Furious backlash to 'victim blaming' Transport Scotland A9 campaign
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Transport Scotland’s new road safety campaign focussed partly on the A9 is a “patronising” and “distasteful” an example of “victim blaming” after it was claimed that one in four accidents are caused by driver fatigue.
There has been a sharp backlash to the campaign as it was released just a week after transport secretary Jenny Gilruth confirmed the dualling of the road would not be finished by 2025.
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No mention was made in the campaign that motorists were seven times more likely to have a crash on single carriageway and some, like A9 campaigner Laura Hansler, feel it is the wrong for several reasons.
She said: “What is coming back is that there is a bit of victim blaming going on, it is patronising, but I actually find the wording very distasteful – drink a coffee, have a rest, and survive – and I thought that is a wee bit much.
“Where do they want people to stop? There are no services. Ballinluig is a truck stop but only really accessible if you are going south, you need to know it is there, but it is not really services you can nip in and out of.
“After 8pm at night where are you going? I was asked – surely you would pull off into these towns, what towns? Pitlochry is the only town, there are no services there, certainly not for the volume of traffic we experience on the A9.
“This is another elastoplast on what is very much a haemorrhaging wound at the moment – it is not far reaching enough, certainly for the likes of HGV drivers, if their trackers tell them to get off the road, where are they going to go?”
