Hundreds protest Birmingham road deaths as resident admits 'I'm petrified to use pavement'

Hundreds of people have turned out to campaign for safer streets in Birmingham - days on from another tragic loss. BirminghamLive has joined cyclists and pedestrians in saying more needs to be done to keep them safe in the West Midlands and one resident who attended the event admitted she was "petrified" to walk on the pavement.

About 200 people turned out to a protest organised by campaign group Better Streets for Birmingham yesterday, April 20. It came days on from the death of Mayar Yahia, four, who was killed on Upper Highgate Street, on Sunday, April 14.

Speeches were by local resident Rob Kewley, Mat MacDonald (of Safe Streets Now) and Peter Foley, headmaster of St Bernard's Catholic Primary School, Wake Green Road. Mr Foley revealed how he spent his time at work in fear for the safety of his children on Wake Green road, where speeding past the school gates and obstructive parking is a daily problem.

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Mr Kewley, a Yardley Wood Road resident, said: "Residents, school children and other road users shouldn’t be living in fear of walking along pavements and attempting to cross Yardley Wood Road but this is precisely what we face every day. Whilst we’ve come to expect inaction by the police and the council to this issue, we have to grapple with the fact that Birmingham’s relationship to the car and the car industry has left an appalling legacy in terms of community cohesion, public health and safety.

"Whilst motor manufacturing has massively reduced in Birmingham, we are still faced with a motor industry who think it’s fine to market and sell vehicles capable of generating irresponsible levels of power and noise whilst regulation hasn’t kept up."

Elaine Mahar, another Yardley Wood Road resident, said: "I have lived on Yardley Wood Road for 38 years. I love my home, my neighbours and the handy little shops on my road. So why do I ask myself so frequently whether I should leave? Simple: excessive speeding of cars and frequent serious collisions, at night and in the daytime.

"I have rebuilt my garden wall three times and had to have my bay window rebuilt. Several cars parked on our drive have been written off. This experience has been shared by my neighbours too. The last collision from a speeding driver wrote off five cars outside our house. And that wasn't the worst.

"Yardley Wood Road is a residential road, yet I am petrified to walk along the pavement. Despite all the many collisions no one in authority has shown any interest in tackling this desperate situation affecting hundreds of families along its length."

Another protestor said: "We stood together today not just in Birmingham but in solidarity with other events happening at 20 locations across the country to demand that the safety of our streets is properly prioritised. Following the unthinkably tragic collisions that took place on our city's streets last weekend, including one in which a four year old child was killed, our action in Birmingham took on an extra urgency today.

"Those who oppose these measures on the grounds they are anti motorist may be prepared to accept a status quo where a child dies violently and suddenly on our streets, but we are not. We will continue this fight until no-one dies in collisions on our roads, as has been achieved in many other cities across the world.

"Together we will ensure the streets of Birmingham, and the country as a whole, become the Safe, sustainable and joyous places where we all deserve to live."