On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 09:44:30 GMT, Sniper8052 <
[email protected]>
wrote in message <opsfyioywv2wix5t@hogwarts-83efbf>:
>> Residential roads are the largest areas of public open space in most
>> communities.
>They are not open spaces they are roads.
They are open spaces. Public rights of way, not rights of way
exclusively for motorised traffic. And the success of home zones in
both saving lives and building communities suggests that it is
precisely the idea of roads as car-owned space which is the problem.
>I have no prob so long as people
>remember that and act accordingly. Where I live the children get out of
>the road when a car comes and continue after it has passed. If play
>streets are going to be set up on dead ends fine that causes no one any
>great problems but they must be signed and cordoned.
With guard towers and barbed wire on the gates to keep paedos out,
presumably. It's a depressing vision you have there, where the
Almighty Car has more rights over a community's roads than do the
members of that community.
>> But cars in massively greater numbers, even though most of the
>> children have been scared off the streets by traffic danger.
>Yes hence we need to adjust our ideas of personal liberties to account for
>the increase in vehicular traffic as I said.
Again, I think we differ on precisely which personal liberties should
be curtailed. In my view the liberty of the car driver, as the one
very evidently bringing most of the danger to the situation, is the
better candidate for restriction.
>>> British roads are amongst the safest in the world.
>> Except for children, our child casualty record is poor, and that
>> despite the fact that large numbers of children are simply not allowed
>> to walk anywhere at all. Some suggest that this restriction,
>> inhibiting their learnign of road sense, contributes to the
>> statistics.
>I think they are pretty safe for all. If parents choose to ignor their
>responsibilities to educate and supervise their children 'accidents' will
>continue to happen.
And I believe you are profoundly wrong. First, the people who are
ignoring their responsibilities are in the main the drivers not the
parents; most parents have responded to the increasing arrogation of
ownership of public highways by motor traffic, and this response has
usually taken the form of restricting their children's independent
mobility (an effect also experienced by the elderly). Second, the
measure of "safety" which you use includes as a benefit the fact that
many roads are now so dangerous that only motorists dare use them.
Do you honestly think that urban roads are safer now than they were in
the 1950s when children could play a game of football in the street?
Meyer Hillman has discussed this many times. In other European
countries they manage to achieve substantially lower child road death
rates with much less restriction on independent mobility.
>> I suspect we differ on what consititues "beyond all reasonable hope of
>> avoidance." In my view when you are driving down a residential street
>> or past a school, the fact that a child may run out is reasonably
>> foreseeable. It seems to me that many people blame children for
>> behaving like children, and rather than making it safer for them to
>> behave like children they woud rather restrict their mobility or
>> require them to behave like adults. I think that is sad.
>Think it sad if you like but a road is a road not a playground.
What is sad is that you, and many others, apparently view the
existence of a right of way as automatically excluding the possibility
of any other use. Where this has been challenged, with home zones for
example, the result has been an improvement in both traffic safety and
community spirit. I have no desire to pursue the American model where
one lives in a series of air conditioned boxes, some of which may be
motorised to facilitate movement between the others without the
tedious inconvenience of exercise.
>I suspect
>we do not differ at all on what constitutes "beyond all reasonable hope of
>avoidance." My comment was directed at those little darlings ranging from
>eight up that I collect from playing chicken on the dual carriageway by
>hiding behind road signs and then return home, well for a long time I
>did. Now I take the little darlings to the station and make the parents
>come and get them along with a stern warning that social services will be
>called if they do it again.
This is not representative of the majority case. When I was a lad
some of my acquaintances were wont to play chicken on the local
railway line. We thought they were mad, and still do. The deliberate
seeking of danger is different - yet in some ways it is not a surprise
that they would do this, after a lifetime of being told that cars are
scary monsters and roads are part of some dangerous adult world; they
have not learned road sense because they are discouraged from doing
so, but they see the road as some sort of forbidden territory.
Children always push boundaries and we rarely do them a service in the
long term by being excessively protective.
