[A-List] Danger from the strangers behind the wheel

[Bill Totten <shimogamo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

by Mark Lynas

New Statesman (April 23 2007)


Motorists must be forced to acknowledge that possession of a dangerous weapon
requires extreme caution and diligence

There is a menace on our streets, one that threatens the lives of our children
on a daily basis. It comes from a group of people who are responsible for
hundreds of innocent deaths each year due to their addiction to a uniquely
dangerous activity. But rather than being discouraged by government and the law,
this group sees its every whim indulged - indeed, GBP 13 billion of public money
is currently being wasted on its behalf. You've probably guessed who the
individuals are who comprise this group - motorists.

According to government statistics, 671 pedestrians and 148 cyclists were killed
by drivers in 2005. Motorists remain the biggest risk to our young people: in
that same year, over 2,100 child pedestrians were seriously injured or killed,
including 250 under the age of five. By comparison, an average of seven children
are attacked and murdered each year by strangers. Despite the tabloid hype, your
child is ten times more likely to be killed by a motorist while playing outside
than by a paedophile. "Stranger danger" comes not from shifty looking men in
overcoats, but from other mums and dads behind the wheel. In addition to the
tally of crushed bodies and broken limbs is the hidden price paid by children
through the loss of their freedom - with the streets too dangerous for children
to play on, they are imprisoned in their homes by anxious parents, forced to be
their chauffeurs, which can lead to more dangers for their young passengers.

Motorists are the only group of people in modern society still allowed to kill
with impunity. On the rarest of occasions do motorists who cause death face jail,
and then only for short periods. Take the Oxford nurse Angela Dublin, released a
fortnight ago after spending just a year in prison for killing three
thirteen-year-old children, who were travelling with her, and another motorist
(aged 21), while speeding on the Oxford bypass in May 2005. As Dwain Haynes,
father of one of the three boys killed by Dublin - who had seven kids in her 
car as she drove home from her son's birthday party - told the Oxford Times:
"Serving a year goes to show what a joke it is and what a death on the road
means. I only hope there is a change in the law one day." The conditions of
Dublin's release prevent her entering areas of Oxford where families of the 
dead children live - so the law recognises the pain that would be caused to 
the parents bumping into the woman who killed their sons. Her driving ban
expires in 2012 - she could be behind the wheel in just five years.

Another example of the negligible legal penalties for drivers who kill concerns
the Rhyl Cycling Club, four of whose members were mown down by Robert Harris on
the A457 in January 2006. Harris skidded on black ice while travelling at fifty
miles per hour, causing what can only be described as carnage: three men,
including the club's chairman and a fourteen-year-old boy, were declared dead at
the scene. Harris was fined GBP 180 for having bald tyres, and given six penalty
points on his licence. That's one and a half penalty points per person killed -
not a sign of a legal system that takes innocent deaths on the road terribly
seriously. Indeed, the surviving members of Rhyl Cycling Club have now joined
RoadPeace, the group campaigning for justice for road traffic victims.

Despite pumping GBP thirteen billion into expanding the road network for the
benefit of motorists, the government says it wants to encourage cycling. It 
has clearly failed: while there are seven million more cars on the road than 
a decade ago, the use of cycles has barely increased. Part of the reason must
surely be the dangers to which cyclists and pedestrians are exposed - dangers
intensified by a legal system that refuses either to punish motorists who kill
or to recognise the rights of other road users. Driving also seems to generate a
bully-as-victim psychology, where those who deal out death see themselves as an
embattled minority - read the diatribes put out by the Association of British
Drivers to get an idea of this mentality.

I have two proposals.

First, every motorist who kills should receive a lifetime driving ban, with no
exceptions under any circumstances. The right to life must take precedence over
the right to drive. That Robert Harris was free to walk out of the magistrates'
court and get straight back into his car after killing four people is an insult
to the memory of his victims. Lifetime driving bans would force motorists to be
more careful, as well as take the most dangerous drivers off the road.

Second, British law - which currently favours motorists - should be altered in
line with the Continental system, where a driver who hits a cyclist is presumed
guilty unless proven innocent. We must lift the culture of impunity, and force
motorists to acknowledge that possession of a dangerous weapon requires extreme
caution and diligence. Once the terror of the car recedes, people might again
begin to venture on to our streets on foot and by bike. The reality of car
culture promoted by the likes of Top Gear {1} is not high-performance thrills in
glamorous cars, but a wilting bunch of flowers by a busy roadside.


Note {1} http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780563493624-0


http://www.newstatesman.com/200704230020


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