• THE last time the Christian churches in Britain were directly involved in road safety issues was in April 1955 at a conference called The Churches and Road Safety held in Holborn.

It had been promoted by the Pedestrians Association, now “Living Streets”, in response to the fact that the previous year some 23,000 people had been killed or injured on Britain’s roads.

Among those present was the Canon FJ Bartlett , who had recommended elderly people should pray and ask for help before crossing the road “to give them a breathing space and to calm them”.

Sadly, this conference marked the last time that British clergy specifically focused upon the tragedies of our roads. For the next six decades, the road lobby had the field to themselves, turning towns into taxi routes, decriminalising speeding and redefining road collisions as accidents – somehow unavoidable.

Most disturbing was the government relabelling a road fatality as one that occurs within 30 days of a crash, even though this was inconsistent with all other UK causes of death definitions.

If your loved one died 31 or more days after a crash, he or she would be listed in official statistics as injured, not dead. This device makes roads seem less dangerous than they actually are.

ANTONY PORTER
W9