The real and perceived danger posed to walkers by fast moving motor vehicles is one of the major barriers to walking.
Unfortunately, the traditional approach to road safety in the UK has placed more emphasis on keeping pedestrians separate from vehicles by penning them behind guard rail and forcing them on long detours through subways and over footbridges and less on controlling and improving driver behaviour. Rather than tackling the issue of making our streets safer, well-intentioned road safety education has sometimes helped reinforce the impression streets and roads as unsafe places for pedestrians.
These approaches have undoubtedly contributed to the decline in walking and ultimately to obesity and other health problems associated with low levels of physical activity. They have also contributed to an erosion of the walker's right to use the highway, creating a culture where drivers expect to be able to use every road, even rural roads with no footways, without being impeded by pedestrians.
We are encouraged by signs that governments are beginning to recognise this problem and that attitudes are starting to shift, particularly in urban residential areas through engineering techniques to "design out" high vehicle speeds and the increasing adoption of 20mph speed limits. However there is much to be done before walkers will feel truly safe on streets and roads.
Encouraging people to walk in itself helps promote road safety. As pedestrian numbers increase, they will become more visible to motorists and their rights are likely to become better respected. Studies have shown that motorists are less likely to collide with walkers if more people are walking.
This argument is developed in our response to the Department for Transport's 2009 road safety consultation, A Safer Way.
