Website -
funding & design


This website was set up with donations from KeyMed and RedSpeed International

Donations are requested for maintenance and publicity from Supporters and Users

Original Logo: Simona Murialdo
Original Web & CMS: QuickFox

 

Logo updates:

Grand Union Design

Web & CMS update:

AllOf.eu

Author & editor:
Brigitte Chaudhry

Brigitte Chaudhry, UK, 2005 PDF Print E-mail

World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, 20 November 2005,

Speech by Brigitte Chaudhry at the service at St Clement Danes, The Strand, Central London


Each year, millions of people are newly bereaved and injured through a road crash and added to the millions upon millions of those already affected.
Little thought is given to this cumulative toll and annual casualty figures are quoted as if after one year everything was again all right and back to normal.
It certainly isn’t, and so today we share our sadness and remembrance of loved ones whose lives were cruelly cut short and the experience of the pain and suffering of injury, with millions of fellow bereaved and injured across the world.

Through our contacts, we know of ceremonies taking place in Australia, Argentina, South Africa, Lebanon, Israel, in Europe - in Spain, Luxemburg, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands and probably many others.
The UK is leading, with 30 special services held in places of worship countrywide, and prayers said in many more. The Manchester service is taking place at the People’s History Museum to coincide with an exhibition entitled “No Accident”, in Liverpool a memorial to road victims is being unveiled today and our annual remembrance concert took place on Friday, 18 November, at the Amadeus Centre, London. Most of these services and events were organised, funded or promoted by RoadPeace and RoadPeace members.

Today’s Remembrance Day was initiated by RoadPeace 12 years ago and promoted by us nationally and internationally since then. Our aim in introducing a special day on which road victims are remembered, was to draw attention to this massive, least acknowledged disaster, which brings such misery to the bereaved and the injured and their families; and which also represents a huge economic and public health disaster, equally unacknowledged so far.

Therefore we shared ideas with colleagues from victim organisations in Europe and beyond – for religious and secular ceremonies and various initiatives to mark this day, such as our internet memorial launched 2 years ago, to name just one.

I am very happy to announce at today’s service, that our efforts of having this day officially acknowledged, has become a reality. And this acknowledgement has not come from the British Government, or the European Parliament even, but from the United Nations, supported by the World Health Organisation – through RoadPeace’s and the European Road Victim Federation’s collaboration with these two institutions.

I will quote from the UN resolution, announced on 27 October, which happened to be the 15th anniversary of my son’s death: “Amid predictions that worldwide traffic deaths will soon outstrip the deadly scourge of AIDS, the United Nations General Assembly resolved to mark a yearly day of remembrance for road traffic victims, and called on nations globally to improve road safety. It invites ‘Member states and the international community to recognise the third Sunday in November of every year as the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims - as the appropriate acknowledgement for victims of road traffic crashes and their families.’”

And what is the present global scale, which is predicted to worsen significantly in the near future and therefore needs addressing urgently?
1.26 million people are killed each year on the roads – equivalent to 3000 = a 9/11 disaster – every day; and more that 100,000 are injured daily.
Hardly any UK citizen knows these facts, but at a time when we travel to all corners of the world, we need to be concerned about road danger wherever it is, if only for selfish reasons. RoadPeace is assisting more and more people whose loved ones are killed or injured abroad.

Hardly anyone knows also about the casual legal, as well as general, response to road death and injury, which is a major concern to RoadPeace. Our work of highlighting the scale of road danger and its causes and impact, is continually being undermined and undone by ill informed and ill conceived - not evidence based -articles, statements and actions.

Take speed cameras:
Despite the fact that only those who speed well over the limit are fined, for a camera to be permitted, the Government has decreed that people had to be killed and injured first- in at least 4 fatal or serious injury crashes within 3 years. Road danger is being measured with human bodies- how unscientific and brutal is that, but who disagrees?

Take road traffic law:
For decades culpable road deaths were and still are treated as irrelevant in law, with derogatory fines imposed by lay magistrates for summary traffic offences, leaving the deaths unrecorded and even unmentioned. And the new law proposals, for which we had waited so long and worked so hard, will not bring justice. They do not envisage any charge for injury, and regarding deaths – the proposed either-way offence will mean that most road deaths will still continue to be dealt with by lay magistrates, something we consider wrong in principle, with the sentence determined by this fact.

Take services for victims:
The new code apparently makes no provision for those injured, and may not include all bereaved – we wait to see.

All of the above make it obvious that the treatment of road death and injury is worlds apart from that relating to other disasters.

The most appropriate response to the London bombings is an example, which makes the inappropriate or absent response to road death and injury all the more obvious.

The Archbishop of Canterbury said at the St Paul’s special service for London’s bombing victims on 1 November - which was offered to victims and attended by the Queen, the Prime Minister and the Mayor of London - that these deaths were ‘pointless and terrible’.
This description fits lives lost on the road too.

The heading of the article on the St Paul’s service was: “Each life was precious and irreplaceable”.
This too applies to lives taken cruelly and prematurely in road traffic crashes.

The names of those we remember here today will now be read out, but first I would like to thank everyone for coming – our members and colleagues, the Mayors from so many of London’s boroughs, whose presence demonstrates to us the importance they want to give to this issue, the representatives of the emergency services, who are themselves affected by the carnage, to Jenny Jones, who is working so hard to turn things around in London, to Fiona McTaggart, Home Office Minister – for coming today and for listening to our comments on the law – we had unsuccessfully asked for a meeting, so I was glad of this opportunity, and to everyone who has worked on organising this beautiful service. Thank you all very much!