speeding cars kill.

[adamh]

i hope this is the right forum for help:
I want to know how i can make a difference to a problem of cars speeding, i know its apparent everywhere in the u.k. to be specific i live in herstmonceux, a village in east sussex. I've not always been in the country, i was brought up in a north london suburb, village life is a little more better than living in the city, less noise, less anger, less people keeping you up until 6am!. i guess we all get older and less tolerable, lucky for some to get old?.

The small estate we now live on, in the tiniest of 2 bedroom flats , is probably about a quarter mile square, its an average type housing estate with a main road running right through it. The A271.

The reason for me writing today....

Today my young cat passed on. She was just gone a year and everything a normal person could want that makes life beautiful, i mean we were blessed to have her, really, we are as a race lucky that animals like cats and dogs do not run off from our sometimes thoughtless nature.

every single animal i come across in the house or at work i let it crawl on me, then i let it outside to be free and have a life, flys/bees/wasps/spiders/ants, cricket , roach anything. Directly I will help all I can, I have taken a pigeon to the vets before now which was sick, most would just walk on by. I have stopped many times before now to pick up dead animals off the road, last memorable experience was in the bucketing rain by the lamb Inn in wartling, some one had run over a badger, not much left of it, a bloody mess, and obviously just drove off, left it in the middle of the road dead. It was bucketing down, i mean visibility was almost zero. why did the person not have the guts to just stop, pick it up and at least put it to the side of the road to rest in peace, i mean.. just leave it there?.


Upon turning the car around I then stopped in the middle of the road, took out a blanket from the boot, put it over the dead badger, rolled it in the blanket, lifted it up. it weighed an absolute ton, then i climbed the steep embankment and put it to rest by a log on the verge on the other side of the very small embankments / road. and made sure it was covered with the white sheet, i envisaged while moving it, if it has a spirit it may be happy to have gotten to the log on the verge on the other side, some compensation hardly.. but a simple gesture what i could do with what i had to hand

The animal deserved the respect at the very very least i say, to be frank they deserve alot more than we give them.

Today someone else picked up my own beloved animal from the roadside and took it in to a lady close by to help, by that time she was allready passed on, apparently, the vauxhall zafira people carrier , 56 reg, didnt even stop, funny, he must have been a deaf driver to not hear a thud and look in the mirror to see a cat flying through the air. A guy from a local car dealership witnessed the accident while showing a car to a customer. He kindly went and picked up my cat, took it to a lovely local lady who called in a vet, this all happened at 10 a.m she was said to have been killed on impact. I found out after a 5 o clock finish at work.


The person that handed my cat in said the vehicle that she collided with was tearing down the small estate road (fiennes road) heading for the main road, breaking the speed limit or not, there was a distinct ring to the way the person said "the car was absolutely tearing down the road".

Do people forget that not only animals , but children and people live on these estates.. why do they seem to forget what danger they put everything else in, apart from one thing...... 'themselves'. mr/mrs zafira driver i am glad that the airbag didnt pop out and mark your face, or cost you some money to fix, please do send me the bill, I will pay.

i'm even more angry than I was before now, heartbroken and mortified of my bereavement of course, but I guess bieng a car driver myself i am half to blame for my poor animals trajic accident.

I do try to drive with my eyes on the verges to look our for rabbits/foxes, anything! having said that i dont feel any better!,
i am just looking for a way to get my local council to enforce speed on the housing estate, can anyone help me? do i constrcut some kind of petetion?

it just cannot go on like this!,
people tearing through estates in vehicles, where animals which look to us for protection have no chance at-all when a callous motorist decides he or she has the right to drive fast enough to endanger all but themselves. i mean, we do not get to teach animals the green cross code or warn them of the people that use the road, not the road or the cars, but the people that use them.

so how can i make a difference, how do i get sleeping policeman put it to the estate roads?, what do i ask for at the council? im not very political im afraid, i dont read the newspapers, dont vote, im not perfect by far'! but am keen now to try and help reduce road accidents, even if just on the land with which animals are enticed to share with us.

thanks for reading, and thanks for helping if you can.

[Mike Jackson]

Sorry for your loss.

I'm not far from you over in Hastings and we've got similar problems with speeding cars. One of our local residents associations have had some success in getting speed restrictions in place (Milward Road). They just kept badgering the police, ESCC, Hastings borough council, the local press etc. until they got there way. I helped by taking some pictures that illustrated the speed vehicles were travelling at.

