Ep. 10 – City of Cars – Birmingham’s road trauma on film

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https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/better-streets-for-birmingham/id1867451510?i=1000758106260
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3jyKc1o2EQboVe88iRROQb?si=4oltxT2xSpOuyqx6fQla4Q

Host Kevin Carmody interviews documentary maker Sarah Chaundler. She spent 18 months following Better Streets for Birmingham and captured the lives of many people who were impacted by loss on our roads.

This at times hearbreaking interview gives an upclose view of the tragedy that is happening in Birmingham every day, as well as the frustrations in seeing so little change actually happening.

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Transcript

Kevin Carmody (00:04)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the better streets podcast. I’m Kevin Carmody and today I’m talking with Sarah Chaundler who is a documentary maker and produced the film city of cars Sarah Thank you very much for joining me today

Sarah Chaundler (00:18)
Thank you very much for having me, Kevin.

Kevin Carmody (00:20)
So your film followed the crisis, I would say, of Birmingham traffic for about 18 months. And through that, yes, you followed activists, but you also documented and spoke to a lot of people who were really quite desperately impacted by these events.

I mean, how was that as an experience having to be kind of so embedded with talk to people who are so kind of emotionally torn by some of the loss of their loved ones?

Sarah Chaundler (00:55)
Yeah, so as you say, I filmed City of Cars over a period of 18 months. ⁓ The documentary that I made at the end wasn’t the one that I started off, you know, that wasn’t my vision. And really, events in Birmingham dictated the shape of the documentary.

I made the documentary out of a profound sense that something was very wrong in Birmingham and just my own sense of walking and cycling in Birmingham and witnessing speeding cars, people on mobile phones, ⁓ just making me, my family, people I knew very, very unsafe and thinking, hang on a minute, this is happening in plain sight and very little is being done about it. And so that was the sort of like the…

the urge to make something, the urge to get my camera out and start filming. During the process of making the film, as you’ve alluded to, I’ve met a lot of people ⁓ and some of the victims of the cases that I cover in the film, we can come onto ⁓ in a minute as well, the families of the children who were killed in that time period. But also just people, everyday Brommies going about their business.

and constantly feeling under threat from ⁓ dangerous driving or just careless driving or people just kind of like not understanding the impact of driving at 40 miles an hour next to a pavement where they should be driving at 20 miles an hour and how that impacts a child and a child’s sense of safety.

Kevin Carmody (02:35)
So I think one of the first ones that caught a lot of people’s attention for Better Streets was in Kings Heath back in June 2023. And there was a young boy and a sister who were going over a crossing. And then there was a guy driving recklessly fast. I think you’ve seen driving for 60 miles an hour in a 20 zone. And he hit the boy, didn’t he? And that really brought out the community.

Sarah Chaundler (03:01)
Absolutely, and you know I live around the corner from that so I was one of ⁓ many people who were sort of first on the scene ⁓ and I really felt compelled. It’s difficult to bring out your camera and start filming people who are clearly upset and this was parents who were walking there. Let’s not forget that this happened as this boy was walking to school.

with his older sibling. He was crossing a road where Hope Fennell had been killed in 2011. She was a schoolgirl riding her bicycle across that crossing. So this crossing is known to people around here as being dangerous, just from the fact that people aren’t stopping as the lights are going red. And that’s what happened in this case as well. So going back to that day, yeah, it was a spring ⁓ warm sunny day. Everyone was just going about their business.

As we saw from the CCTV footage which I showed in my film, this driver was going at about 60 miles an hour and a 20 mile per hour limit. I interviewed a couple of eyewitnesses, a couple of people who work on the high street, who contributed to the documentary and just the distress at witnessing that was so palpable. I saw the parents who’d been taking their children to school.

Yeah, it was a really distressing case and obviously local media became involved and fortunately that boy has made a recovery but it just really understands, illustrates how one case of dangerous careless driving can so very nearly end a life.

Kevin Carmody (04:39)
Yeah, and as happened, you know, at a similar time as Ankar over on the Coventry Road as he was crossing the road there with his kind of pushing his bike across the road. And, you know, he was caught again by someone recklessly driving, you know, at higher speed than you’re allowed to on that road, kind of weaving across. And this is a driver who had been twice disqualified before.

