Over the last 10 years (2014-2023) across Avon & Somerset (Bath & North East Somerset, Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Somerset, North Somerset), 35,346 people have been the victims of knife crime of which 9,444 (26.7%) were not carrying knives.

448 lost their lives to knife attacks, 5,036 were seriously injured due to knife attacks, and 24,378 were injured by knife attacks. More disturbingly 103 (23.0% of total killed) killed did not carry knives. Of the seriously injured 1819 (36.1%) did not carry knives. Of those just wounded 5,600 (23.0%) did not carry.

There has been no public outrage and the police, media, and councils treat this as an acceptable loss of life and injury with many ward councillors actively and proudly opposing measures to prevent this loss of life with huge cost implications to the NHS and council funded social services.

As you may have guessed, I’m not talking about knife crime. I’m talking about deaths and injuries on our roads and equating non-carrying to Pedestrians and Pedal Cyclist.

2014-2023 Road Collisions	All	KSI	Killed	Seriously Injured	Injured
Ped_Cyc	9444	1922	103	1819	5600
All Road Users	35346	5484	448	5036	24378
	26.72%	35.05%	22.99%	36.12%	22.97%

If, upon reading this, you think it’s acceptable that 35,346 people were injured or killed on Avon & Somerset Police roads (RAS0403) in the last decade through primarily driver behaviour, you might be suffering from motonormativity.

Help shape the future of policing in Avon and Somerset!

Clare Moody, Avon and Somerset’s Police Crime Commissioner, is consulting on the Police and Crime Plan 2024 – 2029. The consultation ends today (Sunday, 21st Oct) so there is still time to provide feedback. The draft plan is a 25 page document which sets out five priorities:

• Priority 1 – Strengthen neighbourhood policing to provide a visible police presence, engage with communities, and tackle ASB
• Priority 2 – Reduce violent crime, with a specific focus on male violence against women and girls and serious youth violence
• Priority 3 – Prevent crime by working together with other organisations and the public to build safer communities
• Priority 4 – Support victims to ensure they get the help they need when they need it
• Priority 5 – Improve standards of policing so that people receive a fair and effective service

We want safer streets!

Walk Ride Bath would like to see explicit support for specific road danger reduction interventions by Avon and Somerset Police as part of this plan. This would support the, sometimes, very difficult work councils are doing to introduce these interventions while asking councils to be bold in the political decision making in line with the upcoming Road Safety Strategy for England

We would like to see Avon & Somerset police commit to:

1. Request councils to remove through traffic from unclassified residential streets, typically through the implementation of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods making those roads over SIX times safer for pedestrians without increasing danger on boundary main roads.
2. Advocate for councils to implement school streets where physically viable, removing ALL road traffic danger around schools at school opening and closing times.
3. Advocate for 20mph speed limits in urban areas which have been shown to reduce collisions by over 30%.
4. To act much more on speeding and enforce current laws. Speeding is a major factor in road collisions, serious injury and death. Speeding has a major impact on the quality of life for the young, elderly, and those with disabilities and visual impairments. Much more needs to be done.
5. Advocate for councils to build quiet lane rural networks to create those vital inter community walking, wheeling, cycling, and horse riding links recognising the majority of pedal cyclists are killed on rural roads, not in towns and cities.
6. Expect councils to deliver new cycle infrastructure in line with National Guidance and to be using Active Travel England’s Design Surgery and Assurance processes when developing new schemes.
7. Crack down on mobile phone usage by drivers (leveraging modern technology) and act much more on dash-cam/handlebar footage provided through the reporting portal.
8. To address bike theft seriously and request that councils and developers design public realm schemes that provide secure dry accessible bike storage, particularly around transport hubs (bus stops and train/bus stations).

Fill in the survey the survey here