Sir,

It is Road Safety Week and Cheshire Police has put out a message reminding all road users to look out for each other as everyone has the right to travel on the roads safely (the national awareness campaign is run by the charity Brake).

Crewe is still grieving the recent death of a mother-of-three who was killed in a hit-and-run incident on Hungerford Road while on her way to work in a care home.

It was particularly hurtful, therefore, to see over a thousand comments on the Cheshire Police Facebook page , many rather than agreeing to drive slower and with due care and attention, indulging in a blame-shifting torrent of 'whataboutery'.

What about hi vis, helmets, crossing the road not looking and so forth.

Luckily, the recent consultation of the Highway code is considering a hierarchy of responsibility . This means that people in charge of the largest vehicles, with the potential to cause the most harm in a collision, would bear the greatest responsibility to take care and reduce the danger they pose to others.

This is because the risk of road travel is not equally distributed. Department for Transport statistics show that in 2019 a pedestrian was over 250 times more likely to be killed or seriously injured in a collision with a car than the car occupant.

In a collision with a cycle and a car, a cyclist was 194 times more likely to be killed or seriously injured than a car occupant.

There have been over 50 serious injuries and five deaths on Cheshire roads in the last few months, and that is on comparatively empty streets in good weather.

As winter nears, please please stay focused on driving when you are driving. Be patient and forgiving, even when you feel others are not being as responsible as you.

The people in front of you don't deserve to die, they are not protected by boxes of steel like you, they only want to get home safely to their families.

To help remind us of our responsibilities officers will be out across the county educating road users on how to stay safe, and enforcing the laws of the road where appropriate.

To act proportionately to the danger, they are focussing on protecting vulnerable road users, especially at junctions, roundabouts and on fast county roads.

They list them as pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and horse riders. Perhaps it would help if we listed them as sons, daughters, wives, husbands and lovers.

yours hopefully,

Ben Wye

ACTive Crewe Travel