Sarah Chaundler (05:02)
That was a really, really disturbing case. I have subsequently met the family of Azan Khan, his mother and his father. The pain that they’re going through and will go through for the rest of their life is unbearable, really.

was explained to the court. went to that sentencing as well and listened to the victim impact statements. And just to put into context, ⁓ Azan’s mother, Zoe, was ⁓ very heavily pregnant when ⁓ Azan was killed. And the young boys, Azan’s friends who he was with at the time, ⁓ ran. They were within 200 meters of his front door. ⁓

where he lived, they ran to her door, banged on the door. She came running out, heavily pregnant, no shoes on, leaving whatever she was doing in the kitchen, preparing an evening meal and got to the roadside. ⁓ But ⁓ what a terrible thing for any mother to have to go through. It’s just, and I think what I would like to do and what I would like to carry on doing is showing

what an enormous impact this has on people’s lives and not just the family and the close friends but the whole community and that sort of that that creep as well that behavioural creep that actually it’s not safe for my child to walk to school because this kind of thing happens and then what does that do well that that inhibits us from walking cycling just traveling getting about under our own steam

And I think to link that wider issue of what we call road safety or road harm more accurately with that wider picture of it is actually, it does not feel safe to walk and cycle in this city at times.

Kevin Carmody (07:01)
No, and we’re going to have to at this point now as well talk about Maya here. at least with Atan Khan, the guy got eight years and nine months sentence for that. Maya here, who was a four year old girl who was killed while walking on the pavement ⁓ with her family. I mean, the guy for that got three years, three years, 10 months.

Sarah Chaundler (07:28)
Yeah,

it’s shocking. I can go back ⁓ through some of the history of that if you would like. So that was on the…

Kevin Carmody (07:39)
Yeah,

I would just say because because you do you know, you took you spent quite a lot of time with my his family as well within your film Don’t you so it’s I mean you see you. Yeah, you spent you spent time with them didn’t

Sarah Chaundler (07:47)
Yeah.

Well,

I met Babaka Yahia the day after Maya was killed because I went to the scene. I went to Upper Highgate Street. The collision happened on Sunday evening at 9.43 and I went the next morning and just was, I mean, there was nothing to show or very little to show that there had been a horrific collision there, which

absolutely devastated a community and I met a man who was ⁓ the husband of one of the women who’d been involved in the collision and he was just standing by the roadside looking dazed and anxious and confused and so I went to speak to him and he told me ⁓ what had happened, he told me that there was a large group of women and children. ⁓ I was slightly perturbed by the fact that that wasn’t reported at the time.

It was very obvious from everyone that I spoke to that this was a large group of women and children on the pavement. ⁓ The very thing that as a mother I have been extremely concerned about in Birmingham walking around with children, that sense that if you’re on the pavement you should be safe. Well no, I mean this group of mothers and children they were just walking home from Eid celebrations and they got plowed into. So I came to know the family ⁓ over the the months ⁓ and again

What a lovely family, three surviving children, all of whom, well, one of them a little baby at the time was in his push chair. Miraculously survived the collision. ⁓ Sarah and Babak and Maya’s parents don’t understand how he survived. So, yeah, just a devastating scene in a 20 mile per hour limit. And the man driving the car, Giovanni Taverna, going in the judge’s words, based on the dashcam footage that we saw in court, which was

extraordinary painful to watch, at least double the speed limit. I’m going to hedge my bets and say it was more than that. But that footage, which was just everything that the witnesses and Sara’s mother and father and the other women that were there, was everything that they had described to me, seeing the bright lights flashing, coming towards them down the hill and just being plowed into by a car. It was so distressing. Three months, three years and 10 months for killing a child.

It doesn’t seem right. And I think that what the judge said was extremely, I think, extraordinary for him to have picked up on the fact that that should have been a dangerous driving charge. It feels like it should have been a dangerous driving charge, given all the aggravating factors. And I think the CPS do need to answer questions or at least make clear why it wasn’t a dangerous driving charge, which obviously can ⁓ carry a much longer ⁓ sentence and also a lifetime driving ban.

in exceptional circumstances, although I don’t think that’s ever been done in the UK. ⁓

Kevin Carmody (10:50)
This

is is one of these these three that we’ve mentioned here. These are just some of the many incidents that happened throughout the city during during the filming of this and you know and continue to happen now. And we know that pedestrians are becoming increasingly disproportionately affected by dangerous driving. I mean how much is this? we now seeing this as just kind of a wider?

structural problem within Birmingham.

Sarah Chaundler (11:24)
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s a few things, isn’t it? I think personally, as someone who would like to get about, who does enjoy getting about under my own steam, I know where to cycle to stay relatively safe, although obviously sometimes you just can’t, you have to go on the road, you have to mix in with the traffic.

