The Government today published their proposals for the future of road safety, here are some of the reactions and criticisms to the framework
Brake, the road safety charity has already criticised some of the proposals, in particular they question how the new planned on-the-spot fines for careless driving offences will be properly enforced, at a time when traffic policing is being cut back in many areas.
Campaigns director at Brake, Julie Townsend says that the Government needs “to make traffic policing a national policing priority, to ensure we have sufficient traffic Police enforcing vital safety laws”.
The proposed increase in fine levels were also criticised as being “woefully inadequate as a deterrent to potentially life-threatening behaviour behind the wheel” and a comparison was made to the high fine levels for littering which does not “pose a direct threat to human life”.
Read the full reaction on the Brake website
Tags: road safety, safety, traffic
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‘Campaigns director at Brake, Julie Townsend says that the Government needs “to make traffic policing a national policing priority, to ensure we have sufficient traffic Police enforcing vital safety laws”.’
Now, taken at face value, there is a lot of sense in those words. What we need to know is their interpretation of the words “vital safety laws”. As many who have read my previous posts will already know, I am of the opinion that ‘Road Safety’ is usually more of a government cliche for revenue raising than anything to do with actual safety.
If she is saying ‘Give us back the old fashioned Traffic Officers, who can differentiate between all the forms of anti social road behaviour and act accordingly, who can spot vehicles with dangerous tyres or steering, who have the ability to recognise the difference between driving carelessly/dangerously/etc, and simple speeding, who have the skills necessary to minimise disruption to traffic flow at accidents, who know how to break up traffic tailbacks and get things moving quickly and efficiently.’ then she would have my support. If she means, as so many of these ‘Saaafety’ minded individuals mean, ‘Get the police out on the roads to fine all those habitual criminals who regularly exceed our wonderful speed limits.’ then we are doomed to continue as we are, or descend into even more chaos.
We do need proper traffic policing, just as much as we need properly maintained roads, I am in favour of the MOT test to weed out incipient and actual dangerous vehicular degradation. The Highway Code is worth reading at every revision. What we do not need is the usual knee-jerk reaction activists coming up with even more stifling rules and regulations to make the driving experience even more of a drudge than it is now.
Ken Lines.