| |  | Surrey Police just don't get it | | |  Pedestrian safety still on the back burnerAttishoo, attishoo — wall fall down!
January 10, 2010: A week ago today a van driver veered off Lower Road, drove along the green verge and the footway for several yards and demolished a front garden wall. The Bugle thought the incident serious enough to send an email to the police. The editor also raised it at Bookham's latest police panel meeting, on Monday, January 4.
Local PC John Hench responded that, as long as the driver and the wall owner had exchanged insurance details, no further action was needed: there were no injuries and there was no evidence of any offence.
COMMENT
For PC Hench, and for the members of the Bookham Residents' Association executive committee at the panel meeting who gave him their unanimous support, this incident isn't even worth discussing. And we stress that in making light of this incident PC Hench was doing exactly what the authorities expect of him: according to Surrey County Council (SCC), "'Damage only' incidents (where no injuries result), are not recorded and not of interest for purposes of casualty reduction."
It wasn't always like this. Twenty or more years ago this writer was involved in a collision on a lane in Hertfordshire. No one was injured but both cars were damaged in a collision at about 4mph. Within days three Surrey Police officers visited his home to find out what had happened. He was convicted of careless driving, fined £70 and docked four points.
That's exactly as it should be. The 'damage-only incident' was 100 per cent the Bugle editor's fault and it was right that he was asked to explain himself.
Today, however, every 'accident' appears to be an act of God for which drivers can only be held to account if they've been drinking. In the present case a visitor from Mars might surmise that the pedestrians who use that side of Lower Road had had a narrow escape. At that time of the morning, 9.30, residents from Lower Road's north side and the Middlemead estate go to collect their Sunday papers. The van could not have hit the wall without crossing the pavement. The Bugle has photographs of the vehicle's tyre marks along the footway.
You may think this a minor matter; the driver has suffered enough. But so have some Bookham residents. One, who asked not to be named, said he spoke for many when he told the Bugle, "The Lower Road is not the healthiest of roads. It's a faster road than anyone ever lets on. There's quite a few near-accidents that don't get reported. And quite a few [actual] accidents that don't get reported as well."
The Bugle knows of three unreported occasions in the last 10 years when drivers have knocked youngsters off their bikes along the 100 yards or so between the broken wall and the recreation ground. Others report many more such incidents that never get near the casualty figures.
As reported, there's a reason why the authorities apply a heavy filter to the number of similar incidents that turn up in the figures. Surrey Police, which last year had a budget crisis, and SCC receive a government 'performance reward grant' for driving road casualty figures down.
Note, however, that child casualty figures have been excluded from this Government Local Public Service Agreement target. So ask yourself, what incentive—other than humanity—there is to make local roads safer for children?
Despite the filtering, the figures we do see are bad enough. Local newspapers thrive on stories about motor cycle 'accidents'. But the number of pedestrians and cyclists killed or seriously injured in Mole Valley in 2007-8 was almost double the casualty rate among motor cyclists.
Again, even where reports are made, no action is taken. In one case some years ago, a van driver hit a child cyclist in the Lorne. The Bugle measured the skid marks at the scene. The two methods of calculations used by police appeared to show the van was exceeding the speed limit by 5mph or so. There was no prosecution. More recently a child was knocked over at the A246 pedestrian crossing near the Dawnay school by an elderly driver who went through a red light. There was no prosecution.
PC Hench and his colleagues spend many hours a week talking to youngsters and persuading them not to loiter – even when the youngsters have committed no offence and rarely cause much harm. That's just as it should be if the loitering instills fear, particularly in the elderly, and the police admirably show the same concern whether the fear in particular instances is real or not.
Here, however, it seems a driver can leave the carriageway, drive along a pavement in frequent use and smash a wall down without being asked for any explanation. Why are the police so determined to treat as trivial the fear provoked—also among the elderly—by driver behaviour that too often actually does lead to death and injury?
One reason is that the police and local authorities are run by car drivers whose own driving behaviour leads them always to put themselves in the driver's shoes. Taking a different point of view, they think, would lead to outrage in a county with Surrey's high car-ownership totals. They don't understand how fed up even some car drivers are with Surrey's speedophile culture.
The complacency goes deep. A recent 'Crime Supplement' from the Mole Valley Community Safety Partnership went to great lengths to say how safe Mole Valley is. But it didn't mention road safety once—in 1,500 words spread over four pages. The partnership shows some concern about noisy neighbours, but none about criminal driving.
Rightly, police crack down hard on those who show positive breath tests after a collision. But otherwise they tend to assume that drivers in collisions are victims of fate, not adults who can be expected to take responsibility for anything happens after they climb into the driving seat.
This is deeply wrong. Local people are entitled to know that this and other incidents are properly investigated to protect public safety and prevent them happening again.
There may be a reasonable explanation: was there something about the road or its surface—ice perhaps—that caused this crash? The morning was cold, but scores of drivers managed to negotiate this section of Lower Road, near the junction with the Lorne, without mishap. It's unlikely the driver was drunk at 9.30 in the morning. Nor, it appears, had he swerved to avoid a child, for which a medal might have been in order. Was there a fault with the vehicle? Was the driver using a mobile phone, or fiddling with his radio? These are all questions the police should have asked in the name of public safety. As it turns out, neighbours of the man whose wall was demolished say the driver later told the wall owner he lost control of the van when he sneezed. He is also said to have had the sun in his eyes—not possible in that direction at that time of the morning.
Memo to BRA committee: the campaign to install a safe crossing for children, the old and others at Lower Road recreation ground now enters its seventh year. Care, at last, to give it your backing?
What do you think? Tell the editor.
article updated January 22, 2010
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| | Surrey police react strongly to Bugle article | | |  'Poorly researched article not supported by facts', says local PCSurrey Police says it is responding to pedestrian concerns
December 9, 2009: Surrey Police have reacted strongly to the Bugle's comments about its latest road safety campaign. As reported, police carried out an operation in Bookham and Fetcham in November as part of the Drive Smart road safety campaign launched in September.
In a comment after its report the Bugle said the campaign, and the two hour operation which was part of it, failed to address the concerns of non-drivers.
