Thread by @cyclegaz

Are road users with cameras snitches/grasses? A thread on why road safety is important and why we should all do our bit.
As we know, around 1,700 deaths happen on our roads each year, this has been largely consistent for the past 10 years. 1/15

Any death is tragic, and some may truly be accidents, there are for most parts factors in play which we can improve on.
25% of fatalities happen because of a road user doing something they shouldn't. 21% of which is speeding. 2/15

63% is because of road user error. including failed to look properly 26%, 14% failed to judge other road users speed, and 25% loss of control.
27% is because of road user distraction or impairment. 8% Alcohol, 5% drugs, and 7% driver distraction (such as mobile phone use) 3/15

25% are because of driver behavior, such as careless driving 17% and aggressive driving 8%.
Source: gov.uk/government/sta… 4/15

So we can see that many road deaths are not just by accident, they are caused by people doing something they shouldn't. We could greatly reduce the number of road deaths by just driving as we should and taking care. 5/15

It costs on average £1,958,303 per road fatality, with 1,700 per year, which means we are spending £3,329,115,100 on fatal crashes each year!!!!
Source: gov.uk/government/sta… 6/15

Police across the country have been underfunded for decades, police numbers have cut and one of the first to be slashed was traffic units. People have been able to use the roads as they wish for some time without punishment for their bad behaviors. 7/15

Because of this some people have some pretty bad habits. Speeding, drink driving, drug driving, and using mobiles.
These are all contributing factors to road deaths and other serious injuries. Some police forces are taking road traffic policing seriously again. 8/15

There are still limited numbers of them however. With many thousands of road users running video cameras, some police forces are asking members of the public to submit video footage to them so they can take action on things without directly witnessing them. 9/15

Some people see this as snitching, likely because they break the law when driving as it is. In reality, people that do this are doing so because they have been affected by dangerous drivers. That's why we see many cyclists doing so. 10/15

They experience dangerous driving regularly, with little protection compared to motor vehicles, a slight nudge from a car drifting lanes whilst you are driving is not really life-threatening, to a cyclist it can be. The reality is that most people who drive do not cycle. 11/15

As such they have little experience of what it's like to use the road as a cyclist. In contrast, most cyclists have driving licenses. 12/15

Road safety is important, I hope you've seen that from just a few figures I've posted. We all need to use the roads safely, unfortunately, it is motorists who are mostly causing the fatalities. 13/15

To truly improve, we must report bad drivers, who must be punished for their driving.
Remember, it's a driving license, we must drive within accordance of that or we risk losing it. 14/15

As a certain celebrity found out recently when they were caught on their mobile phone whilst driving after already having 9 points on their license for speeding. 15/15

The real ending of this is that we must ask our selves how many deaths are acceptable? Currently there are 5 road deaths a day in the UK. Mostly unreported, mostly seen as part and parcel, should it be? I think, along with many others, that it shouldn’t be.