If you can’t trust that drivers are going to behave well, which we can’t and we know, then that in itself is a structural problem, isn’t it? Why should somebody on a bike feel and know that they are unsafe because they’re having to mix in with traffic to get from A to B? That’s a structural problem. And I think that the fact that the number of pedestrian deaths is disproportionately high ⁓ is again, you know, we have pavements for people, for pedestrians and the fact that, you know,

people are clearly not safe on the pavement as was ⁓ graphically demonstrated by what happened to Maya, her family and friends is a massive problem and the city needs to be bold in how it tackles that.

Kevin Carmody (12:29)
It

could be argued that the road where she was tragically killed up at Highgate Street, it’s used as a rat run. this is why it becomes a dangerous area is because of cars being able to just kind of be able to go wherever they want. And this is very much how the city was designed, particularly. ⁓

you know, in the fifties redesign of the city that we’re now living with as it being a kind of increasingly or being redesigned as a car dominated city.

Sarah Chaundler (13:04)
I’m glad you mentioned that because ⁓ as a result of a lot of the campaigning that Better Streets for Birmingham did, that street up at Highgate Street, and a lot of my film covers this. We see the demonstrations by the local people ⁓ and asking for that street to have a permanent memorial for Maya A’Haya, which we’d see that street closed off and let’s…

remind ourselves of the geography of where that street is. It sits almost parallel to two of the major trunk roads in Birmingham. You’ve got Belgrave Middleway on one side and I can’t remember what it’s called, Ladywood Middleway at the top maybe. Massive trunk roads where a lot of traffic is rightly directed. Why is Upper Highgate Street needed ⁓ for a flow of through traffic, especially when we have had this

absolute abhorrent tragedy. It’s a high density, highly populated area. It is where ⁓ Sarah and Babaka and many other parents ⁓ from that neighbourhood walk their children every day. They walk past the scene where Maya was killed. I don’t know what that does to Sarah and Babaka. I can’t even imagine if I had to, if my street was where something like that happened, how on earth do you walk your other children?

that every day and not know that something positive could come out of it.

Kevin Carmody (14:31)
So, so the plans were in place, the petitions was put ⁓ by the councillor, Yvonne Mosquito, to full council. There was widespread support within the community for this to become a pedestrianised area. And then, yeah.

Sarah Chaundler (14:50)
And then nothing, or not just nothing, mean actually some of the work was started to be done so contractors were in place and so what has happened I don’t know and I think Birmingham City Council has something to answer for there and I would like to hear very clearly why that project has stopped.

hugely important to the family for something to happen and for the community. Babakur Yahya went to the council house after Maya was killed. He stood, I filmed him, he stood in the public gallery, he asked what Birmingham was going to do to stop other children being killed in this way. As a father, I don’t think he’s had an answer. know, what, in terms of justice, three years, 10 months for the man who killed his daughter. And in terms of infrastructure, well, nothing.

⁓ So the city has got something to do for that family and for that community. I’m absolutely clear about that.

Kevin Carmody (15:51)
I think there is it’s it’s also remind you that you say babaca, know was You’re very very active in ⁓ Asking for change ⁓ and you know and family and the community were and it is I mean, it’s it’s so often such a thin line, it between You know the active community and the victims themselves and how so often it it’s an event that that turns you into an activist there’s there’s a

a real turning point in the film, isn’t there, where you’re interviewing the chair of Better Streets and he talks about his own loss. this is stuff that kind of affects us. mean, did that really kind of change anything within your film to start hearing those stories from the activists themselves?

Sarah Chaundler (16:43)
Yes, I met, I met, if you’re talking about ⁓ Matt, who’s now the, ⁓ who was then chair of Better Streets for Birmingham, co-chair along with Martin Price, and ⁓ who’s now ⁓ road safety commissioner. I met Matt very early on in filming and ⁓ he told me very early on, I think we were standing by Belgrave Middleway and I was.

I was really interested about why ⁓ this doctor who I knew had just come off night shifts, was cycling home from his night shift and he was standing by the roadside with Kirsten DeVos from Mums for Lungs counting cars going through red lights. And I was really, really struck by this and I’d met him on another, on a couple of other occasions ⁓ doing similar kind of things, clearly putting his heart and soul and time into this. And I was really interested to what was driving him.

Why was he so passionate about this? And so he told me then that it was because of his own personal loss. ⁓ And then that struck a chord and I just thought, yes, I was quite convinced that this person was taking his own personal loss and doing something positive with it for a greater good. And that’s what changed the way that I approached the film.

So I was thinking, well, I’ll get somebody to speak about public health, ⁓ know, about active travel, ⁓ you know, all the sort of like normal suspects that you would if you were trying to build a narrative. And then I thought, actually, no, I’m going to focus a little bit more on this individual who suffered this great personal loss at a young age and has clearly shaped what he’s doing now.

