Why don't road deaths make us angry?

This week in London a speeding driver mounted a pavement before running down and killing a teenager. By the time you read this, the hand wringing by politicians will will be over something else. Until the next time. Which, in the case of London is probably sooner than you think. There are over 7,000 hit-and-runs in the capital every year.

What needs to happen before we take decisive action to reduce road danger?

This week also marks the anniversary of the killing of Simone Langenhoff. You may not be familiar with her name, but her senseless death 53 years ago helped change history.

Dutch infrastructure for cycling is now the envy of the world, but it was not always so. The post-war years in the Netherlands saw a nation with a strong cycling tradition take to the car en masse.

The price was heavy. The Netherlands earned itself the dubious title of most dangerous place in the world for child traffic casualties. Among the 450 child road deaths in 1971 was six-year-old Simone Langenhoff, who was killed by a speeding driver as she cycled to school.

The events that followed Simone’s death were depressingly familiar at a time when 25 children a day were being injured by vehicles: The driver received a paltry fine equivalent to £20; Simone’s mother suffered a nervous breakdown and the marriage fell apart. The family’s life was shattered.

However, Simone’s death was different in one respect. Her father was Vic Langenhoff, a journalist at the De Tijd, a Dutch daily newspaper. His grief and anger prompted him to write a full-page article entitled ‘Stop de Kindermoord’ (‘Stop the Child Murders’).

Langenhoff called for the formation of a group to break through ‘the apathy with which the Dutch people accept the daily carnage of children in traffic’.

The protest movement that followed grew to such an extent that it helped change Dutch transport planning forever.

Will such a protest movement ever exist in the UK?

Stop Killing our Children

Our 40-minute, crowdfunded documentary Stop Killing our Children 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.  The film examines how road danger damages us all, whatever our age and however we travel.

The ethical choice

The ETA was established in 1990 as an ethical provider of green, reliable travel services. Over 30 years on, we continue to offer cycle insurance , breakdown cover  and mobility scooter insurance while putting concern for the environment at the heart of all we do.

The Good Shopping Guide judges us to be the UK's most ethical provider.

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