Road safety/Background

Then and now
There is a perception that the enmity between motorists and policymakers is new. This is not the case. The AA was founded in 1905 to warn motorists of speed traps, and the history of British road safety shows that things have see-sawed over time with first one side then the other gaining the upper hand - though with the motorists usually well in front. MPs, doctors and other influential individuals in society were early adopters of the motor car, and this led to disproportionate support for private motoring through most of if not all the 20th Century. A "road fund" was briefly set up, but wound up by Churchill as Chancellor. He was outspoken against it from the start, and it never paid more than 50% of the cost of any single road project, but even Churchill was not intending to reduce the amount spent on roads.

The Spring 1990 edition of Walk, the journal of the Pedestrians' Association (now known as Living Streets) contained the following examples, among others:
 * A couple who work as driving instructors were found guilty of racing each other at speeds of up to 80mph on the wrong side of the road in a 30mph zone in L-plated cars. They were each fined £150 and disqualified for one month.  The husband was given an additional fine and 12 month disqualification for excess alcohol.
 * A driver was fined £200 for careless driving, £250 for failing to stop and his license endorsed with 8 points after he ran down and killed a 16-year-old at a speed in excess of 60mph in a built-up area.
 * A retired solicitor is fined £60 with £12 costs when he injures a pedestrian after losing patience and pulling out onto the wrong side of the road.

The defining characteristic of road traffic injuries and deaths is prematurity. Road casualties account for half of all male deaths in the 15-19 age range and are the single largest cause of fatality in children in the UK. While thirty times more people die of heart disease than in road collisions, the life years lost is only 1.7 times higher. In 2007 there were 2,946 people killed and 27,224 seriously injured on Britain's roads, a total of 247,780 casualties, a number which almost certainly includes significant under-reporting at the lower end of the severity scale. Eight dead and 75 seriously injured every day.

I do actually think that there are signs that the tide is turning, and that death and injury caused by motorists is beginning to be treated more seriously than in the past, but it is still a very long way short of adequate because, as has been noted by a number of commentators, a jury of twelve motorists is reluctant to convict one of their own. And in fact the law is specifically written to prevent penalties reflecting the magnitude of the outcome; negligence at the wheel is not adequately punished because the law does not accurately reflect the fact that driving is one of the most dangerous things we do. A small but significant step has been to retitle road accidents as road collisions and road casualties. While most probably do not have any intent to harm, the term accident is largely a misnomer, since negligence is a common cause.

Defining the problem
Between 1955 and 1990 the average 14-year-old's chances of dying on the roads nearly doubled, yet the roadscape in 1990 is widely claimed to be much "safer". Safer for whom?

In 1986 the cost of collecting, storing and analysing road traffic casualty data was estimated at £1,89m, but there is a tendency to avoid analysing the root cause mis-define the problem. Over time it has become obvious that the term "accident" may not be appropriate for foreseeable events such as road fatalities, and indeed the DfT has now started using the terms collision and casualty in its analyses.