The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) has hailed plans for tackling road casualties and reckless driving that West Midlands Mayor, laid out today, but warns more must be done to effectively remedy the situation.
The Birmingham-based accident prevention charity is deeply concerned with the recent spate of fatalities and irresponsible driving that have made the headlines recently, with yesterday seeing reports of an e-bike rider killed in a collision with a driver in the city’s Yardley area, as well as a fatal crash in the Jewellery Quarter which saw a man and a woman arrested for dangerous driving.
David Walker, Head of Road and Leisure Safety at RoSPA, said:
“We welcome the announcement of the Mayor, pledging to reduce the current spike in violent road incidents in the Birmingham area by the focus on education and enforcement, but as a accident prevention charity, there are still concerns we would like to see addressed.
Having previously written to the Mayor about our concerns, his statement today made no mention of infrastructure changes required and without the expedition of these projects on Birmingham’s roads, the current proposals will only partially address the city’s road troubles.
We welcome some of the previous packages of work, however, these infrastructure changes are critical to achieving the vision of a safer Birmimgham and are the measures that will protect everyone, all the time, as we have seen in other world-leading cities.
Given that exceeding the speed limit and travelling at an inappropriate speed contributes to 27 per cent of fatal collisions, we welcome the commitment to consult on reducing speed limits from 40mph to 30mph. However, as a number of these incidents have taken place on 30mph roads, a wider review of speed limits is needed.
“We ask Andy Street and the decision-makers within West Midlands Combined Authority to listen to our concerns, announce their intention to speed-up the rollout of safer infrastructure, and faithfully commit to their mission to bring down the road casualty rate in the second city.”