Kevin Carmody (18:26)
And I think, you know, that is one of the better streets is it isn’t just an active travel organisation. You know, I mean, much of our main focus is road safety and it is about preventing. This is preventable loss. These are preventable losses with political will.

Sarah Chaundler (18:45)
And about Better Streets for Birmingham, you see it referred to in the press or media as ⁓ activists. And I’m at great pains to say, actually, these are people, people living in Birmingham, and for whatever reason, they’re putting their head above the parapet and they’re saying, actually, no, this is not okay. And what we’re living with is not okay. And I think that’s fantastic. It’s not activism. ⁓

it’s to be challenged, it’s just saying, no, this isn’t fine, this isn’t okay, we must come together to change. And I think the whole Better Streets movement coming together and doing the demonstrations and continuing to voice concern about this is really important and really powerful. And I really hope that the authorities in this city continue to listen. Now that the demonstrations aren’t necessarily happening anymore, there are people still out there who are desperate for change. And I think that

politicians should be alive to that.

Kevin Carmody (19:47)
And I think, you know, having films like this is an important way of getting that story out. I mean, you’ve shown this in film festivals and you’ve shown it at a few levels of government now. I mean, what’s the reaction been?

Sarah Chaundler (20:04)
I’m always shocked when some of the footage is shown. I mean, obviously I can edit things together, can’t I, to show that it’s a continuous, know, bleak picture, but it’s also a reality. So I’d say audiences have really appreciated the whole storytelling and the obvious impact on the families and the wider community.

So Richard Parker, the mayor of the West Midlands, played it to staff at the West Midlands Combined Authority. I thought that was brilliant. I then did a question and answer session afterwards. And there was a lot of interest ⁓ I was getting from the room. And I sort of thought, that’s really great. I know I’m possibly preaching to the converted here, but I think a dose of reality into the sort of the work life of people who are in positions.

who can make some change and who can push for change is really important.

Kevin Carmody (21:06)
And these are changes that do need to be made, you know, up and down the whole kind of chain of government, you know, from Westminster through local authority through to the council themselves need to.

Sarah Chaundler (21:19)
Kevin, can I just make a point? Because this is something that I kind of like, I bang on about a lot. And I think, and it’s one of the reasons I made the film. some of the things that need to happen in order for our streets to be made safer, such as better cycling infrastructure, some of the things that we know are often opposed by, ⁓ I don’t know, a motoring lobby, perhaps, you know, when they, when people see that road space on already congested roads are potentially being given over to cyclists and there don’t seem to be enough cyclists.

⁓ there then then a ⁓ protest forms and then sometimes these measures don’t get put through. Well what I think is that it is absolutely the responsibility of local, regional, national government to make the case strongly for these kind of things and I don’t think that’s happening and that’s one of the reasons I made the film I wanted to show. Well actually the the repercussions of not doing that is that is loss of life.

So if you’re not prepared to set out exactly why you think as a local government, and maybe talking about Birmingham here, if you’re not prepared to set out exactly why you think this needs to be done in very clear terms and well-evidenced terms, in a way that people sitting at home can understand, then your scheme is probably going to fail because you haven’t reached people in their living rooms at home. And that is the bit, it’s the communication bit that I think is really, really missing. And…

I would love to work with the local regional government to help that. But yeah, I think that there’s a massive failure there.

Kevin Carmody (22:51)
Yeah, and we know that a lot of this is ended up being left to groups like Better Streets to communicate the message. So when a consultation goes out, they’ve often not co-designed to that consultation. So it’s just being put to a community. And then we at Better Streets get asked by local councils, oh, please, could you go make some noise online to support this? Because I guess they know that they’ve not sufficiently made the case themselves and they need groups like Better Streets to do that for them.

Sarah Chaundler (23:20)
That’s interesting. didn’t know that happened, But that is interesting, ⁓ isn’t it? And I think more, you know, that that just shows that actually there is an understanding that resources aren’t being committed to that area, that really important area, because that’s that’s where that that’s where you win or gain public trust and approval for schemes. And so, I mean,

Kevin Carmody (23:23)
Yeah.

Sarah Chaundler (23:47)
Yeah, we could talk about the Kings Heath and Mosley low traffic neighbourhood, which six years in the making has not been delivered. And I would strongly suggest that that is because there was an absolute failure to communicate and I’m not pointing fingers at anyone, but a systematic failure in being able to communicate what the benefits of that might be and how it might mean that children could get to school safely.

