The COVID-19 pandemic has turned our lives upside down, wreaking havoc on health and jobs. As a result, many of us are spending far more time at home – prompting traffic levels to drop, along with air pollution and carbon emissions. Restrictions on travel and movement mean roads are now being used more by walkers and cyclists.
All of us – including children and vulnerable people – are having to frequently step into the road to follow the 2m rule, as most pavements are too narrow to pass safely. We’re also being encouraged to walk and cycle more as lockdown eases.
Crossing roads can be a lottery at the best of times, never mind if you have limited vision or mobility. But there’s a simple way to make our neighbourhoods safer for everyone - implied zebra crossings.
Under the current Covid-19 guidance, it is vital that, when we take our permitted daily exercise outside, we are able to do it safely. It is also important that keyworkers are able to travel safely.
When cars are parked on pavements, people with a vision impairment may have to risk their lives by walking into the road just to get by them.
The BBC’s Panorama programme found that there have been twenty times more near-misses on the M25 since the introduction of so-called ‘smart motorways’.
In the UK's biggest cities, air pollution is dangerously high – and it’s putting our children’s health at risk.
Each year, up to 11,000 UK heart and circulatory disease deaths are attributable to air pollution. We need your help to change this.
