George Robertson On Road Safety

George Robinson opines in the Groan about road safety.

Imagine a global humanitarian disaster that kills on the scale of malaria or tuberculosis. A public health catastrophe taking the lives of 1.2 million people each year and the livelihoods of tens of millions more. While our immediate attention is drawn to the threat of global pandemic, a worldwide public health crisis that already kills thousands each week goes by almost unnoticed.

Here we go…

Road crashes are by no means the hot public health and development issue of the day, yet, according to a report out this week, they are, right now, a crippling burden on health systems across low and middle-income countries. Our governments are mobilising to give us the best chance of countering a possible flu pandemic and rightly so. If only a fraction of this attention was paid to the daily carnage on our roads. Unlike flu, we can eradicate threat and danger on the roads. We already have the tried and tested simple preventative measures which would have saved the thousands who have already died on the roads over the past week, but we seem content to let the casualties mount.

Not too hysterical, then. Yes, road deaths are a concern and yes, the toll overall is high. However, we still take the risk. This is because on balance, the risk is worth taking when measured against the convenience of personal transport. George though is not merely talking about the UK here, he is talking about globally, because Georgie boy is planning to get himself on a gravy train to solve it.

There are few unknowns with road crashes; the causes are simple to identify: badly designed roads and unsafe vehicles, trucks, buses and cars mixing with pedestrians, lack of seat belt- or helmet-wearing and enforcement, a fatalistic attitude to risk and inadequate or non-existent driver training.

Where, I wonder, to start? Firstly, let’s go with the blindingly obvious (except to a politico on a mission, that is). The failure to wear a crash helmet or seat belt (and the failure to enforce wearing them) does not cause accidents. Come to that, neither do badly designed roads – it’s the people using ’em that’s the problem. And, staggeringly, it would seem that George is unaware of the shared space principle whereby it has been demonstrated that mixing traffic with pedestrians reduces accidents. That vehicles are unsafe and therefore cause accidents is an assertion not backed up with anything substantial, so not really worth bothering with.

Driver education; yes, absolutely. We can always do with more of that. We can all learn something new.

The new report by the Commission for Global Road Safety details how we can save millions of lives. In essence, we need the political will to act and effectively focused resources. Unfortunately this hidden epidemic is so ignored, neglected and under-funded that global road deaths are set to double by 2030.

Well, actually, given the sheer ignorance on display, I would suggest that politicians doing nothing is a damned sight better than them interfering.

When we take to the roads, by whatever means, we take a risk. It is up to us – each of us – to manage that risk. Adults like to call it personal responsibility. This, I realise is something unknown to politicians, so they see everything as needing them to fix it.

There are many reasons. We will continue to invest millions in the economic development of low-income countries. Our overseas aid is devoted to improving life chances for education, for health. Dangerous roads damage this effort, killing the young and productive, disrupting commerce and trade. They impose a high burden on under-funded health services.

How’s this for a radical solution? Stop all overseas aid. By all means invest in local businesses through loans and stocks. Invest through free trade, allowing those countries to develop by their own efforts. And, as those countries’ wealth increases, so, too will their ability to invest in more up-to-date vehicles and infrastructure. The problem will largely resolve itself – so long as one realises that road deaths will never entirely go away.

So what needs to happen? The commission, which I chair, has already persuaded the UN to support a first ever global ministerial conference on road safety to be held in November. Now we are calling on the conference in Moscow to support…

See? This fatuous, hubristic moron thinks he and his ilk are just the right people to solve it. God help us.

National governments, and those with responsibility for road safety at regional and local level, should be encouraged to adopt ambitious strategies to improve and enforce road user behaviour.

As opposed to getting out of our lives and allowing personal responsibility to take over. As is usual, the answer according to the narrow, limited intellect of the politician is control.

For example, ministers meeting in November could together commit to work for universal seat belt- and helmet-wearing by 2020. With high-level political support action like this, Moscow can be a genuine turning point, the fork in the road where we choose to take a new direction for road injury prevention.

Jesus Christ! The best way to survive an accident is not to have one in the first place. The effort therefore should be on up-skilling drivers, more defensive driving, greater awareness and anticipation and – dare I say – personal responsibility.

This being the Guardian, the usual socialist anti-car, anti-liberty, anti-individual, misanthropic control freaks are on parade. This from a prime imbecile calling himself – or herself mariansummerlight:

As long as we continue with the obsession with private car ownership as the primary means of transport and allow amateur drivers at the wheel the death toll will continue to rise.

While risks associated with travelling about cannot be entirely eliminated they can be minimised and one way to do this is ban motor vehicles except for essential use and public transport.

Car ownership is maintained by pandering to individualism and selfishness, the vested interests of the motoring lobby and the myth that the alternatives cannot provide the flexibility of car ownership.

Ah, yes; we are the Borg, we are part of the collective, we are not individuals, such ideas as individualism and personal responsibility are heresy, verboten. Well, you little cretin, I am an individual and plan to remain that way and I’ll be damned if I will allow you or your ilk to force me to travel when you say I should or where you say I should. I’ll be keeping my motorcycle and my car and will use them in defiance of you and everything you represent. I am not and never will be a part of your collective.

God, but I hate socialists.