Transcript Weapons of Mass Destruction: global indifference to 1.2

Weapons of Mass Destruction:
global indifference to 1.2 million
deaths a year
John Whitelegg
Stockholm Environment Institute
University of York
Do Numbers Matter?
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1.2 million deaths pa
3000 deaths each day
50 million injuries pa
500 million affected
$500 billion global annual cost
Do future numbers matter: life
and death in 2030
• 2.5 million deaths each year
• 1.1 billion cumulative injuries 1995-2030
• 5.7 million permanently disabled victims
each year
NO
70 years of misunderstanding
• Most accidents are accounted for, primarily,
by carelessness on the part of pedestrians, at
least in urban traffic…usually two thirds of
the blame is attributed to them and they
constitute two thirds of the victims in urban
traffic
• Henry Watson, Street Traffic Flow
(1933),p303
And it continues
• “Every report focuses on motorists. They
are the bad guys. There is never a mention
of the role played by pedestrians. Accidents
are often caused by pedestrians who step
out in front of moving vehicles. Why are
they never criticised?”
• Retired police officer, Lancaster, January
2004
Why?
• Fundamental, deeply embedded, structural
bias across all institutions
• This bias is in favour of personal,
mechanised, individual mobility as a perfect
expression of progress, freedom, status and
the rights of the consumer (who is not a
pedestrian)
Lancaster City Council
• The first and most important
communication to newly elected councillors
on May 1st 2003 is a parking permit
• A member of the public pays £352 pa for an
annual parking permit on all long stay car
parks. An elected politician pays £115
• Policy makers are “locked” into the system
Bulk Ward, Lancaster
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Elected 1st May 2003
First contact with engineers 12th May 2003
Vigorous “ping pong” still continues
Absolutely nothing has changed
Officers Road Safety Group,
September 2003
• The Police view was that enforcement was
not practical in terms of the road layout and
the regulations governing enforcement
action
Community Speedwatch
• “At the end of last week, I was informed by
my manager that concern had been
expressed about the scheme by some of our
divisional commanders and I have been
asked to submit a report to their next
meeting which will take place on 16 April
2004. I can not proceed any further until I
have a decision from this group.”
This is not a road safety problem
• Significant democratic failure
• The street is not a living space for local
residents
• The street is a traffic sewer
• Further and faster is better
• Significant institutional and professional
failures
It’s not fair
• 90% of deaths and injuries are in
developing countries
• Steep social class gradient in the UK
• Most deaths and injuries are inflicted on
pedestrians and cyclists
• The rich kill the poor and the polluter kills
the conserver
Disadvantaged Areas
• The likelihood of a child pedestrian injury is
4 times higher in the most deprived ward in
England compared to the least deprived
ward, independent of factors such as
population and employment density and the
characteristics of the road network
(Streets Ahead, IPPR, 2002)
SM Fetishism
• We like speed and we like mass
• The steady march of the SUV through the
streets of Camden and Islington
• The obsession with speed (car advertising,
concord)
• The fiscal support that makes all this
possible
State subsidised SM
• 240 billion Euros for new roads, high speed
trains and airport expansion (TENs)
• Fiscal implications of highway design
criteria (wider roads, wide radius curves,
car parking layout)
• Lack of cost recovery for greenhouse gases,
crash victims, noise
What do we do about it?
• Fundamental re-engineering of society to
bring about a sustainable, equitable,
accessible and socially just transport and
land use planning system
The challenge: evolving patterns and scale
of consumption and production

Transport is constantly increasing and is a core activity of the tourism sector
 The number of inbound tourist visitors grew faster than total passenger transport
1980 =100
250
200
150
100
million tourists
300
number of cars
250
passenger-km
population
50
200
150
100
0
50
Passenger transport
Tourist arrivals
Wide ranging, holistic and
systematic
Good
Bad
Local services
Community policing
Permeable/dense
networks
Slow traffic
Large traffic generators
(hospitals, campus
universities,
supermarkets)
Wide roads
Fast traffic
Reduce Car Use
Space
Time
Re-allocate
highway
capacity
City of
short
distances
Reduce
parking
Reduce
speeds
Cash
Eliminate
subsidies to
fast modes
Eliminate
Fund
time saving accessibility
bias
Fund safety
and security
Ideas
Eliminate
deviant
advertising
Health and
community
campaigns
Childfriendly
The Law
• Reform road traffic law
• Radical new ideas for enforcement of traffic
law (policing is not working)
• Legal provision for car-free areas
• Direct effects of human rights and
constitutional law
• Fast track, low cost access to justice
Calcutta
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1000 pedestrian deaths pa
Totally inadequate pedestrian pavements
Rapid motorisation
Plans to shut down the trams/rickshaws
Suburbanisation and road construction
New flyovers
..and the rest
• Shanghai
• Bangkok
• Nairobi
But (possibly) not Bogotá
Weapons of Mass Destruction
• Motor vehicles are weapons of mass
destruction
• We don’t have to look for them. They look
for us
• 3000 deaths each day (15 Madrid bombings
each day or one 9/11 each day)
Bogotá
• Car free days
• 17km pedestrian/bike boulevard
• TransMilenio bus system
Key Demands
• Aviation style culture of investigation and
remediation
• 20mph speed limits in all residential areas
(not dependent on engineering)
• Reclaim the public realm
• Planning guidance and encouragement to
car-free housing
Henry Ford (1929)
• So my advice to young men is to be ready
to revise any system, scrap any methods,
abandon any theory, if the success of the job
requires it
• Page 73 “My Philosophy of Industry”