Say That Again?

A study by Newcastle University suggests that removing kerbs might actually make driving safer because they believe that hazards can actually increase drivers’ attention to the road.

So far so good.

But the idea is then spoiled by one of the researchers who said: ‘In towns we may need to start considering some radical schemes such as removing kerbs so there are more hazards - like pedestrians - around your car. Our research suggests that this might actually improve people’s driving.’

You read that right. Put a few more pedestrians around to improve road safety!

And we pay people to come up with crackpot ideas like that?
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Not Immortal

We hear more and more of teenagers who die or who are mained while speeding or driving dangerously. Such stories are tragic for those involved and for their families, especially when they occur over the Christmas period.

So it was sad to read of the three teenagers killed and another who received serious injuries in a head-on crash as the car they were in tried to overtake another car on a road in South Yorkshire on Monday evening. Miraculously, the driver of the oncoming car they struck received only minor injuries.

Some teenagers seem to feel that they are immortal and, encouraged by television programmes such as Top Gear, drive as if they are competing on a race track.

Alas, many of them discover only too soon the truths that a driving licence doesn’t come with experience, that the roads are not race tracks and that death and serious injury may be the consequences of their bad driving.
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Bad Move

A number of newspapers report this morning that one in four local councils is planning to scale back or even abolish school crossing patrols - the iconic and distinctive ‘lollipop’ men and woman who morning and afternoon guard the road crossings outside British schools.

One council, Northamptonshire, is said to be planning to scrap the service altogether and save over £200,000 per year by sacking 65 people and encouraging local communities to replace them with voluntary patrols.

I have no idea what sort of things are hidden away in the annual budget for councils such as Northamptonshire, but I would have thought such a small sum could have been saved by making cuts elsewhere in them.

At least a dozen children are killed or seriously injured on our roads each year. If the government supports road safety campaigns, then it should set up a system under which no council should be allowed to abandon school crossing patrols if the appropriate savings could be made elsewhere in their budgets.
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Offensive

The BBC has been forced to apologise for an offensive remark by Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson in which he described a Ferrari car as ‘a bit wrong – that smiling front end – it looked like a simpleton – should have been called the 430 Speciale Needs’.

The BBC removed the comment from the programme’s repeat and apologised for any offence caused. But, of course, the damage was done and Ofcom were spot on to say ‘discriminatory language of this nature has the potential to be very offensive to some viewers as it could be seen to single out certain sections of society in a derogatory way because of their disability.’

I am not a fan of Clarkson or his sneering Top Gear programme which, in my view, promotes fast and dangerous driving. But the main fault here would not seem to have been Clarkson’s even though he ought not to have made the remark.

Doesn’t anyone at the BBC check that programme content is good enough to be aired before it is broadcast without offending anyone?

And, if not, why not?
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