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Tackling the injustice of road death:
RoadPeace welcomes new Patron Professor Danny Dorling
29th March 2011
RoadPeace is proud to announce Professor Danny Dorling as a new Patron. Danny is known for highlighting and challenging society’s acceptance of injustice and inequality, and how this impacts on how and when we will die.
Danny highlighted the relevance of these issues recently at the PACTS’ 21st Westminster lecture ‘Roads, Casualties and Public Health: the Open Sewers of the 21st Century’ :
‘Every century comes with a major public health warning about the harm that we inflict on ourselves. In Britain in the nineteenth century it was the diseases we spread by tolerating open sewers. In the twentieth century it was tobacco that we slowly learnt to love then fear. In the twenty-first century it is the way we tolerate how cars are allowed to travel on our roads.’
For nearly 20 years, RoadPeace has been supporting victims of road crashes and campaigning for an end to the injustice and tolerance surrounding road deaths and injuries. In the UK, every day, six people die on our roads, and many more are seriously injured; road crashes are the leading cause of death to young people, and poorer people are more at risk. And we shouldn’t forget that we all pay the price for an over-motorised society – if not from the terrible suffering as a result of a bereavement or serious injury, then from the fear and intimidation of road danger, or poor health due to inactive lifestyles.
‘For over 18 years, RoadPeace has worked to make the roads not only a safer place but also a fairer one including calling for more priority to be given by the justice and health sectors to tackle the leading cause of death and disability among young adults. We welcome the opportunity to work with Danny as a RoadPeace Patron to convince others of the need for a new approach to tackling the injustice inherent on our roads.’
Brigitte Chaudhry, RoadPeace Founder and President
‘There is no need for us to continue to tolerate the greatest direct danger to our health and wellbeing at younger ages being on the roads we have built. We can afford to slow down when we travel and have hopefully become clever enough to start to realise this more widely. The benefits of safer roads far exceed the immediate reduction in suffering and anguish that would result. Slower, safer roads increase everyone’s freedom.’
Danny Dorling, Professor of Human Geography, University of Sheffield
This is a global issue. Worldwide, road crashes already kill more young adults than any other disease, and before 2025 will outnumber the total deaths caused by HIV/Aids at all ages. A huge injustice is played out around the world every day on our streets. We need to reclaim the streets from the motorcar, for a safer and fairer world.
Background
For further information contact:
RoadPeace 020 7733 1603 during office hours
Amy Aeron-Thomas, Executive Director: 07905 847917 outside office hours
Notes for journalists:
Danny Dorling
Danny Dorling is a writer and academic. His latest books include Injustice: Why Social Inequality Persists and So you think you know about Britain?
Danny is a Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield. There, with a group of colleagues, he helped create the website www.worldmapper.org which shows who has most and least in the world.
He has been a member of World Health Organization's Scientific Resource Group on Health Equity Analysis and Research and a member of the advisory group of the Equality Trust. He is honorary president of the Society of Cartographers and a patron of RoadPeace, the national charity for road crash victims.
Danny spoke at the PACTS’ 21st Westminster Lecture. A published version of the lecture can be found here: http://www.roadpeace.org/resources/
RoadPeace
RoadPeace is an independent national charity, providing emotional and practical support, and advocacy to those affected by road crashes; as well as campaigning for justice for road crash victims and for road danger reduction, with a focus on reducing the volume, speed and dominance of motorised traffic and promoting cycling and walking.
RoadPeace was a winner of the Guardian Charity Award in 2008: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/video/2008/dec/04/guardian-charity-awards-roadpeace
Road danger reduction
RoadPeace was founded in 1993 on the principle of road danger reduction. (RDR) focuses on making the road environment less dangerous by tackling danger at source through reducing the speed, volume and dominance of motorised traffic. It also takes into account the other negative consequences of inappropriate and excessive motor vehicle use such as fear and intimidation, environmental impact and public health issues. RDR differs from traditional road safety in that it adopts a wider approach that considers not only the quantity of death and injury by crashes, but also the effects of excessive and inappropriate motor vehicle use on the quality of life and the environment. It places a greater duty of care on those that pose the greater threat and argues for danger to be controlled at source.
