Tag Archives: world rememberance day for road traffic victims

The casualties of war

17 Nov

This is one of saddest maps I have ever studied. It is an online slippy map showing where people died in  traffic collisions – every single square represents someone who didn’t come home one day over the past 10 years. Here are some screen-grabs. The first image is for the West Midlands area; the blue square indicate where people were killed in traffic crashes while walking, the green ones for people cycling, the orange ones for people on motorbikes and the purple ones for vehicle occupants. The second image gives a more detailed view. Notice the 1 year old girl, the 12 year old boy, the 20 year old young woman and all the others. Do try it for yourself and see what the war likes around where you live. When is this civil war (between motorcars and people) going to be brought to a close and who will ensure that it happens? Possibly for starters we should take a moment to grieve on Sunday along with thousands of other people around the world on World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. See below for places where services are being held in memory in the UK.

Road fatalities in the West Midlands 2000-2010

Fatalities and injuries in the Birmingham area – detail

Services are being held in these places on Sunday 20th November 2011:

Aberdeen, Kings College Chapel, 3pm Contact: June Ross 07595 904360
Ashburton, St Andrew’s Church, 2.30pm Contact: Jeff Baker 01392 435627
Bath, Chapel Arts Centre, 3pm Contact: Sandra Green 01275 399025
Brecon, Brecon Cathedral, 3:30pm Contact: Cathedral: 01874 623857
Cambridge, St Luke’s Church, 3.30pm Contact: Rev Lance Stone 01223 351174
Carlisle, Carlisle Cathedral, 3pm Contact: Rev Mark Boyling 01228 523335
Chichester, Chichester Cathedral, 3:30pm Contact: Paul Foster 0781 069 7781
Gloucester, Gloucester Cathedral, 3pm Contact: Canon Celia Thomson 01452 415824
Hailsham, St Peter & St Pauls Church, 3pm Contact: Gill Powell 01323 847714
Halifax, Piece Hall, 3pm Contact: David Short 01422 392142
Hereford, Hereford Cathedral, 3:30pm Contact: Jackie Boys 01432 373311
Hull, St Mary’s The Virgin, Lowgate, 2pm Contact: Rev Michael Hills 01482 214551
Kidderminster, St Ambrose R.C. Church, 6.30pm Contact: Christine Sollom 01299 832581
Leeds, Leeds Parish Church, 3pm Contact: Carole Whittingham 0845 1235541
Lincoln, Central Methodist Church, 3pm Contact: Simon 01522 504 0711
Liverpool, St John’s Gardens, 1pm Contact: Pauline Fielding 01513 426381
Liverpool, Parish Church of Our Lady and St Nicholas, 3pm Contact: Pauline Fielding 01513 426381
London, St James’s Church, Piccadilly, 2:30pm Contact: RoadPeace Office 020 7733 1603
Northampton, Holy Sepulchre, 3pm Contact: Chris & Nicole Taylor 01604 705171
Norwich, R.C. Cathedral of St John the Baptist, 3.30pm Contact: Bridget Wall 01366 382433
Preston, Christ Church Precinct, 11am Contact: Maria Hodgson 01772 720279
Ripon, Ripon Cathedral, 3pm Contact: Rev Keith Jukes 01765 603462
Sheffield, Upper Chapel, Unitarian Church, 6.30pm Contact: Rev David Shaw 0114 272 5338
Thame, St Mary the Virgin Church, 3pm Contact: Elizabeth Richardson 01189 231802
Worksop, St John’s Church, 3pm Contact: Mrs A Moat 01909 472324

Credits

Casualties: Stats19 as deposited by the DfT. © Crown Copyright.

Maps by ITO World Ltd. Base mapping © MapQuest 2011. Map data © OpenStreetMap and contributors CC-BY-SA

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Making urban roads safer for pedestrians

29 Sep

Philip Hammond has explained today that he wants us to drive faster on motorways in order to create a ‘healthy economy‘, ‘generate hundreds of millions of pounds of economic benefit‘ and ‘put Britain back in the fast lane of global economies‘. This proposal was evidently resisted by the Health Secretary and the Energy Secretary for obvious reasons and the RAC Foundation estimates that driving 10 mph faster increases fuel use and CO2 emissions by more than 20%; the AA have reported that we are actually driving more slowly now in response to increased fuel costs. Hammond says it won’t increase road casualties – others disagree. I think this whole proposal is rather unhelpful and may well back-fire on the government. However…

My main interest here is on the needs of the pedestrian and Philip Hammond also promised a big expansion of 20 mph speed limit zones in urban areas where nearly all of the 403 pedestrian road fatalities, 5,000 serious injuries and 20,000 slight pedestrian injuries occurred during 2010; 42% of all road fatalities also occurred in urban areas. We need to continually remind people of the scale of the road safety problem in our country and press for these 20 mph limits in residential areas which have proved to be very effective.

Here are a couple of maps showing the scale of our road safety problem. The first map shows the locations of all pedestrian deaths (red dots), serious injuries (purple dots) and slight injuries (blue dots) on GB roads between 2000 and 2008; other road deaths and serious injuries are shown using lighter grey dots. The boundaries are parliamentary constituencies. Click on the map to enlarge.

GB pedestrian casualties 2000-2008

This second map shows all road fatalities (red), serious injuries (purple) and slight injuries (blue) for 2008 when 2,500 people died and 26,000 were seriously injured.

GB road casualties 2008

Since 2005 the United Nations has supported the inspiring World Remembrance Day for Road Traffic Victims which is an opportunity to reflect and remember those killed on our roads. It takes place this year on 20th November with services across the UK and all round the world. Why not ensure that a suitable remembrance service is held near where you live this year?

Mapping uses Stats19 police data and Ordnance Survey Boundary-Line data. Mapping created using ITO Map (pre-release version). Both maps available cc-by-sa 3.0.

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