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news
BBC Panorama Britain's Killer Roads (screenshot BBC IPlayer)"The killers are the imbeciles on them": BBC under fire for 'Britain's Killer Roads?' Panorama investigation
The BBC has faced criticism for its Panorama investigation into why, for the first time in 40 years, the death rate on UK roads is on the rise.
During the 30-minute broadcast aired on Monday evening, journalist Richard Bilton questioned if a reduction in police numbers, breath tests and speed cameras were to blame.
The investigation featured an emotional interview with the parents of 19-year-old Gabriel Fields, who was walking to work along a pavement when he was hit by a drunk driver speeding at 60mph in a 20mph zone.
The university student was killed in the crash, and the driver David Turner jailed for seven and a half years.
In the episode, Bilton questioned if a reduction in drink driving breathalyser checks was to blame.
However, amongst road.cc readers, the reaction to 'Britain's Killer Roads?' has centred on the responsibility of those behind the wheel.
Yesterday, we shared the trailer for the investigation on our live blog and received many comments from readers, likewise on the road.cc forum.
TriTaxMan commented: "It's not the roads that are the issue but the people behind the wheel of the vehicles that travel on them. There are far too many road traffic collisions which are caused by driver error and a tiny number of genuine accidents that the driver could not do anything about."
The investigation also followed Bilton on a roadtrip from Land's End to John O'Groats, including a visit to "Scotland's most dangerous road" — the A82.
On the banks of Loch Lomond, the reporter said the route "captures many of the dangers of driving in Britain".
"First, there's bad driving. Then, there's fewer traffic officers — 47 lost in Scotland in five years. And there's also the state of the road itself."
From the passenger seat John Barrell of the Road Safety Foundation then explains to the camera that the road has "very steep hillsides that are not very forgiving if you come off it".
"You're starting on a series of bends," he explained "If you've got a heavy wagon coming the other way it's going to cut into the middle of the road. There's a rock on the left hand side, you've got nowhere to go. Here we've got a bit of standing water. In winter that turns into ice."
Many commenters did not agree with the idea that the road is dangerous, and instead said it is only made so by those who use it.
"I think you'll find that the roads themselves are utterly blameless," Simon E told us. "It's only when you get people driving along them that crashes occur.
"Incidentally, at the same time as the BBC's Paranorma, Channel 5 was scheduled to show Motorway Cops: Catching Britain's Speeders followed by Traffic Cops who 'track down dangerous offenders and illegal cars, vans and lorries'. Sadly, there seems to be no shortage of material for either of these programmes - Traffic Cops is on episode 8 of series 10."
Biker Phil added: "Britain's killer roads? Bollocks. There is no such thing as a killer road. All roads are just tarmac. The killers are the imbeciles who drive on them. All the video footage the programme showed only showed collisions as a result of bad driving. I didn't see any collision which was caused by the tarmac or by a dangerous road."
Jem PT said: "I always thought it was bad driving that caused collisions when it was that pesky tarmac all along."
What did you think of 'Britain's Killer Roads?' Tell us your thoughts in the comments, on the live blog or the road.cc forum...
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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24 comments
It always makes me laugh when a road has a high number of crashes due to shite driving, then the council lower the speed limit which does nothing, apart from making everyones journey a little longer, but the imbeciles who speed will still speed on them. There is a country lane near me, it used to be national speed limit, then went down to 50, then 40 in places, now it's 30 on a stretch, with no houses and fields both sides. My mate who used to be the beat bobby in the good old days when Lncashire police were actually very good, covered this road on his beat. Every crash on this road was due to driving like lunatics, one guy in a Golf GTi sailed through the hedge on a straight section and flew in the air halfway across the field before landing.
Also, can anyone explain how you can have a three or four lane motorway with all the traffic travelling in the same direction, yet they still manage to crash into each other? I have never been able to work that one out...
I see, totally misunderstood the article as usual. I thought the BBC we being blamed for increase in the road deaths.
That would because the layout, topography and/or prevailing weather conditions of certain roads accentuate the inability of certain drivers to drive safely - that is all.
It's not inability though, as they've been trained & then tested to prove their capability to drive!
Yes, some roads have more crashes than others due to poor layout. But the crux of the matter and what causes 95% of road crashes are failings on the part of drivers. And bear in mind that DfT data shows over 80% of crashes involving a bicycle and a motor vehicle are not the fault of the cyclist. So in effect, Panorama ignored the elephant in the room so to speak.
