£120k traffic calming plans to be reviewed

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/9398879.__120k_traffic_calming_plans_to_be_reviewed/?cmpid=cmt

“The existing traffic calming scheme in the area is not working” Surprise, surprise. Step 1 is to work out why, not to do more of it!!

Transport portfolio holder Cllr Michael Filer has said he wants to try and reach a solution that will please most people but he warned: “The last thing I want is for someone to point a finger at me in the future and say that I neglected their child’s safety.”

Whatever you do Mr Filer, children will die, and every time a child dies, things will be said like “why wasn’t the speed limit lower, why wasn’t there a crossing, why weren’t there more lights, why weren’t there more speed cameras”, etc etc etc. and it will be possible to point a finger to someone and say “if you had done things differently it wouldn’t have happened”

You will only reach the right decisions for all when you tackle the problem scientifically, and although the results of accidents are often terrible and highly emotional, we must not be distracted by emotion when we plan, spend and make decisions about what to do. That does not mean that we can't value life extremely highly in the equation.

If you want to ensure you will never be considered responsible for a death of a child or anyone else, it is clear what you have to do: ban all vehicles, or get a different job. So get professional and deal with the facts, the data, the reality, work out what you want to ACHIEVE, and use proper logic and most importantly, common sense to get all the authorities to work together to make the most effective use of all the combined resources, and LISTEN TO PEOPLE who don’t want you to spend their money like this. If you assemble and publish this, as all such important decisions should be done, the balance of public expectation can be found, and then, whatever happens, you can point anyone to this and say “there was a competent, complete process that found the right balance at the time,  there it is, that’s why we did it, and what happened, however awful, was an unfortunate but inevitable part of it”.  

20 limits are a waste of metal and a failure, it didn’t work in Portsmouth. It now seems beyond all doubt that speed cameras cost more lives than they save, and that Dorset Road Unsafe don’t care about this and are much more concerned with making money than saving life, it might seem financially painful in the short term but we really must get rid of them and start focusing on sensible, effective spend.

The last spend in the Poole area (Fleetsbridge traffic lights, Poole) was unwanted, the council’s claims in effect on road safety clearly demonstrated to be complete nonsense, and actually increases congestion, pollution and cost for all who use it. We need to be much more sensible about these things than we have been in the past. Don’t even get me started on the Canford Bottom traffic lights project.

Getting things right will mean improved safety, fewer (but regrettably still some) deaths, and we could actually get Poole and Bournemouth moving again. It takes my wife up to a hour to commute the few miles between them, ridiculous and unacceptable.