Dismay at cabinet advice on road safety

20 is Plenty is OK but what we need are mandatory schemes

The Gloucestershire Road Safety Partnership and Cllr Will Windsor-Clive, GCC cabinet member issued a press release last week and oh how they got it wrong again. See here their release on road safety for children during the light summer evenings. It is very frustrating as once again the messages are aimed in the wrong direction.

Our Green County Councillor Sarah Lunnon (Stroud East) sums it up when she says: "Pedestrians and children are shown as being the most vulnerable on the roads, yet all of the safety messages are aimed at them, not at those who actually hit them with a tonne of solid metal moving at high speeds in residential areas. If you hit soft human flesh, 30mph is fast even if it is the speed limit."

The council's advice did not include any tips for motorists.

Of course the solution is to introduce 20mph speed limit across the county in residential areas - Green party policy and something this blog has pushed and pushed. A starting point to make our streets, villages and towns safer would be blanket 20mph zones so that children can cycle and move around their local area. Yet our GCC Cabinet member doesn't seem to understand and by many accounts seems to dismiss even the idea of a blanket 20 mph.

Sarah Lunnon said in response to the press release: "Given the higher proportion of children making up the road casualties why is Will Windsor-Clive refusing to consider blanket 20mph? It's simple, easy to understand and no enforcement is needed to reduce speeds. How many more injured children does he need? The penalty for children being on holiday should not be serious injury or death."