From BBC News - 'Most dangerous' UK roads named by safety group we have a very sensible suggestion. Target money at the roads where the most accidents happen. It seems simple changes would be cheap and immediately save lives.
Surely it seems obvious to allocate an amount of money each year to be spent on the most dangerous roads from the previous year - duh! Why has this not been done every year for the past n years? It is so obvious. I guess most people think this would be common sense and be standard practice.
Of course exactly the same should be done to look at the dangers for cyclists and pedestrians. We already know a hugely disproportionate amount of the cyclists killed in London are killed by HGV's during the morning rush hour. We know that these often happen when the HGV is turning left and squashes the cyclist against fixed railings.
Somebody should have a pot of money with the simple task of working from road death and injury records to systematically target the most common causes. They need the power for solutions such as to extend the time restrictions on HGV's, demolish railings, put in proper segregated Dutch style cycle facilities. All so that the worst causes have serious resources allocated every year.
Note that blame the victim activities (helmet enforcement, luminous jackets, cycle training) do NOT count. This resources must be used on engineering solutions on the ground (and is restricted to ones that encourage cycling and walking by tackling the ones that do the killing & injuring).
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