The 10 Demands

These are the 10 DEMANDS made at The National Funeral for the Unknown Victim of Traffic Violence direct action and die-in on 15 November 2014.

Click on the headings to read more details about each.

1.  Stop the Killing of Children

– set up a national, multi-billion pound programme to convert residential communities across Britain into living-street Home Zones and abolish dangerous rat-runs.

2.  Stop the Killing of Pedestrians 

– establish a national programme to fund pedestrianisation of our city and town centres, including the nation’s high-street, Oxford Street.

3.  Stop the Killing of Pensioners from excessive speed

– introduce and enforce speed limit of 20 mph on all urban roads, 40 mph on rural roads/lanes and 60 mph on all other trunk roads.

4.  Stop the Killing of Cyclists

- invest £15 billion in a National Segregated Cycle Network over the next 5 years.

5.  Stop the Killing by HGVs

- ban trucks with blind spots by making safety equipment mandatory and strictly enforce current truck-safety regulations, to reduce levels of illegally dangerous trucks down from estimated 30% to less than 1%.

6.  Stop the Killing without liability

- introduce a presumed civil liability law on behalf of vehicular traffic when they kill or seriously injure vulnerable road-users, where there is no evidence blaming the victim.

7.  Stop the Killing from Lung, Heart and other Diseases caused by vehicular pollutants

– make it mandatory for particulate filters that meet latest EU emission standards to be fitted to all existing buses, lorries and taxis.

8.  Stop the Killing at Junctions

- introduce pedestrian crossing times long enough for elderly disabled to cross. Legalise filtered junction crossings by cyclists with strict legal priority for pedestrians and carry out urgent programme of physically protected left-hand turns for cyclists.

9.  Stop the Killing from Climate Crisis caused by CO2 emissions

– all transport fuels to be from truly environmentally-sustainable, renewable sources within 10 years.

10.  Focus on Life!

- Transport governance must make safety and quality of life the top priority. Reform all council transport departments, the Department of Transport and Transport for London into Cycling, Walking and Transport Departments with formal pedestrian and cyclist representation.


In January 2014, we set out our demands for changes required in London; You can read those HERE.

17 thoughts on “The 10 Demands”

  1. Ok you were doing so damn well up to point 9. Point 9 requires all arable land converted to maize production driving up food costs to society. You were doing so so well up to that point.

    Editor’s note: the demand can be met via reducing amount of fuel needed (energy efficiency/reduction in need for transport and modal shift to cycling), renewable electricity for electric vehicles, recycled vegetable oil and remainder by certified renewable fuels.

    1. Not sure you get what I’m getting at. Number 9 says nothing but puts the back up of current car owners. It also shows a certain immature view of the oil business and the way renewable fuels are being promoted. If you had approached it with a move away from oil to electric vehicles and the ‘eco’ side of this, it would fit in nicely with 7. I just think it’s a nonsensical thing that won’t be achieved and will be the one point that will be attacked by people that already hate cyclists.

      In fact point 9 is sort of covered by point 7 if you expand it slightly.

      Point 9 should be: Revoke a driving licence when you get more than 12 points and require a full retest with a higher pass rate required on theory. There is no judge discretion allowed. Get dangerous drivers off the road.

      1. ‘Point 9 should be: Revoke a driving licence when you get more than 12 points and require a full retest with a higher pass rate required on theory. There is no judge discretion allowed. Get dangerous drivers off the road.’

        Agreed Adam Reynolds

        1. Hi Nazan, that is something we’re going to include in the longer text for Demand 6 (I’m currently drafting - should be here is a couple of weeks).

          The idea of the National Funeral event is to bring together lots of disparate groups whose interests converge on road transport & it’s impacts on society and the environment. I understand not everyone is going to feel every demand is important & may disagree with some. Also for some groups certain demands might be irrelevant.

          We hope people can focus on the parts they support more strongly, spread the word and join the movement. For too long there have been many groups asking for similar things separately and the people in power have not taken enough notice.

          If some groups want to champion certain demands which fit closely with their goals that would be brilliant.

      2. Hi Adam,

        Thanks for your comments. I’m currently drafting up longer versions (see demand 1 for the kind of think we’re aiming for) and the points you raise are going to be included under Demand 6, it fits well with making sure people are held responsible for their actions.

        I appreciate you don’t agree with Demand 9, however I hope you can support the event anyway - as I said in my reply to Nazan, this is about brining together a wide range of groups and that means not everyone is going to think all the demands are important.

        Fred

    1. Hi Nazan,

      The demands haven’t been put in order of importance and we’ll be promoting different demands in different ways, I completely agree about HGVs and that’s one of the ones I want to promote very actively as well.

      Fred

  2. Dear All, Extended versions of the demands have now been produced and are linked from this page. We welcome comments. F

  3. What is the campaign doing to advocate dramatic reduction in car use?
    They made a good start in Groningen in north Holland. Why not here?

    1. Hi Ros,

      Abolishing rat runs and 20mph would make driving less attractive for short journeys in urban areas and the quiet streets would make walking and cycling better. A shocking number of urban journeys are very short and these would help reduce it.

      Similarly the changes to the speed limits generally would help and we are asking that more road space is given to cycling, with urban centres pedestrianised.

      We are also demanding that our transport system stops prioritising motor transport to the detriment of all other road users - a big change after 50 years of mismanagement which has got us in to the current situation of car dependence for many.

      We haven’t made any ‘anti-car’ demands but hopefully you can see that together these changes would do a great deal to help people get around without using their cars.

      Fred

  4. Hi Billy,

    I’m sorry you seem to disagree with this (all of it?). It isn’t a rant but demands for a safer, healthier and cleaner transport system.

    If there are specific items you take issue with it would be interesting to know, although I don’t think there is any intention to update these at this stage.

    Kind regards,

    Fred

  5. Make segregate cycling facilities if you want, but do not force those of use who choose not to use them to use them.

    1. There are no proposals to force people to use any cycle infrastructure if they don’t want to - riders who want to cycle in the road will be free to do so.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.