Surrey Police strenuously defend the campaign. The following is local PC John Hench's unedited response to the points made in the article.
The article stated that the operation with VOSA and Trading Standards lasted “a mere two hours.”
Yes, this particular operation did last two hours. However, they are operations we run regularly with our colleagues at VOSA and TS. On all but one of the previous operations we have seized vehicles involved in theft and rogue trading, made arrests, and seriously hampered criminal activity in Mole Valley. More operations are planned imminently.
Surrey Police “only deal with offences that could be justified in PR terms as putting other drivers at risk.”
The very press release the article is commenting on mentions five vehicles being issued with prohibitions because they were in an unworthy state to be safely driven on a public road. These vehicles cannot be driven again until the faults are rectified. Two drivers face being banned from the roads because of their accumulative poor driving habits. Two people were summonsed to court and five Fixed Penalty Notices were issued for offences including using a hand held mobile phone whilst driving and having no valid MOT certificate. I would suggest that getting two people to Court and five vehicles off the road in a ‘mere’ two hour operation is good use of police time, and is making the roads safer for other motorists and pedestrians.
“As is their habit (Surrey Police), ignored the offences that cause the biggest danger and nuisance for the non drivers…speeding and driving on pavements. The operations apparent failure to address these is mystifying…”
The main team involved in these operations are the Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT) at Leatherhead. As such, through contact with local residents, panel meetings and forums, we are fully aware of the consternation and concern caused by speeding and parking – both on the roads and the pavements. In the last month I have given four FPN’s for vehicles parked in such a way as to cause an obstruction. One was raised by a member of the public, the other three were found by me whilst on patrol in a vehicle.
In response to the speeding issue, I have liaised with Casualty Reduction Officer, Tom Arthur, a Sergeant at the Roads Policing Unit (RPU) and Roads Police Community Support Officers (RPCSO’s). This has led to regular speed checks in the Bookham and Fetcham area with positive results. Numerous FPN’s have been issued and drivers summoned to Court.
So as you can see, we do respond to the publics concerns. However, we don’t need VOSA or TS to deal with these issues and it would have wasted their valuable time if we had concentrated on speeding in this particular operation.
“To a very small extent, Surrey’s apparent failure to address these (speeding motorists) is mystifying since…”
As mentioned above we are happy to, and do, target speeding motorists.
Surrey Police want “the public to tell them about speeders rather than going about catching the miscreants themselves.”
Apart from the operations with RPCSO’s and RPU officers, which are self initiated, we also respond to specific requests from the public where there is a perceived speeding problem. An example of this would be on The Cobham Road in Fetcham. Since this was raised, Vehicle Activated Signs (VAS) have been installed which measure how many cars use the road and also measures speed. Once this information has been analysed we can plan an appropriate response.
“(PC)Tom Arthur said he recently prosecuted speeding drivers for travelling well above the speed limits on the Dorking Road, Leatherhead. So, why not on this occasion?
As mentioned above, that was not the aim of this operation.
“Why do the police have to be told about inconsiderate, possibly illegal, parking on the pavement?: haven’t they got eyes?”
As mentioned above, we do deal with parking offences. As well as contravening a red traffic light signal, contravening a mini roundabout sign, using a hand held mobile phone whilst driving, not wearing a seat belt (driver and passenger) and dangerous driving. All of these I have dealt with in the last month.
“If police notice pavement parkers at all it’s only to be grateful to them for giving Surrey Police patrol cars more room on the carriageway.”
Motorists respond well to the sirens and lights fitted to our marked police vehicles and usually do their best to clear a way for us when our need to protect life, limb and property is urgent. It is disappointing to see such a throw-away comment used as a ‘joke’ within the article and highlights the general attitude of the article as a whole.
As a final point I would like to add that as local Neighbourhood Specialist Officers (NSOs) we not only deal with the concerns raised in this article. Every NSO at Leatherhead carries a workload of crimes to investigate, they have panel meetings and forums to prepare for, they work late on Friday and Saturday nights to deal with the violence and anti-social behaviour, they arrest local offenders and prepare long files to take to court, and, of course, they deal with public concerns. We need to balance our workload in order to address issues from the whole community. It’s a shame that this officer had to take time out to write this response to a poorly researched article which is not supported by the facts.
The Bugle stands by its comments, which were written from the point of view of a pedestrian, cyclist and motorist who has observed not the slightest change in driver behaviour since the campaign began.
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| | Police target anti-social drivers in Bookham and Fetcham | | |  Crack-down or feeble let-down?One cheer for 'operation Drive Smart'
November 20, 2009: Surrey Police say they stopped 24 vehicles in a two-hour operation against anti-social drivers in Bookham and Fetcham on November 17. More than half were reported for a total of 23 offences. Two drivers face driving bans because of the number of points already accumulated on their licences.
In a statement the force said the operation was carried out jointly by Mole Valley Neighbourhood officers, the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) and Trading Standards. The officers issued five prohibitions on vehicles for failures involving tinted glass, tyres, indicators, and the absence of a breakaway cable on a horse box.
One summons and five fixed penalty notices were issued to drivers using mobile phones, one driver was summonsed for not having an MOT certificate, eight for failure to use seat belts, and two for having incorrect number plates.
Surrey said VOSA, an agency of the Department for Transport, "were very happy with how the activity went and have committed to take part in another similar operation soon."
Mole Valley Neighbourhood Inspector, John Tadman, said: “This was a great opportunity to work with partners in a quick and responsive, high profile operation which clearly yielded good results”.
COMMENT
This operation was reported here and in both local newspapers as some kind of crackdown. But if this is an example of what we can expect from the Drive Smart campaign then it's a major disappointment.
It lasted a mere two hours and dealt only with offences that could be justified in PR terms as putting other drivers at risk. As is their habit, Surrey Police ignored the offences that cause the biggest danger and nuisance for the non-drivers who are still half the population—speeding and driving on pavements.
The operation's apparent failure to address these is mystifying since residents' complaints about speeding and inconsiderate parking were said to be what prompted the campaign in the first place. But now, as always, residents' complaints only seem to matter if they're drivers complaining about other drivers.
