Why No Outrage?

It's been a terrible few weeks on Bristol's roads.

The hit-and-run killings of 15-year old Troy Atkinson in the city centre and 11-year old Sam Riddell in Westbury on Trym have been appalling reminders of the dangers that our young people face every day when they walk through the city.

About 10 people are killed every day on the nation's roads and every year 10,000 British children are permanently disabled through "accidents", road traffic ones being the primary cause. Professor Barry Pless makes a stark point when he claims that 30% of these so-called accidents could be prevented relatively easily. "If we could reduce any other disease by this margin and nothing was done the public would surely be outraged."

Dr Ian Roberts of the Institute of Child Health is even more blunt when he says, "It is child slaughter on a grand scale and it is irresponsible to ignore it."

Perhaps what we lack is not the technical knowledge to drastically reduce the number of children killed on our roads but the imagination to conceive of a modern city without thousands of cars. Perhaps we also lack the anger required to make change happen.

With Bristol set to receive significant funding to become Britain's first "cycling city", 2009 is a massive opportunity for a major change in our collective acceptance of what we will tolerate on our roads. Our paradigms need shifting and our capacity to imagine alternatives needs shaking up.

As Albert Einstein expressed it: "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."

For the sake of our children, let's hope we have the courage to make the move.

Al Shaw is a freelance writer and runs the Kumon study centre in Redland

 

 
Posted by: Al Shaw on 11 May 2009