Not So Safe in Slough

Once known as 'The Safety Town', Slough seems to come off rather badly in a road traffic accident (RTA) survey conducted by the motor insurance industry and has been named, for the third year running, the most dangerous place in the country.

The Berkshire town currently displays an RTA rate 41.3% over the national average, above those of far larger conurbations like Bradford and Birmingham. By contrast, the survey concluded that the safest roads are those of Belfast, Bangor, and Swansea.

This sorry state of affairs is particularly ironic since, in the immediate post-war period, Slough was the target of an intensive road-safety campaign. Local historians also claim the very first 'zebra' crossing, with attendant orange 'Belisha Beacon' warning lights (named after their instigator, the then Minister of Transport, Mr Hoare Belisha).

Free roadworthiness examinations, pre-empting compulsory MOT tests, were also available for any vehicle. Another innovation, later adopted elsewhere, was the synchronisation of traffic light sequences on main routes so that drivers maintaining exactly 30mph would be rewarded by an uninterrupted journey.

The combination of these moves initially resulted in a 10% reduction in fatalities. Unfortunately, times and motoring behaviour have changed for the worse, and this latest news can only reinforce the popular unattractive perception of the area. Always the butt of jokes, and mercilessly lampooned as the fictional location of TV's 'The Office', the town's reputation has never really recovered by from perhaps the most cruel onslaught of all. In 1937, John Betjeman famously penned the phrase, "Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough", to open a poem bemoaning the industrialisation of the area.

With Slough's civic pride in tatters, perhaps the council should spearhead a new road-safety initiative with the mayoral car sporting the superb plate S10 UGH, currently available exclusively from www.regtransfers.co.uk.

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