To a very small extent, Surrey's failure to tackle speeders is understandable. Officers say they see speeding but have to jump through hoops to do anything about it. When using speed guns, they have to be in twos, dressed in day-glo outfits that make it impossible to catch drivers who slow down before they can be caught. This offers some, though not much, excuse for police requests to the public to tell them about speeders rather than going about catching the miscreants themselves.
But it can be done. On recent occasions, police out with local schoolchildren have caught and warned drivers exceeding the limit. In another recent exercise, Mole Valley casualty reduction officer Tom Arthur said he had prosecuted drivers for travelling well above speed limits on the Dorking Road, Leatherhead. So why not on this occasion?
The police's attitude to pavement parking is a litmus test of whether they are serious about law enforcement for the majority. Some of us want our pavements back. Arthur told the Bugle that driving on them breaks the 1988 Road Traffic Act. He's right – it's section 34. So why is its enforcement optional? He and other officers say they want to know about these offences, and the police will write to the perpetrators and warn them they will be prosecuted if they offend again.
But why do the police have to be told about inconsiderate, possibly illegal, parking on the pavement?: haven't they got eyes? Well they have, but the eyes see the world through a windscreen. If police notice pavement parkers at all it's only to be grateful to them for giving Surrey Police patrol cars more room on the carriageway. And police failure to stop ignorant parkers blocking Surrey's few cycle lanes is a scandal.
If one two-hour operation is a very genteel crackdown, isn't it better than nothing? No, because it kids us that something positive is being done to make our roads safer—to enforce the laws protecting walkers and cyclists as well as those that govern the safety of drivers—when it isn't.
So far, the results of operation Drive Smart are easy to judge: look round you. Years of slack enforcement have turned excessive speed and pavement parking from offences into entitlements, and Drive Smart has done nothing to change that. The scheme has another nine months to run. It'll have to do better than this if pedestrians and cyclists are to be persuaded that it's anything more than just another PR stunt.
More worthwhile was the road-safety show Surrey fire & Rescue mounted for young drivers at Dorking Halls last month. In Safe Drive, Stay Alive, students from the Ashcombe and the Priory in Dorking, and Therfield and St Andrews in Leatherhead, heard police, ambulance and fire crews talk about what they found at the scenes of collisions, and volunteer drivers spoke about their experiences of road collisions and how they had changed their lives.
More performances are planned for April 28 at 10:30am and 12:30pm. Phone 01737 733506.
Article updated December 6, 2009.
Beware postal swindle
20 November, 2009: Bookham's local police warn that Trading Standards and the Royal Mail are keen to alert residents to a false-delivery swindle.
It works like this, say police: "A card is posted through your door, from a company called PDS (Parcel Delivery Service) suggesting that they were unable to deliver a parcel and that you need to contact them on 0906 6611911 (a Premium rate number).
"DO NOT call this number, as this is a mail scam originating from Belize. If you call the number and you start to hear a recorded message you will already have been billed £15 for the phone call."
If you do receive a card with these details, then please contact Royal Mail Fraud on 0207 239 6655 or ICSTIS (the Premium rate service regulator) at: www.icstis.org.uk | | |
| | Bookham and Fetcham Police Forum | | |  Antisocial behaviour 1 – Life-threatening, and largely ignored Is this the road safety crackdown we've been waiting for?
October 4, 2009: We're now a month into Surrey Police's crackdown on antisocial driving. The campaign, called 'Drive Smart', means that, for the first time, what Surrey Police calls "considerable funding" is being put into making our local roads safer.
Drive Smart is a joint initiative between Surrey Police and Surrey County Council, Surrey Safety Camera Partnership, Surrey Fire & Rescue Service, and the Highways Agency. Arthur said he and his colleagues were studying how best to use the extra funding to enforce the law, educate the public, and prevent casualties.
Launching the local campaign on September 23, Mole Valley's road casualty reduction officer, PC Tom Arthur, said speeding will be Drive Smart's priority.
But it would cover all anti-social driving: "That includes the person that decides not to give way at junctions," he saiod, "it includes the person that decides to drive within one inch of your bumper, it includes the person who can't be bothered to pay tax or insurance on their vehicle and then runs the risk of causing you inconvenience and financial loss." Other examples given in a Surrey Police statement include wheel spinning and ignoring mini-roundabouts.
Drivers caught speeding by a few miles and hour may have the option of taking training instead of being prosecuted. But if you're well in excess of the speed limit, that option won't be available, said Arthur. Parents who park their cars thoughtlessly while dropping the kids off at school will be another target, Arthur told the recent quarterly police forum meeting at Bookham's Baptist Hall.
New penalties
Arthur praised the introduction of new penalties which the government had failed to publicise. Offences like driving without a seatbelt, driving using a hand-held phone, not displaying a valid vehicle excise licence and driving without insurance or MOT certificate now attracted fines and penalties that would deter drivers who committed them. "All of a sudden you're into over £400 if we seize a vehicle on the side of the road. It's starting to be a bit of a deterrent to these people who buy cars for £100 or £200 in a pub, just use them for a couple of months and then discard them."
The police rely on the public to tell them about these offences, said Arthur, particularly about the times and places these offences tend to take place. He welcomed detailed emails about particular offences.
A police statement said the money would be used for up-to-date hand-held equipment to improve detection and enforcement, say Surrey Police. "Roads Policing Units (RPUs) will be able to provide extra operational activity and patrols to help tackle problems wherever they are identified."
PC Arthur's email address is mvalley.snt@surrey.pnn.pol. His phone number is 01483 631107 or 0845 1252222 ext 39635.
Picture, above right. Meet the team: Mole Valley casualty reduction officer Tom Arthur (standing) is flanked by (l to r) PCSO Susan Guy, PC John Hench, neighbourhood coordinator Neil Clarke, and PCSO Marion Hawkins.
Comment
This isn't the Surrey force's first safe-driving campaign. PR-led initiatives like the Surrey Road Standards Campaign come round every conker season and are forgotten by bonfire night.
But Drive Smart's funding, and the collaboration that provided it, may make it different. Neither would have happened, however, had the penny not suddenly dropped that, regardless of the noise made by the anti-speed-camera lobby, people of all ages in Surrey are sick of bad drivers.
