British anaesthetist pleads for doctors and nurses to be allowed naps and limited night shifts, as in other critical workplaces
About half of all hospital doctors and nurses have had accidents or experienced near misses while driving home after a night shift.
The risks they pose to themselves and other road users have been calculated as the same as those posed by drivers who are over the legal alcohol limit, delegates at a European medical conference were told last week.
Continue reading...Driver’s details shared on social media after allegedly running over ducklings near Stoke-on-Trent as other drivers waited for them to cross
Police have urged the public against any vigilante actions after the registration of a driver who allegedly ran over a brood of ducklings was published online.
Staffordshire police confirmed it is investigating a Facebook post which claimed that at least three ducklings were killed on Friday at a roundabout in Trentham near Stoke-on-Trent. The post claimed they were killed by the driver of a white transit van who allegedly ignored other drivers who were waiting for the ducks to cross the road.
Continue reading...Analysis: the UK government has bowed to the inevitable and shelved the expanded rollout
Pausing the rollout of smart motorways suggests the government has finally bowed to the inevitable, faced with the collective outrage of motoring groups, bereaved families, newspapers, MPs – and indeed a former minister who signed off the schemes.
Not, though, that the small print guarantees drivers have in any way seen the end of the hard shoulderless highways: ongoing major works will be completed, and even design work will go ahead for more stretches, in case the mood changes by 2025.
Continue reading...One driving instructor told me he’d driven with murderers who were safer than me
The amusement arcades in Russell Street were the place in Melbourne to buy heroin in the 90s and early 2000s. But I went there to learn how to drive.
Continue reading...In early 2020, there were bans on most social contact, international travel stopped, workplaces and schools shut. Lockdown had arrived. These policies may have limited the spread of the virus, but what collateral harms and benefits on physical health were there?
Despite recommendations to continue to seek help, normal healthcare endured severe disruption. In England, waiting lists for hospital treatment now exceed 5m, up more than 500,000 from before the pandemic. During the first wave, nearly 90,000 joint replacement surgeries were cancelled, leaving many struggling with pain. Cancer investigations and diagnoses fell and although there is no sign yet of any excess cancer deaths, this may only become apparent in subsequent years.
Continue reading...Government updates law to ban drivers from using phone in any way, not just calling and texting
Drivers who use hand-held phones in any way behind the wheel will face £200 fines and possible bans when changes in the law take account of smartphones.
While making calls or texting on a hand-held mobile while driving is already illegal, taking photos, scrolling through a playlist or even playing games on phones has not been outlawed until now – allowing drivers to escape charges when spotted with a phone.
Continue reading...Campaigners demand more rules for lorries after initial hope pandemic would mean less traffic
A coronavirus-related drop in traffic and new protected bike lanes have failed to make Berlin’s roads safer for cyclists, as the German capital reports a four-year record in fatalities.
A woman run over by a right-turning articulated lorry in the district of Reinickendorf on Friday became Berlin’s 14th official cycling fatality of 2020 – more than twice as many as the six recorded in 2019.
Continue reading...Country is first to implement measure nationwide in attempt to reduce congestion
Luxembourg is to become the first country to offer a free public transport system, as the government tries to reduce particularly dense car traffic.
Some cities have taken similar partial measures but the transport ministry said it was the only time such a decision had encompassed an entire country.
Continue reading...London orbital motorway is likely to be affected for a considerable time, say police
The M25 has been shut after a serious collision involving a crane that overturned and crashed over both sides of the carriageway.
The incident happened at junction 27 with the M11 in Essex on Friday evening. It has caused huge tailbacks in both directions including more than 10 miles on the clockwise carriageway of the motorway around London.
Continue reading...New South Wales hopes to cut fatalities on the state’s roads by a third with devices that operate day and night in all weather
New South Wales rolled out mobile phone detection cameras on Sunday, hoping to cut the number of fatalities on its roads by a third over two years, transport authorities said.
The world-first mobile phone detection cameras, according to Transport for NSW, which manages the state’s transport services, operate day and night in all weather conditions to determine if a driver is handling a mobile phone.