You really don't want to acknowledge it but it's the way some people choose to drive on those roads that is the problem.
While there are roads and locations that require more care than others that's why we have Z bend and other signs, chevrons, SLOW in white paint etc. But you can't erect signs for every curve, for mud, for a broken-down or slow moving vehicle around the next blind corner or the other things one might encounter. In the end the responsibility lies squarely with the person in control of the vehicle to drive to the conditions.
And if a serving traffic officer with more experience than most is a 'professional whiner' then you're in luck:
https://twitter.com/markandcharlie/status/1483461054336278534
Even when signs are there it still doesn't prevent accidents. This particular corner has (in the 20 odd years I have been driving) had on average 3 crashes per year. Each and every accident is a single vehicle accident caused by excessive speed.
https://www.google.com/maps/@55.1273428,-3.5656115,3a,75y,183.24h,77.34t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sgvrWqolPIZ8WjE_YoDp9TQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
That corner has signs warning of the sharp corner about 200m from the corner, plus two sets chevrons, and for the last 15 years or so has had the anti-skid surface applied to it, and about 10 years ago they added the light up chevrons that flash as a vehicle approaches. And the corner is at the end of an approximately 500m straight so you can see all of the signs well ahead of the corner.
Has any of that infrastructure made any difference? No, because there are far too many people behind the wheel of a motor vehicle whose ambition exceeds their ability.
Actually I finally agree on boo on something. Whenever there is a crash recorded on a road, it is obviously classed as dangerous for motor vehicles so should be closed to all motor traffic. Any road, any crash. I mean if the road is dangerous, we must protect car drivers from it.
Drivers rely on the brakes, brake going round bends because traction and general build allow them to get away with it mostly. Very few drive within the distance they can see to stop.
Sadly I'm only too aware that this is the case.
I've spent 35+ years driving on rural A and B roads, mostly in Powys and Shropshire. Some of the roads I used to drive daily were well known for having holes in the hedge in particular places. These would be repaired with a stretch of fencing then some time later another vehicle goes through the repair or the hedge to the side of it. Often there were signs, double white lines and a few with huge chevrons. It was nearly always local drivers, who would know the roads well, yet the loss of control due invariably to excess speed (and quite possibly alcohol in a good number of cases).
Nope he doesn't count when Boo is in full bile mode. I'm sure like the one from Surrey account, and Inspector Kev, any serving Police officer who sides with cyclists on Twitter are lazy donut eating wastrels who are not doing anything and should go out there and catch real criminals.
Simon E - that Twitter thread is pure gold. An object lesson in how to tear apart a programme made by supposedly investigative journalists who basically set out to confirm their pre-conceived views and ignore the most important reasons for the increase - it really shouldn't be allowed. It's dangerous in itself. In some ways, it makes me glad that the BBC are having their funding cut - they'll have to think very carefully about making programmes like this in the future.
Some people only see problems in terms of blame, and there must be one clear person to blame.
They worry that a bad driver will be able to argue that "it was the road that made me drive into them" and escape justice.
Of course this means the people responsible for designing, building and maintaining the road don't get their share of the blame and (most importantly) nothing is done to prevent future accidents.
Police Interceptors is up to the high teens in series, and has the excellent John "wrong'uns" Thompson doing the voice over for at least the past 10. I think they had Tony from "The Bill" before that.
The other two channel 5 "otherwise law abiding motorist" shows don't always play the fun game of the how far over the limit is this drink driver going to be. And Jamie Theakston and Nicky Campbell don't have John's writers for his excellent turn of phrase, wrong'un stealth mode was one of my favourites.
"The BBC has faced criticism for its Panorama investigation into why, for the first time in 40 years, the death rate on UK roads is on the rise?".
This is not a question, so why does it have a question mark at the end? Sorry for nitpicking Dan, it just makes reading that first line a bit awkward!
I agree. Fixed.
Nice fix!
My thoughts are that a third thread is not required !
I think we should start a forum thread to discuss....
If you insist https://road.cc/content/forum/bbc-under-fire-britains-killer-roads-panorama-investigation-289595
Aargh! Beetlejuice!
Can we skip straight to the fourth thread instead?
If you like. As long as we can get rid of the fifth column.