As Surrey Police's statement put it: "In many areas across Mole Valley, anti-social driving is the key concern identified by local residents at police panel meetings. We can now work with additional targeted resources to address these concerns in a really pro-active and robust manner."
So if this campaign works, it's a success in a much wider sense. It means that the police panel meetings are successful and that they're working. Along with the efforts of the police community support officers (PCSOs)—in Bookham that's Marion Hawkins and her colleagues—they provide the law with the eyes and ears it needs to find out where offences are being committed and nip them in the bud.
The test will be whether Drive Smart is just another view through the windscreen—an effort to get good drivers on side against the bad—or whether it will take arms on behalf of all road users, including the pedestrians and cyclists threatened daily by nice people who forget their manners as soon as they get into a car.
Bookham's panel meetings are held every other month in the St Nicolas Pastoral Centre behind the shops in Church Road. The next is at 7.45pm on November 2. | | |
| | Does Bookham neglect its young people? | | |  Antisocial behaviour 2 – Noisy, usually harmless, never tolerated"Get off your backsides!"
September 7, 2009: Bookham is "a God-forsaken hole" that doesn't do enough for its youngsters, says an elderly resident. Too many local people who stand up at meetings to criticise young people should "get off their backsides and do something for them."
The resident, who didn't want to be named, made her remarks at the September 7 Bookham police panel meeting at St Nicolas Pastoral Centre, off Church Road. Local PC John Hench, who chaired the meeting, told residents Surrey Police had increased patrols in the area after reports of antisocial behaviour on the green between the Whiteway and the Dorking Road. Young people had been lighting fires among trees there, making noise and abusing other residents. Police had asked them not to use the ground immediately behind the Dorking Road houses and that seemed to be working, said Hench.
The Whiteway resident told PC Hench that young people had been lighting fires in the garages near there. One resident had dumped rubbish there which the children had set light to.
The resident said she had seen groups of young people sitting in little groups near the Chrystie recreation ground on Dorking Road, Bookham, but most of the time they hadn't been causing any trouble. "I don't think there's enough youth things here that happen in Bookham. Bookham is a God-forsaken hole because the kids can't do anything.
"It's all right for us older ones. We're all 'upright'. But the kids have not got anything. I know we didn't in our time, but I don't think the youth centres are doing enough. The boys' club up on the recreation ground, they could have boxing meetings for them up there. Those youths could start to run than themselves, with a bit of support. Because they haven't got anything to do."
This resident got talking to some of the youngsters when they asked to pat the dog she walks every day. She told them she knew what it was like—she'd had four children, one now an assistant head teacher—and she felt sorry for them: "Us older ones think, 'Oh they've got to be in by ten and all that'. Well they're not going to be, they want something to do, some project. They're not bad kids. Can't they go and do something for the old people or cut hedges or do something and be praised up? Everybody's downing kids at the moment."
PC Hench replied that the young people Surrey Police were dealing with would not be interested in cutting people's hedges—unless to cut them into rude shapes. But the Youth Centre was now open on Wednesday and Friday nights, and he would be happy to encourage youngsters to go there.
The resident said that, if young people went at night, say to the pictures in Epsom or Leatherhead, "They can't get home. Their parents have to go and get them." They need better transport.
When her grown-up children visit her, she continued, "they say 'there's a load of old fogeys living in Bookham. Where's the young ones?' And I say there's not the housing for them for one thing. And they say 'I'd had to come back here. What would our kids do here?'.
"All these meetings, and people criticising the young, they ought to get off their backsides and do something for them."
Everyone complained about graffiti, she said, but "Some of those kids are damned clever. Could there be an art thing that they could do?"
But the lady's no softie. She told PC Hench it was a pity the police couldn't administer a clip round the ear occasionally, as in the old days.
What do you think? Tell the editor.
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| | Evidence mounts of inaccurate road casualty data | | |  Policy based on 'Accident' figures half the real rateStatistics Authority says casualties are under-reported
August 7, 2009: A new report confirms that road casualty statistics are so unreliable that the number may be twice as high as shown in the official figures.
As the BBC puts it, "Instead of 26,000 people suffering serious injury after road accidents last year, the Department for Transport accepts that the true figure may be closer to 50,000." The under-counting "may mean the issue does not get the attention it deserves."
According to the UK Statistics Authority, the Department for Transport recently confirmed to the National Audit Office that, "there may be about twice as many casualties as are reported, although very few fatalities are unrecorded."
Three years ago, the Bugle raised concerns not just about Surrey's apparent lack of concern about road casualties, but about the value of the statistics Surrey was using to argue that its roads were becoming safer.
The Bugle cited British Medical Journal statistics showing that, though police forces – including Surrey – claimed ever-falling road casualty rates, hospital admissions showed no such trend.
It also pointed out that the 'STATS19' system police use to compile road casualty statistics, now succeeded by STATS20, is voluntary. The funding of Surrey Police, like that of every other force, depends on meeting government targets. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary measures each force (reference indicator SPI 9a) by the number of road traffic collisions resulting in death or serious injury per 100 million vehicle kilometres travelled, and by the number of road traffic collisions involving death or serious injury per 1,000 population.
As the Bugle suggested recently, if the funding follows a fall in fatalities, a fall in fatalities will follow.
In June 2006 the Department for Transport itself reported that, "there is general recognition and acceptance that the STATS19 record is an underestimation of the actual number of road traffic accident casualties. This has been acknowledged for some time."
Now comes a report by the UK Statistics Authority, formerly the Office for National Statistics, noting that, "the under-reporting of road accident casualties is a significant and intractable problem."
In a report published in July, the authority concluded that the published statistics may not be reliable and that the Department for Transport needs to explain limitations of the figures more fully: "DfT recognises that there is a degree of under-reporting of road accident casualties in the STATS19 system." Though few if any fatal accidents do not become known to the police, research "has shown that a significant proportion of non-fatal injury accidents are not reported to the police."
Partly that's because there is not always a legal duty to report them. But it's also because, even if they are reported, the police may not record them. The authority also found that the STATS19 system under-estimates the severity of injuries. Discrepancies between STATS19 figures and hospital admissions, "are believed to be due to a combination of the under-estimation of injury severity on the police recording system and changes in hospital admissions practices."
