Press Releases for 2004

WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION DAY FOR TRAFFIC VICTIMS - Thursday 8 April 2004

7th April 2004

Transport guru to call for 20 m.p.h. limit on all UK residential roads

In the UK's major World Health Day event next week, one of the world's leading transport experts will liken the global toll of road crash victims to "a daily slaughter of September the 11th proportions " - and will call for a nationwide 20 m.p.h. speed limit for residential areas. Hazel Dawe comments:

"Greens in East Kent strongly support this initiative since rising population means more traffic, more congestion and more pollution."

Britain's main World Health Day event will be at City Hall, London (1). The City Hall lecture will be delivered by Professor John Whitelegg, a leading transport consultant and academic (2) and the Green Party's spokesperson on sustainable development. Professor Whitelegg commented:

"World Health Day 2004 will focus on traffic victims. The WHO regards the 1.2 MILLION annual road traffic deaths not as 'accidents' but as 'predictable and preventable.' Quite rightly there is outrage whenever terrorist bombings kill even one person, let alone a hundred. Yet we are turning a blind eye to the slaughter of 3,000 people on the roads every single day. That's the equivalent of September the 11th every day of the week." Professor Whitelegg also notes:

"It is completely unacceptable that four times as many poor children as rich children are killed on Britain's roads. This is like a form of social class warfare. We need a 20 m.p.h. speed limit on all residential roads, we need it immediately, and we will not accept excuses about the imaginary difficulty of enforcing it." ENDS c282 words

FURTHER LOCAL INFORMATION: Hazel Dawe, 01233 645167 or 07960 956272. Contact address: 10 Hillbrow Road, Ashford, Kent TN23 4QH. Hazel Dawe is a Senior Lecturer in Law and East Kent Green Party's Campaigns Officer.

FURTHER INFORMATION FROM JOHN WHITELEGG: Interviews, further information: Green Party press office: 020 7561 0282 - www.greenparty.org.uk

Note to editors: 1. The City Hall event has been organised by Roadpeace - an association of relatives of road crash victims - and will be chaired by Jenny Jones, the Green Party's deputy mayor of London. 2. John Whitelegg is managing director of Eco-Logic Ltd and Professor of Sustainable Transport at Liverpool John Moores University. He is also Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of York. He has worked as a consultant on transport and sustainability issues for local and central governments in the UK and overseas for many years and has written or edited dozens of books and reports.

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