Birmingham car dominance blamed for road death 'complacency'

A road safety campaigner said "decades of car dominance" on Birmingham's roads had led to complacency about deaths and injuries.

Mat MacDonald, co-chair of Better Streets for Birmingham, also said he felt road deaths did not get the same response as knife deaths.

"We feel if that had been the case, we would have seen a visible, co-ordinated, robust response," he said.

Birmingham City Council said it was working on measures with the police.

Speaking to BBC Politics Midlands, Mr MacDonald said: "This is a problem that has beset this city for an awfully long time."

He said road deaths and injuries were treated as a normal part of urban life, no different to the weather, in that it was "highly destructive, but beyond our control".

Mr MacDonald said that was not the case and that "we have the ability to change and improve things".

Over the last 10 years the number of road deaths has remained pretty constant, with 300-400 people seriously injured or killed each year in the city, barring the pandemic years, when car use fell.

Better Streets for Birmingham has called for a range of measures, including an easy and effective system to allow people to report antisocial driving.

The group has also called on the authorities in the city to hold a news conference to address the urgency of the issue.

Mr MacDonald praised the "dedicated hard-working people that are trying to solve this", but said change needed to happen faster.

The council said its new cycling strategy would be complete by the end of the year and it was committed to reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads by 50% by 2030.

It has talked about reducing the speed limit on 40mph roads to 30mph.

Liz Clements, the councillor responsible for transport, said: "We must transform our existing public spaces so they prioritise people rather than vehicles - that is how we can achieve a change in behaviour.

"For far too long we have given priority to cars and other motor vehicles and this must change; we have set out in our transport plan how we want Birmingham to be a place to live and be, not drive and park."

West Midlands Police said it would carry out regular road policing operations and target hotspot areas.

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