[] The inaccuracy of road casualty figures is discussed at length in this feature by BBC reporter Mark Easton.
What do you think? Tell the editor.
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| | Recreation ground crossing latest | | |  Surrey County Council may do something - if you're patient'Do what's possible' on Middlemead crossing, Curran advises
July 9, 2009: Speed management is the alternative to a new crossing for Lower Road, says Surrey County Councillor Clare Curran.
Curran is a member of the local committee which rejected the local petition to give pedestrians a safer way of crossing the Lower Road between the Middlemead estate and the recreation ground.
She told the Bugle she agreed with the Middlemead and other residents that something had to be done for local pedestrians at that point. But local residents would not agree to a crossing if it meant flashing lights, high poles or audible crossing signals.
Curran's contribution to July 1's local committee debate had disappointed some of those at the debate who thought she might be more sympathetic to child-pedestrian issues than the male petrol-heads around her. "She poured cold water on it," said one, on the grounds, it was said, that a pedestrian crossing would cause conflicts with the traffic on the nearby cycle path. Some even thought she might be opposed to the crossing because the idea had been taken up by the local Labour party.
The Bugle had not attended the local committee meeting so we asked her for her view. She did, indeed, say there was a difficulty with the cycle track. To make room for a crossing, you would have to make a cutting into the grass verge on the south side of the road and bank up the earth south of the crossing. That would impinge on the cycle track.
But she also pointed out that Lower Road's only other crossing, at the junction of Eastwick Road, had just about everything in its favour. It was an accident black spot. It's near two schools, the Bookham youth centre, often used for creches and pre-school meetings, the Anchor pub, the Keswick House care home, a doctors' surgery and much else. The rec site doesn't have any of these features.
Realistically a new 'rec' crossing has zero chance of rising up Surrey County Council's list of priorities. The highways budget is £50 per adult per year – she suggested at the latest Bookham Residents' Association committee meeting that this was less than some Bookhamites spend each week on gardening. Do you know anyone like that?
She's on firmer ground when she says her whole approach is to do what works. What might work in this instance, she said, is the combination of the promised slow-down signs and a well-marked road table at the crossing point.
Middlemead's schoolchildren, their parents, and the old and inform on the way to the village shops and doctors' surgery can only watch and wait.
BACKGROUND
Surrey County Council gave many reasons for rejecting a Lower Road crossing at the rec.
A crossing with lights and signals was not on because:
[] it would take land from nearby residential properties.
[] there was no footway on the north side of Lower Road.
[] The signals' lights and poles, and legal 'zigzag' markings "were very likely to be considered visually intrusive by local residents… One or two properties would have to have the equipment very close to their front windows."
[] The cost is very high.
[] Other crossings have an average of one injury accident a year. Unless there are more accidents than this, said Poole, "it is difficult to justify installation of this type of crossing."
Surrey would not install a central pedestrian island because:
[] The road would have to be widened on the rec side. Surrey would have to construct a length of full depth carriageway there, which would be too expensive.
[] The island "may have provided vehicular access problems" for residents.
Conditions had not changed since the 'hard standing' and textured pavement were provided there in 2003, the county's engineer summarised.
The problem with all this is that, as reported, the new petition presented to the local committee and taken up by the Labour Party says clearly that, "We do understand that a signalised crossing is not considered possible, and also a pedestrian island."
It could not be clearer. So why did the officer's response to the petition* confine itself to explaining why the petitioners couldn't have a signalised crossing or an island? It's not possible, is it, that County Hall either hadn't read the petition or chose to ignore what it said?
What the petition say was that, "There is an urgent need for a zebra crossing to be provided and if possible a 'slow down' sign…" Surrey Highways' east area principal engineer, Michelle Armstrong, a former Bookham resident, said a simple Belisha beacon type crossing could be provided but there was no money for it and the current highway engineer flavour of month is signalled crossings.
* You can download the officer response to the petition by going to this page and clicking on the petition document at the bottom of the list.
Comment
Let Down!
Two and a half years ago the Bugle suggested that the Middlemead crossing issue would be, "a test of how committed we really are to the safety of Bookham’s children." (See section six of this article). The results so far indicate "not very much". And that especially applies both to officialdom and to our community's leaders.
Surrey County Council hasn't covered itself in glory. As we reported last week, two years ago they undertook to do the very least they possibly could, which was improve the lighting and put signs up – we all know how well drivers respond to signs. They could do this without needing extra money, their letter told Middlemead residents.
Since then, nothing. Add that the council has lost the Middlemead estate's correspondence a few times, and stir in that Surrey circulated the wrong petition before the latest local meeting on June 24, and you can understand why local residents might think the highway authority is not taking this issue seriously. There is an explanation, a simple clerical error, for the mistake over the petition, but it doesn't help.
Our community's unofficial leaders, meanwhile, seemed just as keen to kick the scheme into the long grass. At the recent inaugural Bookham and Fetcham police forum, former SCC Councillor and Surrey Police Authority chairman big Jim Smith echoed the SCC viewpoint that pedestrian crossings increase the risk of accidents.
At the meeting The Bugle's editor was unable to restrain his view that, if pedestrian crossings are a threat to public safety, every one in the country should be removed at once.
But this issue is far from simple. Surrey says every crossing has at least one injury incident a year. If the would-be crossing is at a place that has fewer than one "injury collision" a year, a crossing will make things worse.
There are two obvious weaknesses in this argument. One is that, if a crossing becomes available, collisions happen there which might have happened elsewhere. If a pedestrian fears crossing the Lower Road at the rec, he or she will cross Lower Road somewhere else. The accidents will be widely distributed along Lower Road instead of being concentrated at a crossing.
The second major issue is that few of these other injuries along Lower Road will be recorded. The Surrey/Smith argument ignores unreported incidents, even injuries, some of them serious. This was explored fully in a Bugle article almost three years ago. Based largely on research published in that senationalist rag, the British Medical Journal, it showed that, whatever police statistics say about falling road casualties, road casualty hospital admissions stay stubbornly constant.