Continue reading...Committee says ban on hands-free use should be considered amid rise in road deaths
Tougher restrictions on drivers using mobile phones, including extending the ban to hands-free devices, should be considered, MPs have said.
The transport select committee said using any type of mobile phone while driving had potentially catastrophic consequences. The MPs called for more severe penalties “commensurate with the risks”, as road deaths linked to phone use have risen steadily over the past decade.
Continue reading...Although Germany is internationally touted as bike-friendly, Berlin lags metropolises like Amsterdam or Copenhagen by decades. But in the city’s senate, a rethink is under way
Electric bikes, swanky racers and clanky old flea market two-wheelers roll along a cycle path near Berlin’s Hasenheide park that was recently reclaimed from a lane used by cars. The path has been coated with bright green paint and has a line of stripy metal bollards to separate it from the busy road.
“It’s now protected from cars and that is good,” says Jerome Jossin, who lives nearby and whose baby sits swinging her legs from a seat on the back of his bike. “This is safer, but it’s not typical.”
Continue reading...Heather Cairns says woman ‘masqueraded’ as her daughter Eilidh’s aunt at council meeting
A woman posed as the aunt of a cyclist who was killed in London in order to oppose plans for a new segregated bike lane, according to the victim’s mother.
Eilidh Cairns, a television producer from Alnwick in Northumberland, died aged 30 in 2009 after being hit by a tipper truck while riding in Notting Hill in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Continue reading...Police investigating whether deaths of mother and four children in Monday’s crash were part of a murder-suicide
Thirteen people have lost their lives in crashes on Queensland’s roads this week.
The death of a 20-year-old woman in a crash on the New England Highway near Crows Nest on Friday comes at the end of a dreadful week for the state.
Continue reading...Road safety measure part of package of reforms likely to be adopted despite Brexit
All new cars sold in the UK and Europe are to be fitted with devices to automatically stop drivers from exceeding the speed limit under sweeping changes to vehicle safety rules provisionally agreed by the EU.
Although Britain may no longer be part of the EU when the rules come into effect, the UK regulator, the Vehicle Certification Agency, has said it will mirror safety standards for vehicles in the UK.
Continue reading...One of the buses involved in latest collision on Ghana’s roads caught fire, say police
At least 60 people have been killed in a head-on collision between two buses in Ghana, police have said.
The incident – the latest deadly crash on Ghana’s roads – happened on Friday at about 2am local time in the Bono East region, about 270 miles (430km) north of the capital, Accra.
Continue reading...Hope expressed that fatal collision near Canberra will be ‘catalyst for change’
The death of a renowned British endurance cyclist who was hit by a car while competing in a 3,500-mile race across Australia was avoidable, a coroner has concluded.
Mike Hall, 35, died almost instantly when he was struck from behind by a vehicle on a stretch of the Monaro Highway about 25 miles south of Canberra on 31 March 2017.
Continue reading...Loss of autonomy is a painful reality of old age – but it’s hard to let go when, like Prince Philip, you are used to being in charge
In the wake of his car crash on Thursday afternoon, in which the Duke of Edinburgh rather miraculously walked away unhurt, there has been much speculation over the man’s great age, and whether, at 97, he is now simply too old to operate so independently. Loss of autonomy becomes inevitable when you reach such a ripe vintage, but it is never easy to hand over – in both a metaphorical and literal sense – the keys you have held for so long in your grip.
My grandfather lived until he was 94. Neither he nor his wife, my grandmother (still alive at 99), looked, or acted, their age. The necessity to give up certain activities only ever came at them rudely, and they could never be told they were too old for anything; they had to learn it for themselves, the hard way.
Continue reading...Police investigating collision in which two women received minor injuries
The Duke of Edinburgh has undergone hospital checks on his doctor’s advice following his car accident in which two women received minor injuries and a baby escaped unhurt.
Buckingham Palace said Prince Philip, 97, went to the local hospital near the Sandringham estate in Norfolk on Friday, but was found to have no injuries of concern.
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