Roads, Casualties and Public Health
December 2010 from a press release by 20's Plenty for Us
20 mph speeds reduce preventable deaths and health inequality said Professor Danny Dorling of the University of Sheffield at the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety's (PACTS) Westminster Lecture. Dorling, a Human Geographer specialising in how we die, evidenced road death as the greatest avoidable public health epidemic. Once it was open sewers, then tobacco, now roads must be recognised as the nation's major killer and be tackled. Introducing 20 mph is the most cost effective way to improve quality of life in Britain today.
Although total road deaths are falling, deaths from other causes fell faster, making the road toll an increasing proportion. Traffic forms half of external causes of children's and young people's deaths, particularly boys. Roads imprison affluent children at home, denying them the freedom to move and are the main sites of killing of poorer children. Road deaths should be in the Department of Health's remit. Dorling was "shocked" that the Dept of Transport's Road Safety budget has been cut from a paltry £37m to £17.2m.
"Elsewhere in medicine, you'd get honours and funding for such an effective treatment for an epidemic. Yet there's a collective blind spot on the enormous benefits of 20 mph limits - perhaps because Directors of Public Health aren't trained in road safety."
Lecture notes are at www.shef.ac.uk/geography/staff/dorling_danny/lectures.html including audio and Powerpoint.
Local "20's Plenty" for Sheffield
