rural road safety

NFU says to take extra care to avoid accidents on rural roads as lockdown eases

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In a first for Hinterland in over a decade of surfing the rural news we bring you a story from the Falmouth Packet! It features an unintended consequence of lockdown, a potential lethal combination of unfamiliar drivers and rural roads. It tells us

Drivers in the countryside are being reminded to take extra care to avoid accidents as lockdown eases.

With sharp bends, poor surfaces and limited visibility already making rural roads more dangerous than urban roads or motorways, rural insurer NFU Mutual is concerned that the easing of lockdown rules could result in a spate of accidents more people drive in the English countryside.

The hazards of driving in the countryside are shown by government statistics, with 58 per cent of road fatalities in 2018 taking place on rural roads.

To help all rural road users stay safe, the insurer has put together a rural road safety checklist.

It urges motorists to adapt their driving style to take account of rural road hazards and to be aware of slow-moving farm vehicles and vulnerable road users such as horse riders, walkers and the growing number of cyclists on rural roads.

Road safety: narrow focus on casualty statistics is misleading

I pity the poor motorist. We are discouraged by planners, fleeced by fuel companies and now the subject of articles like this! This “spin” on the latest Government report on road safety starts interestingly, drawing us in with the interesting propositon:

This week’s report on the government’s road safety framework by the Commons transport committee, which has been several months in preparation, is disappointing even by the low standards of Westminster.

It then goes on to come up with the counterfactual proposition:

“Of course reducing the number of crashes and casualties is important. But the narrow focus on “crash remedial measures” and the quantifiable cost of serious accidents is highly misleading. There are many roads where I live where no cyclists dare venture because they are simply too dangerous. So the A25 across Kent is statistically “safe” for cyclists – but only because they all avoid it.”

I am sure there is some “mileage” in cyclists putting forward their views on improving the safety of roads where cycling accidents don’t happen. But lets not fool ourselves – with less and less money to fulfill our responsibilities in Local Government and articles like the one that precedes this about people with serious care needs potentially losing their home support – the author needs to keep things in perspective! Particularly from the point of view of many rural dwellers who rely on a car for basic quality of life issues.