Last week stands out in one’s mind as significant in terms of safety and active transport. On the 24th of April, a 22-year-old student studying in Dun Laoghaire was knocked down and killed by a truck. She will be remembered as “the kindest, gentlest” daughter and “a blessing” in the life of her friends and partner. She… Read more »

Introduction We are in the middle of multiple crises. The lives lost and absolute devastation caused by senseless wars in Gaza and Ukraine, as well as the increasing hostilities towards those seeking refuge in our country, can leave one feeling numb. When so many lives are lost, when there is so much anger and resentment,… Read more »

Stop de Kindermoord ‘Stop de Kindermoord’, or ‘Stop the Child Murder’ was a road safety campaign in the Netherlands during the 1970s. It precipitated the widespread installation of active transport infrastructure for which the Netherlands is now famous. This campaign was led by parents who feared for the safety of their kids, and communities who… Read more »

Considering how we begin to end violence in society, Allegra McLeod, from University of Chicago, urges us to “expand our understanding of violence beyond individualized disorder and the immediate scene of interpersonal harm” and unearth its political and economic roots. This can be difficult when a victim has experienced extreme violence and long-lasting harm. But the ambition of criminal justice systems should be the tempering of violence in society and not just meting out more violence in response to the initial offense. Louk Hulsman, a Dutch criminologist, warns that we create a counter-reality when we only understand an individual in the context of their offense, completely isolated from “his environment, his friends, his family, the material substratum of his world.”

It is a terrible indictment of a city’s infrastructure that I consider myself lucky to be hit by a car in the specific way I was. My incident was not recorded, and neither are many such cases (many of which have much more severe outcomes), which masks the level of danger inherent in cycling or walking through the city.  The stats that are recorded highlight the problems we have on our roads. So far this year in Ireland 22 pedestrians and one cyclist have been killed. These figures are an outrage.