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Why road violence doesn't spark protest in Britain
May 28, 2025
We don’t yet know why a man drove his car into a group of people this weekend, with devastating consequences. But we do know why he didn’t. Police were quick to confirm: this wasn’t terrorism. The suspect, a 53-year-old white man, was arrested at the scene. The prompt release of this information - unusually swift - was made to calm tensions and prevent unrest.
But what about the unrest caused by the act itself? A man drives into a crowd. People are injured. People are afraid. And then… silence. Why isn’t this enough to provoke protest?
In Britain, we have become so numb to road violence that unless there’s a political motive, we barely register it. Once reassured that this latest tragedy was not ideologically driven, the media pack moves on. The rolling news ticker ticks elsewhere. But the fact remains: Someone weaponised a vehicle, and lives were shattered.
Let’s be clear. People walking on pavements - supposedly the safest space in a car-dominated country - are killed by drivers around 45 times a year in the UK. Not on motorways or dangerous junctions. On pavements. On verges. On school runs. These aren’t “accidents”; they’re outcomes of a system that treats human error behind the wheel as inevitable, and human life as negotiable.
Where is the protest?
Compare our apathy to the reaction in the Netherlands in the 1970s. A country now revered for its cycling infrastructure didn’t arrive at safety by chance. It was grief that galvanised them.
In October 1971, six-year-old Simone Langenhoff was cycling to school near Eindhoven when a speeding driver hit and killed her. Her father, Vic Langenhoff, a prominent journalist, wrote a searing front-page article about his daughter’s death. He called on parents to say: Enough. The movement that followed - Stop de Kindermoord (Stop the Child Murder) - became a national force. Parents occupied roads. Children held signs with crayon drawings of bloodied bikes. They showed, with awful clarity, the madness of a world where it was normal for kids to die on their way to school.
The name was shocking. It was supposed to be. Because they understood something we still refuse to: Road violence is violence. It’s not normal. And it doesn’t have to be this way.
We interviewed Maartje van Putten, the first president of Stop de Kindermoord, for our film Stop Killing our Children.
The 40-minute, crowdfunded film is narrated by the BBC’s John Simpson and features interviews with Chris Boardman, Dr Rachel Aldred, Dr Ian Walker, George Monbiot and the founders of the Stop de Kindermoord movement amongst others. You can watch the film here.
Meanwhile, in Britain, the deaths keep coming. Two children killed by a driver in Wimbledon. A teenager in Cardiff. A mother in Leeds. A pensioner in Glasgow. The headlines blur. The flowers wilt. And the roads stay the same.
Why doesn’t this spark mass protest here? Perhaps because we’ve internalised the idea that driving is sacrosanct. That some level of “collateral damage” is the price we pay for convenience. Psychologists have a name for it. The term motonormativity was coined by Dr Ian Walker to describe the allowance made for road-related dangers that would not be accepted in other parts of life.
We let SUVs swell to tank proportions. We design roads for speed, not safety. And when the inevitable happens, we blame the pedestrian. Or the cyclist. Or the child.
Other countries have drawn the line. So the question is not whether we can prevent these tragedies. We know we can. The question is whether we care enough to try.
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