Safe to School

I was pleased to take part recently in BBC Radio Norfolk’s ‘Safe to School’ campaign, aimed at raising awareness of road safety issues across the county and timed to coincide with the return to school after the summer holidays.
246 children were injured on Norfolk’s roads in 2009, 21 of them seriously, and BBC Radio Norfolk’s initiative revolved around bringing together a number of interested professionals and volunteers in the area of road safety in order to get the message across to children, parents and drivers.
I spent an enjoyable morning with Stephen Bumfrey, afternoon presenter on the station, the brief being to drive around the Norwich area commenting on driving habits and issues that occurred around us. As any police traffic officer will tell you part of the frustration of the job is that they tend to drive around in a ‘bubble of good driving’, the visible presence of the marked police vehicle leading to motorists temporarily improving their behaviour, at least until the police car is out of sight. While this is a good thing – part of the aim of high visibility policing is to positively affect behaviour after all – it can be a double edged sword when it comes to actually detecting offenders. Anyway, since Stephen and I were in an ordinary, unmarked car none of this was an issue and despite the atrocious weather on the day of the recording we managed to get some good material and also managed to find some amusement at the habits of other motorists.
We’d barely set off when a useful chap in an Audi A3 tried unsuccessfully to cut me up on a busy roundabout before, in a show of great determination, he succeeded on the next. He then undertook a number of other vehicles on a restricted dual carriageway before charging off at a great rate of knots down a bus lane towards the city centre. An excellent example of impatient and aggressive driving which, by my reckoning, committed at least three moving traffic offences.
Later we stretched the ideas of chance and coincidence even further. While we were having a conversation about pedestrians needing to take some responsibility for their own safety, we spotted a couple of young women, one of whom was on crutches, walking along the side of a road (another restricted dual carriageway) despite there being a ‘No Pedestrians’ sign right above their heads. Of course, we have no offence of jaywalking in this country but it would have been interesting to see, or hear, their reaction to being given a fixed penalty ticket.
These incidents can be inconsequential in themselves but when something goes wrong and there’s a collision, whether vehicle to vehicle or vehicle to pedestrian, it’s too late to point out the lack of judgement shown – it is a forlorn hope that one day all road users will take responsibility for their actions at all times, but starting by getting the message out to school children has to be a laudable aim.
Let’s hope that a few more children complete their journeys safely this winter as a result of BBC Radio Norfolk’s excellent campaign.