Scott Purchas

AVZ Blog – Road collisions and casualties—how many? How much do they cost? 29th October 2025 How many? Imagine if for every person reported seriously injured in a collision, there were another three seriously injured, but that these were not reported to and by the police.…

road injuries are massively underreported - their estimated cost to UK is over £55 billion a year actionvisionzero.org/2025/10/29/a...

"Pedestrian killed in hit-and-run on city road"

"Police appeal after woman 'seriously injured' in Birmingham hit-and-run"

"Woman seriously injured in Solihull crash as road closures spark rush-hour chaos"

Three stories just from today's news in Birmingham.

I'll never not get over how blasé people with power are about the non-stop running down of pedestrians and cyclists by drivers on the streets of this city.

On average, about 5 people are killed and another 82 people are seriously injured on UK roads every day. Lets by all means take what happened on that train seriously, but let's not go mad treating public transport as if it's dangerous.

Devastation on repeat: How climate change is worsening Pakistan's deadly floods - BBC News The BBC speaks to those who have lost everything in this year's monsoon season and finds out why it will likely happen again.

Devastation on repeat: 1,000+ dead, 6.9M affected by Pakistan’s monsoon floods

Climate change is melting glaciers, intensifying monsoon rains, and worsening floods, hitting the poorest hardest in a country responsible for just 1% of global GHG emissions

www.bbc.com/news/article...

"Councillors estimate the cost of providing free car parks to be around £10 - £15 [per household per year]: equivalent to a ten per cent increase in council tax."

- I find this story interesting mostly because it's rare that the true cost of free parking sees the light of day.

Traffic deaths are a societal choice

We decide we’re OK with such deaths or we’re not OK

In 1975, Oslo had 44 traffic deaths—now they have zero deaths per year

Oslo made a choice. It had a vision of zero deaths, & chose to take the steps needed to end deaths (www.wired.com/story/oslo-p...)

Meanwhile

See what happens when you provide a more frequent service? Now if only we had more rail lines! @jonworth.eu

The cleavage shot no UK tabloid will print Want to understand how deeply weird the British press is on the subject of Russian interference? I have a bikini shot to show you...

NEW: The cleavage shot no UK tabloid will print.

If you want to understand how truly ignorant and absent the British media is on Russian interference, read on.

A Kremlin spy scandal, a trove of bikini shots....and still nothing but tumbleweed.
open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

Sharing my posts from Halloween last year, showing that children’s injuries on UK roads increase in the UK as they do in the US:

'Embarrassment': Pedestrian Automatic Emergency Braking Still Flawed at Night — Streetsblog USA Relying solely on vehicle automation for pedestrian detection and collision avoidance is not advised, a new study said.

Plot twist: High-viz clothes are *more* dangerous for pedestrians.

"Wearing high-visibility clothing could actually make [cars' pedestrian detection] technology less likely to spot a person strolling in the dark."

AAA: Nighttime Safety Improved with Pedestrian Detection Effective Rates Rising from 0% to 60% Media B-Roll ORLANDO, Fla. (Oct. 15, 2025) – AAA evaluated vehicles equipped with pedestrian automatic emergency braking (PAEB) systems, building on

New AAA study finds that pedestrian detection systems are only 60% effective at night (which is when most pedestrians are struck).

Lesson: Car tech will not "solve" the crisis in US pedestrian safety. Addressing car bloat, deadly street design, etc is also necessary.

Do have a read (it's short!) from @christianwolmar.bsky.social .

For years, auto companies have told Americans not to worry about the surge in pedestrian/cyclist crash deaths because new car tech will make the problem disappear.

Not gonna happen. (I wrote this a couple years ago.)

UK Forfeits almost £2bn by Remaining a Tax Haven for SUVs Europe’s leading advocates for clean transport & energy

🚙💰 UK Forfeits almost £2bn by Remaining a Tax Haven for SUVs.

💡 The solution?

T&E UK proposes a simple weight-based levy, ensuring larger vehicles pay their fair share.

www.transportenvironment.org/te-united-ki...

