Slower speeds where people live, work, and play has long been one of our key manifesto asks at Pedal on Parliament – and this week is our last chance to support the 20mph (Restricted Roads) bill which aims to achieve just that.
If you can, please join us on Tuesday at 1pm as we demonstrate our support for this bill and ask MSPs either to support it, or tell us what other measure they would put in its place that would be as quickly effective.
If you want to take part, come to the Scottish Parliament with a small personal item of yours – something that you or someone else might leave behind if you were killed or injured on the roads. It might be an unfinished book, a half-done crossword, some knitting, a toy, a pair of reading glasses, a musical instrument, a phone or tablet. We’ll set out one chair for every life this bill might have saved had it passed when Parliament first sat. We’ll then leave those chairs empty, except for these small items, each one signifying a life interrupted.
We hope that this will bring home to our politicians that this is not just a matter of budgets and signage and statistics. How they vote this week will touch people’s lives the length and breadth of Scotland.
We know from the committee’s report that the Transport Minister could make 20mph limits the default in built-up areas at the stroke of a pen if he were so minded. We need to let him and all our politicians know that we are looking to them to make the right decision this week. Please join us, because lives are at stake.
If you are coming you can sign up here (not required but it’s helpful for us to know how many people are likely to be there)