MPs demand action on road deaths

[Origamist]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7695742.stm

Ms Ellman, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, said: "The number of deaths and injuries on our roads far outweighs the deaths and injuries in other transport modes or in other work-related accidents.
"We need to start seeing this not only as a collection of individual tragedies but also as the major public health problem of our age. "The deaths of 3,000 people and injuries to a quarter of a million are a staggering annual toll to pay for mobility.

 

[Origamist]

You shoud be a moderator Lee. Why don't you ask Admin if he'll sign you up to the team...!

Actually this thread would be perfect for Campaigning and PP but I want it to reach a wider audience, hence posting it here.

 

[jimboalee]

One of my past jobs was in the building next to the crash test laboratory at MIRA, the Motor Industry Research Association. To be killed in a motor collision, the victim must have been very unluckily hit by a vehicle on their door or driving at a tremendous speed. With the introduction of air bags, drivers assume they will survive a head-on collision, whatever the speed. It was shown that in a 70 mph head-on with a motorway bridge parapet, the air bag saved the driver's face becoming cut, but it did not stop the driver's kidneys becoming detatched, resulting in internal blood loss and death.
The consensus of opinion in the motor industry is : if a metal spike is forced upward out of the drivers seat at an impact, motorists would drive a lot more carefully.

 

[ColinJ]

Hey jimboalee, I've quite enjoyed reading a couple of things you've written recently but I'm struggling to read the new font you've started using - any chance of switching back to the old one ?

 

[sheddy]

Anatomy of a Car Crash, Thursday 30 October, 8pm BBC Radio 4

It was the early evening of 18 June 2007. The light was bright, the weather was good. As a 22-year-old nursery nurse drove home she couldn't wait to tell her parents about the new building she was working in. As she reached the brow of a hill she made a serious mistake, a driving error that was to kill a backseat passenger in an oncoming car and leave the driver seriously injured. All the parties involved in this fatal collision, and the emergency services who came to the rescue, describe what happened. It's a gruesome, graphic recollection but told by such gentle voices that it never sounds ghoulish. The young woman was brought to trial and her destiny was determined by the forgiving statement submitted by the bereaved driver.