Call to back safer lories in key vote.
A bereaved Birmingham mum is appealing to Euro MPs in all parties to support tougher design standards for a new generation of HGVs in a crucial vote in the European Parliament tomorrow.
Nazan Fennell’s ‘Live in Hope’ campaign for safer lorries has been backed with similar proposals backed by former Olympic cycling champion Chris Boardman and a growing alliance of road safety campaigners across the UK.
Nazan’s 13-year-old daughter Hope was killed by a lorry in Kings Heath High Street in 2011 as she pushed her bike across the road. A coroner ruled that the driver could not have seen her due to blind spots from the cab of the 18 tonne vehicle.
Under changes being proposed by Lib Dem Phil Bennion MEP, lorry drivers’ sightlines would be improved by reducing blind spots under the front windscreen and the side of lorry cabs. The new designs would also include crumple zones to reduce the damage caused by impacts and a rounded shape at the front to deflect cyclists or pedestrians if a collision occurs, instead of dragging them under the wheels.
A report outlining the proposed changes in lorry design standards was backed by a majority of MEPs on the Transport Committee in Brussels. But Conservative MEPs Jacqueline Foster and West Midlands Tory MEP Philip Bradbourn abstained on the final vote in committee, while West Midlands’ former UKIP MEP Mike Nattrass voted against. The proposals will be voted on by the whole Parliament at Strasbourg tomorrow.
Commenting today, Nazan Fennell said: “My daughter Hope was killed because a lorry driver could not see her in front of him when he moved off. Her death like so many others was preventable. Every year 2.4 million people die on the roads around the world, and every one is somebody’s mom, dad, sibling or the most precious thing to us, our child. I appreciate Mr Bennion’s support for the Live In Hope campaign, but we need MEPs from all parties to vote for these proposals tomorrow. I’m asking people to use the WriteToThem.com website and email all their local MEPs urging them to support safer lorry design in the vote on Tuesday.”