Kevin Carmody (24:12)
There have I mean there have been some successes that that have come through ⁓ The better streets campaign, which is kind of captured in that film. So the the road safety emergency as it was declared ⁓ The reduction of speed limits on some of the major roads in the city I mean, it’s it’s a tension, it between the successes and the failures? and I you know, we do need we do need to

Cheer on the successes that we do have as much as you ⁓ complain about the failures

Sarah Chaundler (24:47)
I think, right, I think, you know, that is one of the major successes I would point to, the reduction ⁓ in the speed limit. I think that was one of Birmingham City Council’s proposals anyway, before ⁓ Better Streets were campaigning. Better Streets campaigning definitely pushed that along a bit. ⁓ The problem is, of course, is the enforcement and we know that the enforcement is…

is lacking. I think in my film, if I remember correctly, I said that there were six average speed cameras in operation across a one and a half thousand mile road network. My understanding is that there are now going to be more average speed cameras and I believe there’s going to be one ⁓ or some kind of camera mechanism on Belgrave Middleway, which is in Highgate where Maya was killed. So and also on the Coventry Road, I think probably where Azzan was killed as well. So yes.

But more needs to be done. actually, it’s the whole culture. Because what those cameras, those average speed cameras can’t do is they can’t look inside cars and see people on their mobile phones, which you and I know is happening every day on every road in Birmingham.

Kevin Carmody (26:01)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve I know better streets did some data collection around ⁓ watching people using it. And I did did it outside of my kids school at drop off the time and was watching people just going over the pedestrian crossing while looking at their phones. was. It was almost like it’s maybe better not to look, you know, it was it was scary. It was very scary.

Sarah Chaundler (26:19)
That’s it.

Yeah, and I think some people think that we shouldn’t make a big thing about this, that we shouldn’t sort of scare potential cyclists and walkers because that’s sort of seen as scaremongering. But I think when you know, know, when you know and I know and we all know that it’s happening so widespread and it’s ingrained in the culture.

to behave like that. I mean, I was cycling into town last night with my husband and daughter, and we got to the end of the A38 cycle route, and there was a motorist who was in the cycling priority box, and she was just sitting there, unaware of us, on her mobile phone. And my husband said, do you know that you’re in the cycling box and you’re on your mobile phone? And her response was that it was okay for her to be on her phone because she was stationary. And you know…

That is the level of public ignorance and that’s the kind of public ignorance that I would like our authorities to get to grips with and to challenge and to educate. Where are those public information films ⁓ which are funded by ⁓ national governments, which I remember as a child of the 1980s, I remember those kind of films, but I just don’t think we have that now.

Kevin Carmody (27:37)
I think this is kind of the three things out of your film, wasn’t it? It was the better education, tougher enforcement, and kind of reclaiming the streets from the cars. Is there future plans for the film? Is there a sequel?

Sarah Chaundler (27:56)
Do you know it was quite an emotional film to make. And yeah, it’s taken is to and I would like to do a sequel. What that would it wouldn’t be a sequel though. It would have to be taking it from a different. there’s another there’s many other films in the footage that I’ve got. I mean, it runs to hours and hours and hours. It would have to be something different. I want to stay in this part of me would like to stay in this space.

and carry on making this kind of thing because it’s something that I believe passionately in. Another part of me thinks, do you know what, if my local, regional, national government can’t be bothered to support ⁓ that kind of communication for whatever reason, then why would I do that? ⁓ And I think it’s of like, it’s sad that you kind of like…

I feel like I’ve put a lot of my time and effort into doing that, as activists do, ⁓ reach people. But then I kind of think, well, OK, but what I want to come of that is to see some kind of concerted campaign by local, regional, national government to address these issues. ⁓ And I don’t see that happening. And there’s many, many campaigners in this space.

asking for things to be done ⁓ and maybe change is happening, don’t know, slowly.

Kevin Carmody (29:28)
Yeah,

I think there’s something within an activist movement is it’s not down to one person to be able to hold the momentum for the whole movement. I think what you did with the film and getting that in front of the eyeballs that you have done is in front of the M.A.S. in front of MPs, I think that’s fantastic. And I think it’s as much then for the rest of us to pick up that momentum that you’ve created and just keep

on pushing forwards with it.

Sarah Chaundler (30:00)
yeah, mean, gosh, the whole idea of the film was to show that the incredible work that was being done in Birmingham by this group, Better Streets for Birmingham, and to show the passion that’s there. Yeah, so that’s why I did it.

Kevin Carmody (30:19)
Yeah,

and I think you showed it fantastically. I’ve watched it. I think it’s great film. So, okay. Thank you very much for your time, Sarah. And I hope we see the baton being picked up by the government.

Sarah Chaundler (30:33)
That would be good in many ways as well. Yeah. Thank you, Kevin. Thanks for your time.