The funding of Surrey Police, like that of every other force, depends on meeting government targets. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary measures each force (reference indicator SPI 9a) by the number of road traffic collisions resulting in death or serious injury per 100 million vehicle kilometres travelled, and by the number of road traffic collisions involving death or serious injury per 1,000 population.
Put it like this, if the funding follows a fall in fatalities, a fall in fatalities will follow. Either way, there are no reliable figures available for the safety or otherwise of any part of Lower Road.
At the same police forum meeting, Bookham Residents' Association chairman Peter Seaward suggested that the recreation-ground crossing issue had been going on for far too long. It should be decided one way or the other.
We could all agree that the crossing story is old hat. But this suggestion, though doubtless well-intentioned, doesn't bear scrutiny. It's difficult to imagine any forum which has the power to deem any decision about the Lower Road crossing 'final' – short, that is, of an indefinite restraining order on the entire population of the Middlemead estate. And on what grounds?: Exaggerated concern for their children's safety?
What is a local committee and what does it do?
Local committees discuss matters of shared concern between Surrey County Council and Surrey's 11 districts.
The Mole Valley Local Committee consists of 12 Mole Valley councillors, six each from the county and district councils.
The county councillors are Helyn Clack, Dorking Rural (Con); Stephen Cooksey, Dorking and the Holmwoods (Lib Dem); Clare Curran, Bookham & Fetcham West (Con); Tim Hall, Leatherhead and Fetcham East (Con); Christopher Townsend, Ashtead (Ind); and Hazel Watson, Dorking Hills (Lib Dem).
The district councillors are Valerie Holmwood, Beare Green (Lib Dem) ; Anne Howarth, Bookham South (Lib Dem); David Howell, Ashtead Common (Ind); Chris Hunt, Ashtead Village (Con); Jean Pearson, Capel, Leigh and Newdigate (Con, currently leader of MVDC); and David Sharland, Leatherhead South (Con).
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| | SCC's local committee rejects plea for Lower Road Rec crossing | | |  Local residents' safety concerns put on the back burner We don't want to know!
July 1, 2009: Surrey County Council's local committee for Mole Valley has rejected the petition for a crossing of Lower Road at the recreation ground.
As reported, an alley from Middlemead estate leads to the north side of Lower Road, opposite the recreation ground. But, where the alley meets the road, there is not even a pavement, never mind a crossing.
Local residents have been pressing for some form of crossing there for several years. The latest, 140-signature petition, started by the Residents of Middlemead Estate (Rome) committee, was taken up by Bookham Labour Party.
Middlemead resident Freddie Jenkins told the local committee, meeting on June 24, that she and fellow residents were concerned about the safety not just of children on the estate, who needed to cross Lower Road to get to local schools as well as to use the play area, but for older people who crossed at that point.
The local committee was voting on an 'officer response' to the petition from the local highways department manager, Derek Poole. His report summarised previous requests from residents for a safe crossing on Lower Road. It noted the reasons for the council's earlier rejections of either a crossing with signals or a central pedestrian island to allow pedestrians to cross the road in two stages, and pointed out that conditions had not changed enough to prompt the department to change its stance.
But Jenkins wasn't asking for such a change: "We do understand that a signalised crossing is not considered possible, and also a pedestrian island." Residents were pleased a 'hard standing' had been provided to at least allow pedestrians to keep their feet dry. However, "we still feel that there is an urgent need for a zebra crossing to be provided and if possible a 'slow down' sign, as traffic is sometimes very fast coming from both directions." Some young people have to wait 10 minutes to cross the road in the morning. Their impatience could be fatal.
Surrey Highways' east area principal engineer, Michelle Armstrong, a former Bookham resident, told the Bugle of other possible remedies than a signalled crossing or a central island. They included a zebra crossing with Belisha beacons or the provision of a 'buffer' or apron which would allow pedestrians to gather on the north side of Lower Road and have a clear view of the traffic.
But these solutions also look unlikely. There have been no recent installations of zebra crossings because official wisdom is that 'signalised' crossings are safer. And a pinch point like a pedestrian apron would be an unacceptable obstruction to the buses and large delivery lorries which use Lower Road. In any case, there is no money whatever available for such work.
Armstrong noted that drivers ought to be made more aware that pedestrians are crossing at that point. There are no signs telling them that there is an alley there. Surrey might provide signs asking drivers to take care, she said.
As it happens, when Middlemead residents petitioned the local committee for a crossing over two years ago Surrey Highways wrote to say that signs could be provided and local lighting improved "within normal budgets". Since this letter, no action has been taken. It was signed by Michell Armstrong.
This is far from the end of the story. The local committee debate concluded with the suggestion that Poole and Curran get together and assess the situation. More anon.
What do you think? Tell the editor. | | |
| | Authorities' 'concern for health and safety' is bogus hypocrisy | | |  Six years on, why has nothing happened?Crossing is vital for young and old
May 2, 2009: It's a striking thought that, as the Middlemead estate holds its Fun Day today to raise money for children's facilities on the Lower Road recreation ground, it's six years since the residents started campaigning for a safe crossing to the play areas there. As this week's Leatherhead Advertiser reported, the local Labour party organised a petition for the crossing and held a signing session at the Royal Oak car park in the High Street.
As reported, the bill for the equipment the Middlemead residents want has been grossly inflated by new 'Health and Safety' features that weren't deemed necessary when the estate engaged in its last, successful, fund-raising drive, for a skateboard park.
It's baffling beyond belief that the authorities should tie themselves in so many knots – and their residents in so much extra expense – over children's safety on the recreation ground, yet show so little interest in the much greater danger children face in getting to the equipment in the first place.
Be in no doubt, however, that the crossing issue is not just about allowing children to use the recreation ground. It's not even just about allowing them a safe route to school, since many of the estate's children go to either the Howard or Dawnay schools on the other side of the road.
Nor is it a matter just for the young. A pensioner who spoke to the Bugle said the crossing would allow here to get to the village shops more easily. Elderly Middlemead residents also have to cross Lower Road to reach the local health centre and doctors' surgery.
