The tragic events this past week in New York serves as a timely reminder that each of us has a responsibility for our own safety when going about our daily lives. Only poor timing stopped the terror attack in New York today from being worse. A few hours later and the streets would be filled with children enjoying Halloween. Russell Boon, Director at Capacity Building Emergency Management, looks at whether we are in need of a public safety campaign.
In the last 18 months, vehicle attacks have happened in Europe, including London, Barcelona, Berlin and Nice. The terrorist organisation ISIS declaring it had a hand in most of these attacks. The attack in New York adds to this deadly and unpredictable trend.
As cars and trucks are the latest weapon of choice, it’s becoming clearer that a combination of a vigilant population in combination with pedestrian-friendly city planning are terrorism counter-measures.
Fortifying all footpaths in all locations is simply not possible. However, many cities around the world have begun the analysis of high foot traffic areas that represent attractive targets to those who seek to do us harm. Most Australian cities have already begun a program of installing bollards in public spaces such as malls and outside sporting venues. The Australian Government has recently released a set of assessment and instructional guides for places of mass-gatherings in an effort to increase public safety.
All this is retrospective and seeks to fortify public spaces that have already been built. This is also a costly and time-consuming process. In Melbourne, Australia in January this year pedestrians along Bourke Street were attacked by a driver with no terrorist links but a mental illness who drove through crowded footpaths at speed, resulting in a dramatic arrest in the Melbourne CBD. It took Melbourne City council five months to erect temporary concrete bollards as a countermeasure to this type of event happening again.
Whilst these physical countermeasures are underway the general public can play their part by developing a level of awareness of their surroundings whilst in public. This happens naturally in the aftermath of dramatic and tragic events such as the latest New York attack. However, such vigilance is short lived.
You may be aware of the Australian Government’s National Security campaign of “If it doesn’t add up. Speak up.” This campaign urges all members of the public to report anything unusual whether criminal or terrorist related. However, the campaign is primarily designed to assist law enforcement prevent such incidents happening which is a good thing but perhaps it should also be matched with a similar campaign around awareness whilst in public.
Look around your local bus stop, or set of traffic lights and you will see a significant proportion of the crowd stooped over looking at their mobile phone oblivious to the world around them. Many of these people don’t even look up as they commence crossing the road and some even cross the road without so much as a glance around them. So much so that cities such as Honolulu, Hawaii and Adelaide, South Australia have adopted laws enabling police to fine pedestrians for looking at their mobile devices while crossing the street.
Next time you are on public transport, glance around and look at how many people are glued to a device of some sort and have headphones on. These people are generally so engaged in the movie or game they are partaking of that they have no idea what is going on around them.
We are becoming a society that has a visual range of about 10 inches (to our phones).
Most public transport providers the world over have already provided the template for successful awareness campaigns that can easy be adapted or copied and used to educate the public. Who can forget the viral campaign for Melbourne Metro Trains in 2012 entitled “Dumb Ways to Die” which depicted cartoons meeting their demise whilst doing silly, but sadly commonplace, things?
Whilst this and many other campaigns revolve around safety near vehicles such as trains and trams the concepts can easily be adjusted to advocate for the public to think about their circumstances and their surroundings. Perhaps if we can get the public to appreciate that their latest text message can wait ten seconds until they get across the road, or to turn down the volume of their headphones so they can hear the outside world and what going on around them we can increase safety in general.
A population with a higher awareness in general, results in less accidents. Less pedestrians and cyclists mixing with vehicles also reduces the opportunity for accidents.
There’s no need for us to live our lives full of paranoia but there’s a lot to be said for some situational awareness.
Add Comment