Drivers urged to THINK! about speed

Jan 31 2009 by Neil Mckay, The Journal

A NEW £3.2m THINK! campaign to highlight the life-wrecking consequences of speeding for drivers as well as victims was launched yesterday by Road Safety Minister Jim Fitzpatrick.

In the new television advert a driver is haunted by images of the child he has killed – seeing his body in the bathroom mirror, through the window of a bus and when in the park with his son.

But the government and Durham County Council were yesterday accused of “double standards” by campaigners fighting to have the limit cut to 30mph through their village. Mr Fitzpatrick said: “The last THINK! campaign on speeding highlighted the shocking fact that if you hit a child at 30mph there’s an 80% chance they will live but if you hit them at 40mph there’s an 80% chance they will die. It’s 30 for a reason.

“We now want motorists to consider the consequences of speeding for them.”

But Bob Chapman, one of a number of residents of Brancepeth, near Durham, who is fighting to have the speed limit reduced to 30mph on the A690 Durham to Crook road through the village, said: “The government is spending millions of pounds to tell us what we already know. Speed kills, and a pedestrian hit at 30mph has a far greater chance of survival.

“Yet the Highways Authority and the police are obstructing our efforts to get the speed limit reduced to 30.” Fiona Gough, deputy regional director for the Government Office for the North East, said: “The new campaign from the Department for Transport emphasises the consequences of breaking the speed limit on 30mph roads.”

The new THINK! campaign – ‘Kill your speed, or live with it’ – includes TV, radio, cinema and online advertising.

The radio adverts – ‘Always There’ – feature a chilling message from ‘beyond the grave’.

Children’s voices describe what life is like for the driver who killed them while speeding several years ago.

The drivers cannot sleep, watch a football match or spend time with their own children without thinking of the dead child.

On Wednesday, Durham County Councillors will hear a motion from Liberal Democrat Carol Woods urging the reduction of the speed limit through Brancepeth, where pensioner Ellen Handy, 81, was knocked down and killed as she tried to cross the main road through the village last November.

Durham County Council intend to conduct a traffic survey through the village.