In February the Rome committee wrote to Surrey County Council's local highways manager, Gerrie Van Saasen, to plead yet again for a crossing where a path from the estate meets the north side of Lower Road. There is no pavement at this point directly opposite the recreation ground.
Rome's letter said, "Traffic along Lower Road is heavy at most times of the day and particularly heavy during the school run. Even so, many of the vehicles travelling along Lower Road either about to deposit children at the two schools or on their return journeys are travelling above the speed limit – often well above. Nothing we say to the authorities will convince them to enforce speed limits along Lower Road at this or at any other times."
Surrey had failed to provide a crossing warden either at the recreation ground or at the Garstons further east. "Given the failure to enforce speed limits, our parents and other residents are convinced that the only solution to the danger posed at this point is to provide a safe pedestrian crossing."
There was an "overwhelming need" for a crossing at this point, yet Surrey had either ignored local requests for action or lost the correspondence: "The residents of this estate would prefer [a crossing] to arrive before a child is killed or seriously injured here than after," the letter concluded.
What do you think? Tell the editor. | | |
| | Drivers treat law-breaking as an entitlement | | |  SPECIAL REPORT FOR ROAD SAFETY WEEKThe scandal that won't go away
November 11, 2006: For some of us this is Road Safety Week. For Surrey Police it’s business as usual. And that means a continuing free rein for law-breaking drivers. With the possible exception of North Wales, most police forces’ stewardship of their obligation to enforce road traffic law in the interest of protecting the public is weak. In Surrey’s case, however, the record has been something approaching a scandal.
This autumn there was hope that there might, at last, be a change. In September the force launched a back-to-schools initiative called the Surrey Road Standards Campaign. For once the force decided to turn its propaganda effort from the victims – children in schools – to the perpetrators: you and me driving around without a care in the world or, most of the time, a thought in our heads for non-driving road users.
The ‘Don’t see red on the road’ campaign was splashed across the back of 56 of the county’s bus fleet, washrooms in 15 pubs and clubs, and 30-second commercials on Surrey’s The Eagle, Radio Jackie and Radio Mercury radio stations warning drivers that ‘behaviour which angers or provokes other road users or local residents will not be tolerated’. Wonderful words.  Walking in Bookham - The Pavement NightmareFor now, to the ordinary man, woman or child brave enough to walk or cycle round Bookham and its environs, nothing changes. On school journeys they see drivers approaching each other on narrow roads at combined impact speeds of 100 mph. They see drivers overtaking other drivers already breaking the speed limit.
The offenders are men and women of all ages, though during the day women predominate. But they may also include drivers of council refuse lorries, post office vans or even school buses, all on official business. What message does that give our young people?
Often walkers are forced into the traffic, their pavements blocked by illegally parked cars (even police cars), by delivery lorries or by contractors who haven’t put out coned safety margins. Patrol cars take no notice of these offences.
Once past the hazards, the pedestrian who tries to cross at a junction will be forced back by a turning driver sounding a horn, whatever the highway code or, for that matter, the 1861 Offences Against the Person or 1986 or later Public Order Acts may say about it. And if it's bad for young walkers, the experience of those pushing wheelchairs or baby buggies is worse.
The problem is ‘priorities’, cloaked in the poisonous guise of ‘policing by consent’. When the force pleads lack of resources it means that road deaths and injuries matter less than property crimes. Any organisation that chooses to go round in cars marked ‘With you, making Surrey safer’ should do what it says on the tin, and our complaint against Surrey police is that the force refuses to enforce the laws parliament has passed to make Surrey safer for pedestrians and cyclists. The result is that local 3o mph limits are voluntary and pavement parking has become a fiercely-defended entitlement, whatever the law says.
Who is listening?
To our knowledge, the last full public meeting held to discuss police matters was in the Barn Hall in September 2002. On that occasion residents of East Street pleaded with a panel of police officers and county council men in suits to do something about the danger from speeding drivers going past their houses.
Many of the houses in East Street, parallel to Bookham High Street, are right on the road with no pavement to protect residents as they step out of their front doors. It would be difficult to imagine a topic more deserving of prolonged serious discussion than this life or death issue, and if ever there was a case for ferocious policing of the speed limit, this is it. Fortunately for Surrey police, the meeting was being chaired by a safe pair of hands, the ever-affable Michael Anderson. He smartly moved the meeting on, and much of the rest of it was spent discussing the graffiti menace and the indecorous youth who gather at bus stops.
‘Driving without due care’ was mentioned once – when a police officer conjectured whether the charge could be brought against children using skateboards on the pavements. But when, eventually, an officer embarked on a talk about ‘the most serious problem the public faced’ – theft from parked cars – your correspondent walked out in disgust.  Young blood on Surrey's roadsSurrey has a long and dishonourable tradition as the UK’s road casualty capital. Though last year’s 6,858 killed or injured shows a slight improvement in a long upward trend, it is 150 ahead of Lancashire and 250 ahead of neighbour Kent. Essex scrapes barely above 6,000, and you only have to go down to Cambridge, the 16th-worst of the UK’s 149 local authorities, to reach half Surrey’s gory total. But even this deplorable record masks a much worse picture.
One reason for the mayhem is high car ownership. As Howard of Effingham sixth form student Jacqueline Van Zetten points out in her climate change article elsewhere on the site, Bookham, for example, has 10,000 residents, 5,000 homes and 7,500 cars. (Speeding drivers, note, make disproportionate contributions to greenhouse-gas emissions.) Even if the police were minded to confront driver attitudes they would face enormous hostility.
Some, not all, community-level police officers know it has to be tackled. One told the Bugle that residents at The Grange Centre for the disabled refuse to walk to the village because the journey is too dangerous. But the top levels of the force can’t or won’t face it.
So Surrey’s road safety strategy is totally skewed towards the interests and protection of drivers and property. Enforcement of speed limits is confined to trunk roads where the conflicts are between driver and driver, not the residential areas where most of the collisions occur and the conflicts are more likely to involve pedestrians and cyclists.
If cars are involved in collisions which cause property damage – with each other or with walls or other objects – then the police will either be there or log the incident. If a child throws stones against a greenhouse a squad car arrives. Throw a car at a child and nothing happens.
