Ian is a road safety campaigner and is undertaking research into the politics of road death for his PhD at the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds. He brings what is probably a unique set of experiences to road safety in Britain.
Professionally, as a children’s nurse, Ian cared for children and young people following trauma from road traffic injuries. In NHS leadership roles he spent more than 30 years running hospitals including trauma services; developing policy, and leading England wide health programmes. So, he saw first-hand the pressure that road crashes place on the NHS.
In 2008, his two daughters were involved in a serious car crash, when the lead car in a racing group of five young people crashed into the oncoming car where his daughters were passengers. Three people died that night; his daughter Alice who was 12 and two young lads in the lead racing car. His other daughter, Clara and their mum were seriously injured.
He left the health service to try to understand why road death and serious injury in Britain seems to be an acceptable risk of mobility, eventually enrolling as a PhD candidate.
His experience of caring for trauma patients, running trauma services, studying public policy, and now researching road safety policy, plus being the dad to two daughters classified as KSI statistics (Killed or seriously injured) enables a unique insight into the problems and consequences of not taking road safety seriously.
