Toad, dressed as a washer woman, caught speeding in a stolen motorcar (from Wind in the Willows, first published 1908). Toad is sentenced to 20 years in a dungeon.
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Did you know that 99% of all speeding cars in villages like Brill are driven by LOCAL PEOPLE?!
Commuters rushing to catch trains, parents dropping off children, residents driving familiar roads to work, shops, cinema, gym, friends. Running late, tired, distracted, dreaming, carefree, careless, angry, on auto-pilot; who knows? But, hand on heart, has this never been YOU?
Have you never waited until you’re past the 30pmh signs before slowing down, so you’re still doing 35mph into the Square? Have you never spied an empty road ahead going out of the village and got a move on so you’re doing 40mph by the time you get to the doctors? No? Well, you’re a better person than the author of this blog.
There’s lots of scary facts and figures out there about speeding cars and pedestrians*. Try to remember just this one:
A pedestrian who is hit by a car travelling at between 30 mph and 40 mph is over FOUR TIMES more likely to die than if hit by a car travelling at below 30 mph.
Right! So this stops NOW! If every reader of this blog - and every person that readers of this blog passes this one to - PLEDGES never to exceed the speed limit in Brill or in any other village (even Longwich and Long Crendon) - then we would halve speeding in a week.
Here’s something else to think about:
Half of all pedestrian fatalities occur at impact speeds of 30 mph or below - and elderly pedestrians have a much greater risk of suffering fatal injuries than any other age group.
So, next week, let’s try going 20mph and see how that feels. As that booming voice says at the start of the feature film in Vue Cinemas: “Feels good, doesn’t it?”
*Take a look at the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents’ factsheet on speeding or the briefing papers on the 20’s Plenty website