That is not always the fault of the police. Along Lower Road every school term there are countless collisions between motorists and others which go unremarked. Often a child will be knocked off a bike, dusted down and sent on her way. If, as frequently happens in Bookham, cars hit pedestrians or cyclists and the child is able to walk away, albeit with a limp, for fairly obvious reasons it’s very unlikely the police will be involved. Sometimes drivers involved in these collisions leave the child behind to nurse their bruises. How likely is an injured child to note down a motorist’s registration number?  Lies, damned lies and casualty statistics - why Surrey's road toll is NOT fallingSurrey County officialdom knows all this but, even though the true picture adds huge weight to Surrey’s case for high A&E provision, it pretends that the casualty statistics it publishes every year for child cyclists and pedestrians are accurate. Since 1989 the figures have drifted slowly but steadily downwards to 2004’s 450 pedestrian and 400 cyclist injuries. The reasons for the downward drift are anything but reassuring.
One is that pedestrians and cyclists are taking to cars – either their own or their parents’ – because not being in one is so threatening. According to The Parliamentary Advisory Committee for Transport Safety (Pacts), 'Urban design has a big impact on how we interact with the road environment: crossings that aren't where pedestrians want to cross, cycle lanes that peter out, roads that are designed for technical safety but end up encouraging higher speeds from drivers.' As a result, says Pacts, 'Nearly 70% of kids avoid walking or cycling to school because of the threat from traffic on the UK's roads.' That means fewer possible victims.
Another reason for 'falling' figures, however, is that the way road accidents are measured is a dogs’ dinner.
This becomes clear in any study which compares casualty statistics measured by hospitals and those collected by the police in so-called STATS19 injury accident forms. The Bugle has unearthed a number of these, all from this year.
One recent report in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) compared police and hospital statistics between 1996 and 2004. It said police had reported a reduction in the number killed or seriously injured (KSIs) on the roads from 85.9 to 59.4 per 100,000 over that period. But hospital admissions, or hospital episode statistics (HES), had remained more or less constant – 90 per 100,000 in 1996 and 91.1 in 2004. The BMJ's graph of the discrepancy is shown above right.
The paper concluded: ‘The overall fall seen in police statistics for non-fatal road traffic injuries probably represents a fall in completeness of reporting of these injuries.’
A Department for Transport (DfT) research report on the under-reporting of road casualties concludes that, ‘there are twice as many [our italics] serious injuries occurring on the road as are recorded in the STATS19 database. Some of this is due to underreporting and some due to misrecording.’
Finally, another DfT report concluded after a comparison of HES and STATS19 data that: ‘The number of child pedal cyclists seriously injured according to HES data is more than five times the number in STATS19.”
Cyclist injuries have to be treated with extreme caution because many of them happen away from roads and vehicles. But five times!
Why the figures are wrong
One explanation is that central government has a mania for targetting and sets funding to public sector organisations by how well they meet the targets. If cash means the figures have to go down, down they go. (Exactly why and how this happens was explained in a later article—click here.)
Believe it or not, STATS19 data collection is voluntary. The process is so obscure that, when the Bugle asked Bookham's Surrey County Council (SCC) councillor, Jim Smith, about it he had to ask us what STATS19 was - he'd never heard of it. Cllr Smith chairs the Surrey Police Authority.
His reaction is the tip of the deep official complacency that afflicts both the SCC and Surrey Police. In its reaction to last year's Home Office performance statistics, for example, Surrey Police boasted of reducing road casualties in the county and later noted that, ‘Surrey was declared the safest county in England…’
Safest, that is, unless you want to cross a road.
The victims of this travesty of our duty of care to young people have no voice. They don’t have the vote. They tend not to go to residents’ meetings to whinge about potholes, Council Tax or the state of the bins. And when we need more money for such things we close their youth centres down.
So none of us – the police, the bureaucrats nor, indeed, Surrey’s drivers – has much to be proud of. But we are all about to be tested on how committed we really are to the safety of Bookham’s children.
The residents of the Middlemead estate are petitioning Surrey for a pedestrian crossing between a pedestrian alley leading from the estate and the recreation ground just yards across the Lower Road. Their petition has won the backing of the local MP, Sir Paul Beresford, and local councillors.
Cllr Smith has given it qualified support but doubts whether it will succeed. Requests for a crossing at that point have been refused before.
That may be defeatist, but some of his other reservations need careful thought. As he told the Bugle, new crossings can actually increase casualties, presumably because they encourage pedestrians, especially child pedestrians, to think they're safer than they really are. The drivers are still at fault, but who wants to be the parent of a child who might not have been killed or injured if the crossing hadn't been installed?
We’ll try to keep you posted on the scheme’s progress. Meanwhile, Surrey Police has to make up its mind. Does it accept that Parliament, not the force, legislates for us? Does it see that, by refusing to enforce the laws Parliament passed to protect those on foot, it is effectively legislating these laws out of existence? Is it prepared to accept anew that its role is to enforce the laws protecting the whole community without fear or favour? Or does it intend to carry on being the provisional wing of the RAC?
The author has three (expired) speeding convictions.
Article updated October 4, 2009: Three years after this article was written, concern continues to be raised at national level about the inaccuracy of road-casualty statistics—click here.
Pictures, all taken within a mile of Bookham's High Street, courtesy Don Edwards, Bookham Camera Club. | | |
| | Community Speedwatch needs volunteers | | | Team reports 'marked reduction' in vehicle speedsCommunity Speedwatch, a joint Surrey Police and local community initiative to keep vehicle speeds down in villages like Bookham, has been running since the early summer with a small group of volunteers.
When the monitoring team is out, there is a marked reduction in the average speed of vehicles as they enter and leave the village on the A246, particularly noted by residents near to the monitoring area on the approach from Guildford.
The Speedwatch team would Iike to keep this running and to extend into new areas of the village, but more volunteers are required to do this. Monitoring sessions last for 20-30 minutes at a time, in fine weather only, and the aim is to keep this to once a month for each volunteer.
They are urgently wanted, so if you are interested in helping out, please contact Neil Walker on 451582 or on neil@walker-trivett.co.uk.
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