You need to push it from the right angle though. Unfortunately the majority of people don't seem to give a stuff about the massacre of wildlife and pets on our roads. Push the angle of kiddies or pensioners in danger and you'll get more interest from the press etc. You need headlines in the local press "Speeding cars endanger lives" etc.

It's not a quick thing but you need to keep at it.

Mike

[Jim Ford]

Traffic calming measures are implemented according to accident statistics. Basically, someone needs to get injured before anything will be considered.

Animals don't feature in road traffic accident statistics.

With regards to 'sleeping policemen', I understand that they are a nightmare for ambulances, particularly when they are carrying spinal injuries that need to be carefully transported.

Jim

[Meta menardi]

To lose a well loved pet is a shock and a tragedy to you. I think and hope that the current things around on speed will make breaking speed limits as unacceptable as drink-driving. I really feel that one of the things causing speeding are goals set for commercial drivers. White van man, and especially the car-part industry, seem to think that the accelerator pedal should be replaced by an On/Off switch.

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by Meta menardi

White van man, and especially the car-part industry, seem to think that the accelerator pedal should be replaced by an On/Off switch.

I've long felt that motorway lane rules are now as follows:

Inside lane is for HGVs.
Middle lane is for HGVs overtaking those in the inside lane.
Outside Lane is for white van drivers doing 90MPH.

Jim

[Meta menardi]

I sound so provincial, but I suppose I am. I haven't been on a motorway for about 4 years.

Back to the subject, does anyone else feel that pressure is mounting to make speeding unacceptable?

[Caaatt]

This evening, my cat was hit by a speeding car, infact it was about 45minutes ago. Tomorrow would have been his first birthday.

I live in a small village, Southbourne, near Portsmouth, and we have a huge speeding problem. Along the main road, no one thinks to slow down, they think "no one will see me, i can go 60mph". The car that hit my boy didn't stop, eventhough the sounds was almighty.

My cat was killed on impact I think, I hope so 'cos then he didn't suffer. I waited a minute, then ran out to see what made the noise, when I saw him on the road, it was horrible. I'm 16years old. I don't need to see that, no one does. I didn't get the chance to take him to the vet.

My whole family is hurt and upset by this, seeing as the police men who watch out for speeding are situated further up the road.

I know how you're feeling, and I want to stop this happening again, because it isn't safe for anyone, especially children and the elderly.

If you're changing the way things are, good luck. I'm going to make a difference here too.

[Jason Green]

Sorry to hear that, Caaatt

[nightshade]

I have lost numerous cats, speeding cars are not necessarily responsible.
Only yesterday I was passing parked cars when a cat decided to make a run for it, from under a car,it was lucky this time! They do tend to make last minute descisions which are actually the main cause of these sad incidents

[adamh]

well caaatt,
its something you love taken away, a family member, its a feeling of helplessness and instantly i also could begin to imagine the pain a parent suffers for a child taken alike. it brings stuff home. was that the purpose of my cats life? to bring it home and make me feel like absoloute ?.
i'm 36 yrs and i guess 16 / 36 / 85 its no different.

life is full of suprises and i have learnt that dealing with death is another one of those very emotional rides that we bear with suprise.

I gave her the best i could, boiled fish, fryed sprats, salmon, skate, prawns, chicken.. all fresh stuff. and some days just normal tinned grub. why should it be treated any different than a human?, humans as devestating as it may be to loose, you can teach to avoid the roads fairly easy, the animals are slightly harder if not at our mercy totally. That puts it home to me real hard as i feel the helplesnesss as a race tied up in saving themselves and nothing else... not even another person, not even another cat. for gods sake could people just not slow down a bit.

cars are always going to be here, i guess pets and wildlife are to, i should hope. i am accepting that accidents are going to happen, but i find it difficult to accept that there is no ongoing solution / improving to people driving like maniacs in built up areas.

hi mike, yes i understand the perspective, and have forseen pushing it from another angle. If it saved some kids life that lives on the estate it honestly and truly would be worth it, i mean that, and bless my cat.
it is frustrating that the only way you can sometimes feel the effects and the urge to do something is after it has happened , you always have the rage in you to curse other drivers, but you dont have that personal experience that will never leave you.

i pity all parties involved in road accidents accidental or not as it were. if we all slowed down a bit it may help save lives, maybe even some of the planet. i wont be resigned to life like this...

nightshade yes i appreciate a cat has to run into the road, and it probably did run out from no-where into danger at the last second, but is it not true to say if the car were going slow enough she might have had a better chance of surviving, i also avoided a cat recently which ran across a busy 'A' road at the last second, it wasnt a housing estate.