The second day of our RoadPeace Challenge brought our hotly anticipated staff day in London, with our mission to walk the 3.8 miles from our offices in Brixton to the site of the first road fatality in Britain back in 1896, Crystal Palace.

A grey, blustery day was brightened by a strong turnout for our walk, including representation from the TFL, the Metropolitan Police Cycle and Motorcycle safety teams, the APPG for Cycling and Walking, as well as Councillor Rezina Chowdhury from Lambeth council. A long-standing advocate for road danger reduction, Cllr Chowdhury had this to say about the occasion “One death on our streets is one death too many. In Lambeth we’re committed, with the Mayor, to work towards vision zero because we want to make sure our roads are safe for people to walk and cycle.”

Armed with flowers and a memorial headstone to commemorate Bridget Driscoll’s death our team congregated outside International House to be met by BBC cameras covering our excursion. As interviews with RoadPeace member and victim Sarah Hope took place, we roused ourselves and prepared to make tracks.

Overwhelmed and emboldened by all the miles put in towards our target by volunteers up and down the country, we set off for our destination of Crystal Palace Park, determined to battle the weather. Our journey, taking us through one of Lambeth’s low traffic neighbourhoods, proved a popular one with many of the walkers and cyclists we encountered en route stopping to give us their support.

Once we’d trudged up the hill to reach our finishing point of Vicar’s Oak a minute’s silence was held in remembrance of Bridget, and for all road deaths in London, with flowers being laid to bring the service to a close after speeches from our CEO Nick and trustee Nic Atkinson.

All of us here at RoadPeace have been truly thankful and incredibly appreciative of all the efforts and hard miles that have been clocked up by supporters of the challenge. This is testament to all the hard work being done to support crash victims and their families over the course of the year and will continue to be there for all those who need help.

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