>> When I was at primary school I thought nothing of riding my bike a
>> couple of miles to see my friends, and some of the journey was along
>> the A5. I didn't get killed (obviously) and I was far more
>> independent than my children are.
>I too went to primary school by myself, down to the crossing lady, cross,
>down to the next crossing lady and there I was. I knew how to cross the
>road but I still got it wrong age 10, it was my fault, I thought I could
>make it so I ran across the road in front of a large car. Bang, I remember
>seeing it coming toward me and flying through the air. Guess who it was
>
Only the minister of education in his Rolls Royce! Took me home and
>everything. But it was definitly my fault.
Really? You don't think he bears any responsibility, having
presumably seen you about to cross and knowing there was a school
nearby? One of the most pernicious myths of road "safety" is that
when a child runs out, the driver can do nothing. Sometimes that may
be true, but often the driver should already have taken action to
ensure that if this reasonably foreseeable event should happen, a
crash can be averted.
Remember who gets all the benefit from the presence of their car on
the road, and who brings all the danger to the situation
>> Road traffic crashes account for one in ten child injury admissions to
>> hospital, and half of all child injury fatalities.
>So there are 342 child fatalities in the whole UK over 1 year?
Read it again. The major killers of children are congenital defects
and cancer (which puts your concerns about traffic into some sort of
perspective), but an "accident" involving a car is many times more
likely to result in death than any of the other forms of accident
which children suffer.
Sources for this are HASS/LASS and DoH admissions data.
>Self caused: IE Me running out, Kids playing chicken...
In the same way that the victims of bullying are "self caused" by
failing to run away?
>> No, thanks. A child being distracted as they cross the road after
>> school is not "self-caused", it is reasonably foreseeable and should
>> be allowed for.
>Yes. Figures used were taken to illustrate statistical analysis. 50%
>being the rough differance between non pedestrian and pedestrian
>accidents.
2002/2003 injury admissions for England:
Cycling: 5,804 (approx. 50/50 road and off-road)
Pedestrian: 3,429
Other land transport: 3,465
Non-transport: 77,512
The largest source of child injury admissions is trips and falls, but
the largest single source of child injury deaths (accounting for half
of them) is road traffic crashes.
>>> Clearly one death is a death to many but some responsibility has to be
>>> taken in all of this by the parents
>> And much more responsibility must be taken by those who, after all,
>> bring most of the danger to the situation.
>Everyone has responsibilities I am not suggesting otherwise.
But the degree of responsibility must be highest for those who pose
most danger to others.
>I am
>suggesting that if adults want to have children they must be responsible
>for them all the time. Children are not toys or possessions if parents do
>not want to be bothered to allow time to take them to the park or swimming
>pool or to play with them perhaps they should not have children in the
>first place and should get on with earning their DINK lifestyle.
So you don't feel that independent mobility for your children is a
valid aspiration for parents? You don't believe that children have a
right to be able to go and see their friends without being escorted by
an adult? That's a very sad view of the world. My ten-year-old son
went to the shops this morning to buy some rolls because he fancied a
bacon roll for lunch. He likes to go to the library, too, and run
round to play with his friend two doors down. He is hoping that by
next summer he'll be allowed to cycle half a mile to see another
friend, and he is keen to be allowed to make his own way to school
(albeit with other children in a group).
He seems to be fitter and healthier than many of the other children in
his class. I wonder why that might be?
>> Yes, I have children, and yes I allow them to play in the street. And
>> I have worked hard to ensure that my street is safe enough for them to
>> do so, mainly by excluding non-residents.
>Yes but then you don't strike me as the sort of person I have mentioned
>above
I don't think there are many such. And I think a parent who never
allows their child to gain independence is doing them a great
disservice. Many middle-class parents chauffeur their children
everywhere, building an assumption that nowhere is reachable without a
car. Fat Land here we come...
I recommend you read Meyer Hillman and John Whitelegg's "One False
Move".
Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University
