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SAFETY MATTERS
Page 22
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It was Paul Channon, a former transport minister, who first set targets for reductions in serious injuries on our roads. The idea that you can set targets for something over which you have no control is absurd.
So it is no surprise that the fall in the accident rate last year was short of government predictions (CM16-22 Jan). Few people will have heard of Paul Channon, but the name Ralph Nader will be familiar to most. What he did was highlight deficiencies in vehicle design. Politicians follow where others lead. I have to conclude that most of what is termed safety legislation is nothing of the sort.
Safe drivers behave the way they do largely out of an instinct for self-preservation and a desire not to harm others. The unsafe will, almost by definition, drive in a manner that ignores safety laws. Governments should do that which we cannot do individually—such as provide barriers capable of restraining out of control vehicles from impacting totally innocent road users. But prosecution services will focus on instances where evidence is undeniable —excess speed or blood alcohol etc—while ignoring the cretins whose behaviour has in many cases taken blameless lives and ruined entire families.
Anthony Salisbury, Wilts.