RSA accused of ‘victim blaming’ children in road safety campaign
THE Road Safety Authority has been accused of ‘victim blaming’ following a campaign to encourage schoolchildren to wear hi-vis clothing when out walking and cycling.
In correspondence seen by the Irish Mail on Sunday, angry members of the public complained that the campaign was putting the blame on children for poor driving behaviour. Some said wearing hi-vis clothing makes ‘absolutely no difference’ when drivers are not paying attention.
The campaign has also met with strong reaction on social media. One tweet from the Road Safety Authority (RSA) provoked more than 100 reactions, the overwhelming majority negative.
Most of the complaints said the campaign was attaching blame to children for simply
‘Where else is onus on victims to be visible?’
walking or cycling instead of working to improve driver habits.
One email to the RSA read: ‘Hi Viz [sic] doesn’t help when a driver isn’t paying attention. I’ve witnessed that first-hand.’
Another said a feature of the campaign in which children were asked to design posters of themselves in glowing outfits was ‘despicable’.
‘It is attempting to reinforce the unfounded perspective that pedestrians and cyclists are to blame for their safety, injuries and deaths at the hands of motorists,’ said one correspondent.
Another asked if the RSA could provide any research to show that wearing hi-vis clothing had done anything to improve road safety. They wrote: ‘No other country I’ve lived in takes this approach of putting the onus on the victims to be visible as opposed to the motorist’s duty of care under the rules of the road to slow down and expect the unexpected.’ Another said there was an endless list of steps the RSA could take to make roads safer for children, apart from recommending luminous clothes.
That email read: ‘All the hivis in the world won’t stop drivers speeding, texting, parking illegally etc. Please stop with these campaigns. They are dangerous.’
One mother of two said she was shocked by what she described as a ‘tone-deaf campaign’ when lack of safe walking and cycling infrastructure were the problem.
A cyclist – who said they wore hi-vis clothing every day – claimed safety gear made no difference when drivers were not paying attention.
‘This morning a motorist swerved into the cycle [path], missing me by inches,’ they said. ‘He wasn’t paying attention to the road at all and didn’t have both hands on the wheel. I was wearing a hi-viz [sic] vest and he didn’t see me.
This happens every day.’
The agency said that while it had received 25 formal complaints on the latest phase of its Seatbelt Sheriff and Hi-Glo Silver campaign, this did not constitute ‘quite a volume’.
A spokesman said the RSA had received no complaints from any schools or parents of children taking part in this ‘fun learning programme’ and that it would run again in schools next year.