Parents living on a 'dangerous' Birmingham road are demanding action to improve road safety before a child is hurt saying it's 'an accident waiting to happen.' Residents, parents and the head of a local primary school are holding a demonstration on the junction between Yardley Wood Road and Wake Green Road, to highlight the 'daily dangers' they are facing from antisocial driving.
It comes amid renewed calls for action on road safety. The event, organised by campaign group Better Streets for Birmingham, is part of a national day of action unfolding at locations across the country calling for traffic calming, legislation to prevent pavement parking and lengthy bans for the most dangerous drivers.
Residents living around Yardley Wood Road, Moseley, said they lived in fear of 'speeding drivers' and told how there had been 'four incidents within the last few days' on the road. The protest is taking place on Wake Green Road on Saturday 20th April at 2:30pm.
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Khalid Rashid, a local resident who lives just off Yardley Wood Road said: “I am deeply concerned about the increasingly dangerous traffic conditions in our community. The safety of our residents, especially our children and elderly, is at stake due to excessive speeding and lack of appropriate traffic management measures.”
Rob Kewley, another Yardley Wood Road resident and member of Better Streets for Birmingham added: “Residents, school children and other road users shouldn’t be living in fear of walking along pavements and attempting to cross Yardley Wood Rd, but this is precisely what we face every day.
"The most logical way to restore some order to our streets is to reduce opportunities to speed and drive antisocially and return some calm. We have the engineering means to do this but it needs the resources to be unlocked to do it and not get stuck in endless consultation.”
Paul Hunt, who lives on Yardley Wood Road itself, said there had been “four incidents within the last few days”, adding that he “would not call them accidents as they were avoidable and the speed of the vehicles was a major factor”.
Better Streets for Birmingham has held rallies at multiple locations across the city in response to collisions in which people have been killed or seriously injured. The national day of action, due to take place across multiple locations across the country, will feature a wide variety of actions, from banner drops, marches and vigils to joy filled protected “Kidical Mass” bike rides for children.
Tahmeena Suhail, Vice-Chair of Better Streets for Birmingham, said: “"BSFB has campaigned for traffic calming measures to help reduce these awful incidents and will continue to do so until every vulnerable road user feels safe to go about their daily business. We are gathering on Wake Green Road on Saturday 20th April as part of th Safe Streets Now day of action.
"This location is just one of many across Birmingham where speeding ,racing and dangerous driving have become normalised posing a daily threat to the local residents. They have voiced their concerns , asking for traffic calming measures to be put in place in order to avoid tragedies like those in Oldbury and Highgate at the weekend.
"BSFB want stakeholders to work together to make the streets safe for everyone to use by promoting active travel and longer bans for dangerous drivers. Please come along to support our demand for peace, space and justice."
In 2022, 28,031 people were seriously injured and 1711 were killed on UK roads. 25 people are killed every year on Birmingham’s roads.