World’s oceans losing their greenness through global heating, study finds Researchers say decline in phytoplankton suggests weakened planetary capacity to absorb carbon dioxide

This is the third story in the past week detailing how natural carbon sinks are starting to falter. We don’t know nearly enough about how these tipping points could play out, but the potential for genuinely terrifying outcomes should be obvious by now.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Brilliant news! Larger cars are heavier, causing more road runoff + air pollution. Their high fronts increase risk of severe injury if they hit a pedestrian, + make it really difficult to see if small children have stepped in front of the vehicle. Strong move from @cardiffcouncil.bsky.social 💪

E-bikes could cut carbon, congestion, and costs — if cities take them seriously E-bike sales are booming, providing a clean form of transportation that also improves public health. Yet cities remain committed to cars.

“Meanwhile, the e-bike market is skyrocketing…

The question now is: Do officials double down on deadly car-centric urban design, or do they rethink cities to encourage people to ditch four wheels for two?” Via @grist.org

And do we let elected leaders keep doing the wrong things for our cities?

Plans for parking premium on SUVs and diesel cars in Cardiff given the go-ahead Cardiff Council's cabinet members approved plans that will see parking in the city overhauled and a new surcharge brought in for larger and more polluting vehicles

Cardiff is the first UK city to approve higher parking charges for larger, more-polluting vehicles like SUVs.

SUVs make up over 60% of new cars sold in the UK, but are 14% more likely to kill a pedestrian or cyclist and 77% more likely to kill a child.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-n...

#Switzerland strives, + succeeds, in making life without cars possible. Not only possible, but preferable.

You can reach most remote locations by train + bus. Transit is what keeps villages + rural economy alive.

More on how it works in this HIGH SPEED dispatch:
www.highspeed.blog/which-countr...

Plug-in hybrids pollute almost as much as petrol cars, report finds Analysis of 800,000 European cars found real-world pollution from plug-in hybrids nearly five times greater than lab tests

Turns out hybrids are largely another scam concocted by the car industry to make them look greener than they are.
Pollution from them is 5 times more than tested in the lab.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Reform’s Richard Tice failed to register lavish hospitality from former Russian finance minister’s wife 'Tice and Oakeshott stayed at the Chernukhins’ “turreted villa” with “a stunning view of the Mediterranean” and had supper with them at a Michelin-starred restaurant'

"Another Reform MP has been accused of being in breach of Parliamentary rules, after its deputy leader Richard Tice failed to register lavish hospitality he received from Lubov Chernukhin – wife of a former Russian deputy finance minister"
leftfootforward.org/2025/10/refo...

Between 2019 and 2024 in real terms EU exports grew by 11%.

UK exports also grew. By 0.89%.

That's the total. Goods exports were lower in real terms in 2024 than in 2014.

“You could avoid more than half of today’s energy inputs just by swapping inefficient combustion for efficient electric tech.” That’s what I told @Foresight_CE @SamJamesMorgan

Too few people know this and get tripped up by the “Primary Energy Fallacy”.

foresightmedia.com/story/sIGNpl...

Growing gap between real-world and official emissions for all major European carmakers Relative gap for Mercedes-Benz has grown to 500% in 2023. For all car brands, 300% gap.

The gap appears to be particularly large at Mercedes-Benz. Even with the current fictitious values, they are already struggling to meet CO2 targets. PHEVs are a sham to get heavy polluting cars on the road.

Cardiff set to tackle SUV 'carspreading' in UK first Cardiff Council is set to become the first local authority in the UK to introduce higher parking charges for SUVs and other heavy vehicles, in a move campaigners say will make city streets safer and f...

Cardiff Council is set to become the first local authority in the UK to introduce higher parking charges for SUVs and other heavy vehicles, in a move campaigners say will make city streets safer and fairer

BREAKING: Equinor has admitted that the massive Rosebank oil and gas field in the UK would cause vast climate damage.

*Pretends to be shocked* 😲

The UK government must STOP Rosebank, and instead focus on creating jobs in North Sea renewables!

The social and environmental costs of private car ownership captured in one screen grab.

From the intro to @thewaroncars.bsky.social Life After Cars book

The Telegraph has just published *yet another* correction to one of its net-zero articles.

By my count, that is now the ELEVENTH such correction since Labour won the election (and covers 14 separate articles).

I have now added the latest one to my epic thread which is tracking these corrections...

At last, a Brexit benefit 👍👏