricity. Simply highlight something that is dangerous and which is killing lots of people, and it might then get better.
The only problem I have with such things (and I can understand why it's done this way, cos kids are very emotive etc.) is it kind of suggests the life of an adult isn't as important to campaign about (though campaigns are not mutually exclusive of course, and if you make streets safe for children they should be even safer for adults who should have better road/common sense).
Using children in this way could be seen as cynical; but the Dutch have shown it's pretty damned effective. A politician is never going to want to come across as condoning killing kids.
Bax: are you on twitter? Regular reports of this gross speeding, with the name of the street, and the council's official #edtravcyc hash tag, may prompt some action.
Not if you live on a street that's seen as relieving congestion on a main route you won't.
Your councilor is unlikely to put any significant pressure on the officials concerned and the officials are invested in the status quo. Your milage may vary (and I hope it does), but that's the case in Craiglockhart.
Colinton Road would be such a great candidate for segregated infrastructure. it's huge, runs past schools, unis and the tennis centre.
"Colinton Road would be such a great candidate for segregated infrastructure"
Yes - might manage to sort the road surface at the same time!!
Talking of Colinton Road, this was yesterday - he's 'just popped out to the shop' -
The only problem I have with such things (and I can understand why it's done this way, cos kids are very emotive etc.) is it kind of suggests the life of an adult isn't as important to campaign about (though campaigns are not mutually exclusive of course, and if you make streets safe for children they should be even safer for adults who should have better road/common sense).
I agree but I also think that children are disproportionally(sp?) affected. Both for the reason Insto described above (not allowed out to play because the roads are too dangerous) and also because children run out in front of cars. It is what they do. Taming the roads will not stop them being hit but if there are fewer cars there are fewer incidents and if speeds are lower then the incidents that occur will be less serious. And maybe if there is less of a "get out of my way" attitude because cars are at the bottom of the food chain, there will be fewer hit and runs? Quite a few of us have been hit and run..
"I believe it's still the case that (apart from road 'accidents') children are more likely to come to harm due to family or 'friends' than random strangers."
Indeed. At the risk of derailing the thread entirely, I remember after the shootings in Dunblane arguing that if the intention of banning handguns was to protect children, they'd do better to ban parenthood since that's where the greatest danger to children lies.
But back on topic. I think the argument has become completely different from the 1970s. We're making the same basic argument: our roads should be safe enough for a child to use them unsupervised, but we're making it not in a context of huge numbers being killed but large numbers being injured and, more importantly, almost all children being denied the opportunity to play and transport themselves safely under their own steam.
I have no problem with cynically using children to focus the discussion of road safety. It works. I've had pretty constructive exchanges with the people in Fife Council by structuring everything around the question of how my son should cycle to school.
Meanwhile more kids are kept in, driven everywhere and getting fatter.
Yes.
The whole situation is so FUBAR that it's almost as though a huge global industry was lobbying to keep things as they are so they can make more money. Surely not!
I have no problem with cynically using children to focus the discussion of road safety.
Neither do campaigners for faster, 'safer' bypasses. At least in Scotland that's how it works.
Meanwhile in Llandrinio it takes a 10 year old girl to do something about people speeding through her village.
It's like that Never Seconds thing. No politician with an ounce of sense wants to mess with kids. If they don't get it right they get flayed alive. There's not enough photos of unhappy children with little signs. Even better, a little choir singing, "I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike, I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like". Seriously, there's not. No one really cares about adults - they should be able to look after themselves but there's no politician who wants to be taken seriously who can ignore a child. Never mind adults putting postcards in pillar boxes, how about kids writing letters to Keith Brown...
Dear Mr Brown. My teachers tell me I need to be active to stay healthy. I love to ride my bike but my mum and dad won't let me go to school or to the shops on my bike unless they come with me. They are scared that I'll get hurt in the traffic. Please fix it so I can ride my bike safely.
Mr Brown?? Are you living in a time warp Steven or just addressing your letter to a local MP?
Keith Brown? Minister for Transport. (or did I miss something??)
Might be better starting off "Dear Mr. Salmond". Then he sends a memo to Mr. Brown marked "Action required" saying "Keith, do something, will you?"
In my daydreams, anyhow.
Smartypantses.
SRD, one of our local MPs is Gordon Brown. I didn't immediately think of that transport guy... wots-his-name...
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