ON GOOD MORNING BRITAIN, I SAID THE TORY ELECTION CAMPAIGN SLOGAN WAS: “Vote for Us – We Will Kill More Kids” !
Stop the Daily Mail/Sun War on Kids!!
I was invited onto Good Morning Britain yesterday to debate the Tory election pledge to abolish 20 mile per hour (mph) zones.
They said this was as part of their plan for drivers, promising to end what they call a “war on motorists”.
DESPITE THE FACT A CHILD IS KILLED BY A DRIVER EVERY TWO WEEKS IN BRITAIN!!
(Please do not forget to sign and share our Media Sovereignty Petition to end the billionaire capture of our media at the end of this posting!!)
I was debating with a driving extremist, the broadcaster Anna May Mangan, who thinks the limit should be scrapped.
It was a bit challenging, as she & one of the presenters kept shouting me down…
But I did my best to try & stay calm, despite the total lack of facts or evidence to dispute the research I was quoting.
This campaign by the Tories is a terrible one that would kill more kids!
What are the facts?
• At 30 mph if you get hit by car, you are EIGHT times more likely to be killed
• Research in London after 20mph zones were introduced showed children’s deaths down by 36%
• 63% fewer pedestrians were hit by drivers.
• In Wales there were 54% fewer deaths and 32% fewer casualties after urban 20 mph zones were introduced!
• There was a £92 million saving to Welsh NHS
• Welsh driver insurance claims down 20%
• Car-noise is 40% lower at 20mph than 30 mph.
• For pensioners the lethality is worse than for younger adults.
5% get killed if hit at 20 mph, 50% at 30 mph, and 98% at 40 mph!
• 30% more NOx pollution at 30 mph compared to 20 mph, due to stop-starting.
• 12% less fuel is used for trips at 20 mph than 30 mph, thus saving money also.
• 30mph emits 35% more CO₂ pollution than at 20mph
• 15,000 kids get injured or killed every year by drivers
• Over 70% of car trips are under 5 miles, and 20 mph adds about just 30 seconds to the average urban trip! Are those 30 seconds worth a child’s life?
• 76% of drivers break 20mph limits.
• 61% break 30 mph.
We need England to follow Wales and introduce a blanket 20 mph residential speed limit for villages, towns, and cities.
And we need to make speed limiters compulsory for cars, as they are for e-bikes.
We need to stop the imprisonment of kids in our homes by driver-entitled speeding culture and end the British epidemic of childhood obesity, loneliness, mental ill-health, and diabetes.
Unfortunately, I kept being shouted down on Good Morning Britain by Anna May Mangan as I tried to make some of these points.
Her responses to the statistics of kids’ lives saved included the following:
“So why don’t we all stay in bed?!”
“It’s too slow, and I don’t agree with research that’s funded by, who I wonder, saying that it’s necessarily saved lives.”
“My poor dad suffered a serious head injury when the car was travelling at 7 miles an hour and the reason for that was that he walked out on the road in the wrong place.”
(My colleague Caspar Hughes rightly pointed out that their Dad would therefore very likely have been killed if the speed had been 30mph!)
“It’s not just drivers’ fault; it’s zombie pedestrians as well, looking at their phones and silent cars.
“There are so many factors that are involved and 20 miles an hour is frustrating.”
“It’s making motorists stop and start and concentrate on their speed.”
“Lack of concentration is a problem, and it’s caused by looking at where the 20 starts and where the 30 starts.”
“If the argument is children are safer, they should just put them around schools.”
This is a truly ridiculous argument used by the billionaire media and Tories.
Making just the road OUTSIDE a school 20mph, ignores all the urban roads that the kids use to walk or cycle TO the school or their trips to the park or libraries, etc.
She continued:
“There are other ways to make kids safer. When I was at school, there was the Tufty road safety programme that taught us how to come to school safer. More traffic lights or zebra crossings.”
“I’m guessing you probably want kids to use more bikes, which is extremely dangerous for children.”
When I quoted some research on road safety statistics on 20 mph, she replied, “I’m not talking about the numbers.” Quite.
And she went on to say : “I’m talking as this motorist who is extremely frustrated by the change from 30 to 20 and how it impacts motorists.”
She even complained about drivers being fined for breaking the speed limits!
And then said, “I disagree with you about the numbers, and as I said, I wonder where you get all these statistics.”
“Because of those I read last night, a lot of them contradict you.”
I asked her to give me just ONE piece of research that said 30mph was not more dangerous than 20mph
“I have not written them down, as there were so many of them.”
She added, “You’re quoting for one point of view. I’m speaking today from the point of view of frustrated motorists, where the roads are open and there’s no reason to be doing 20.”
“It is annoying beyond belief.”
To her point that having different speed limits is confusing for drivers, I replied, “But that is exactly what a blanket 20mph in residential areas deals with!!”
It means drivers will always know what the correct speed limit is in urban areas!!
The Tories are saying that if elected to government, they would force all councillors to remove 20 mph zones.
But this is a terrible attack on democracy!
What is the point of being an elected local councillor if you are barred from democratically voting to make our local roads safer for kids going to school?!
BILLIONARE MEDIA – WAR ON KIDS
BUT the key point we need to remember is that the Tory policy has come from a sustained propaganda War on Kids campaign by the billionaire media (Sun Mail Times Telegraph ) on all road safety measures for kids.
For years they have endlessly attacked Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, 20mph zones, cycle lanes to schools, speed cameras, pedestrianisation schemes etc.
This has now disastrously broken the previous political consensus in parliament over making our roads safer for kids.
MEDIA SOVEREIGNTY ACT
The billionaire media have been non-stop promoting the ReformTory agenda of making roads more dangerous for kids.
Now the Tories have adopted Reform’s billionaire media-supported extreme-rightist policies also.
Please help us end billionaire media.
The time for endlessly pressing for them to be better is over.
It is time to end them for good and replace them with properly funded independent and local media.
PLEASE sign and share our Parliamentary Petition for the Media Sovereignty Act.
We need British-owned media for a British-owned democracy.
Love and courage
Donnachadh x
PS I managed to maintain a respectful personal relationship with Anna May Mangan before and after the programme and bizarrely, she said she hoped I would win the Good Morning Britain poll
