“Society must take road safety more seriously”: Jenny Jones

12.00 | 13 March 2013 | | 14 comments

In an article on the Independent website, Jenny Jones, a Green Party member of the London Assembly, argues that society needs to take road safety more seriously.

Jenny Jones, who was a panellist at the Question Time session at the 2012 National Road Safety Conference, was commenting in the wake of the high profile case in which former MP Chris Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce were found guilty of evading traffic laws and misleading the police.

In the Independent article Jenny Jones says: “The rules on our lawless roads are clear, signposted and widely ignored.

“Speeding kills and casualties are rising, but the police won’t enforce 20mph limits in residential areas and safety cameras are regularly vandalised as an infringement of our civil liberties.

“Try driving at or below the legal speed limit and see how often you are flashed, honked, tail-gated, or dangerously overtaken.”

The article says that in London in 2011 there were 3,535 hit and run incidents in which someone was injured. Jenny Jones asks why such a widespread crime – committed by an “ordinary mix of good and bad people” – is hardly remarked upon.

She adds: “Traffic police numbers have been regularly cut back, even during the good years, and road safety has now been left out altogether from the London Mayor’s draft Police and Crime Plan.

“Such is the failure of our society to take road deaths and injuries seriously, tens of thousands of people are legally allowed to drive around with more than 12 points.

“When I did a Freedom of Information request on this I found that there were more than 2,800 people driving in London who were let off because they needed a vehicle in order to do their job. One person even had 30 points on their licence.”

Jenny Jones concludes: “I think it would be much more fitting if such criminals did community service rather than joined our over-crowded prisons, but I would also prefer that Chris Huhne was banned from driving and had to use public transport for a few years. That, for me, would send out the appropriate message about what really needs to change.”

Click here to read the full Independent article.

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    Jenny: When we can legislate for human nature, then society may take road safety more seriously.


    Tom Harrington LL B
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    I heard Jenny Jones speak last year at Road Safety GB and she stated that she would love 20mph to be the default speed limit all the way to Scotland! It was a throwaway comment that scared me to death. She benefits from a great public transport system in London, some of us live in a place outside her Utopia called the real world and cars play a significant role. Yes there should be appropriate enforced limits but the landscape must reflect the limit too.


    Olly, Lancs
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    You cannot punish safety into a system.


    Duncan MacKillop, Stratford on Avon
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    Obeying the Highway Code makes our roads safer and enjoyable for all. Society cannot choose which rules apply to individuals. They apply to all and for a better society we all should comply, without exception.


    ian hollidge
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    Except…it is not correct to say “very large numbers disobey rules” in terms of motoring “rules” or laws. A certain proportion – fortunately only a minority – do disobey traffic laws, but that obviously does not mean they are “bad” laws. Perhaps they’re just bad drivers. In fact, I can’t think of any particular traffic law where you could say ‘very large numbers’ disobey it – but it depends what one means by a ‘very large number’.


    Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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    Does it not occur to you, Pat that when very large numbers disobey rules it might just be because the rules are bad? In Britain we are not only allowed but also obliged to challenge bad law and juries are free to acquit in defiance of law and evidence if they consider the law wrong. One famous example of jury nullification was when London jurors refused to convict William Penn (founder of Pennsylvania) of preaching Quakerism, forcing that law to be abandoned. The sooner more of our thoroughly bad laws are defeated and the those responsible for them are removed the better.


    Idris Francis Fight Back With Facts Petersfield
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    I agree with Steve’s first paragraph “enforcement is the key”, however to then say “Every time a motorist breaks the law they face no consequences” is obviously not true – speeding and other common motoring offences are being detected more than ever due to modern technology (speed cameras and CCTV systems in cities) which have been put into place over the last twenty years or so. The problem is, these are not accepted by everyone – usually by the offenders themselves surprise, surprise – which goes back to Ms Jones comment: “Society must take road safety more seriously” That means every road user.


    Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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    The key here is enforcement. There are more than enough rules on Britain’s roads to ensure that road safety is paramount. However there is insufficient enforcement.

    Every time a motorist breaks the law they face no consequences. Therefore they learn that it is ‘ok’ to break the law. When someone is injured, the cry of ‘I didn’t see them’ is enough for the CPS to throw the case out. This needs to be stopped.


    Steve, Merseyside
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    I can only sympathise about the involvement of the police. Though it can be argued that it’s not their fault traffic laws are being disobeyed because there is little chance of being caught.

    Traffic laws are there for a purpose, road safety being a priority. Unless there is an adequate service that can act as a deterrent, society will break down even more and lawlessness on the road will proliferate even further.

    Another point is that if there were the numbers of police officers out there on the roads, and reporting offenders, it would bring in a lot of revenue that otherwise will not be there.

    At present there is no deterrent.


    bob craven Lancs
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    I think perhaps the word missing is “cycle”. The latest available stats show that Cycle casualties are rising.


    Right Road NW
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    Jenny Jones “society” is merely a collective term for all of us together. So if “society” is widely ignoring traffic rules then society is out of step with the rules (or vice versa). As we all know, it is not changing the rules that is needed, it is changing the culture. The levels of non-compliance of rules moaned about by JJ seems to indicate to me that this battle to persuade a change in driver attitudes is far from won. A large number of people passively disagree with some rules and just disregard them. With a reasonably high likelihood of not being caught for speeding in (say) a wide area residential 20mph zone, a driver that has not been convinced of its need to be there at all will continue to ignore the speed limit and other rules he or she considers to be inappropriate. Making unpopular rules is normally accompanied by high levels of non-compliance – no surprise there. It’s called human nature.


    Pat, Wales
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    Ms Jones claims that casualties are rising – after 4 years of the steepest falls since the late 1960s. Another example of the sadly familiar syndrome “My mind is made up, don’t confuse me with the facts” I am afraid.


    Idris Francis Fight Back With Facts Petersfield
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    The problem is society itself. Some elements of society – ranging from those in power (whether local or national) down to individual road users – fortunately do already take road safety seriously, whereas others don’t and never will. Unfortunately, the authorities can’t control every individual road user and whenever they do introduce some measure to help road safety, there will always be opposition and criticism from some quarters – sometimes justified, sometimes not. You only have to look at the comments on the newsfeed to see how attitudes and opinions vary and clash on this subject.


    Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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    When I read the headline to this article I thought that here at last would be some new thinking or different ways of looking at our problems, but no, just the same old, same old. Society will take road safety more seriously when the political classes take it more seriously rather than treating the problems as just another way of persuading people to vote for them.


    Duncan MacKillop, Stratford on Avon
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