I’d had enough - why I made the film City of Cars

City of Cars is a documentary highlighting dangerous driving in Birmingham and the impact on victims and communities. Sarah Chaundler, the film's director and producer, explains why she started documenting 'an epidemic of dangerous driving in the city'

I’d had enough. Enough of cars screaming past me and my children as we walked to school. Enough of drivers running red lights at pedestrian crossings and using their phones behind the wheel. Enough of squeezing past idling cars parked on pavements and being close passed on my bike.

And, more than anything else, enough of learning that yet another person - someone else’s mother, husband, child, friend - had been killed or harmed in a road traffic collision.

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Delegates at Delivering Vision Zero on 30 June in Birmingham will be able to see a version of City of Cars, meet Sarah, Mat and others, and discuss how Birmingham - and all cities and regions – need to change for the better

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My decision to start documenting what I was witnessing in Birmingham was due to immense fear and frustration: fear for the safety of my children and others, and frustration that not enough was being done to address what many people living here believe to be an epidemic of dangerous driving in the city. 

Watch City of Cars trailer

Political leadership and the need for change

I have lived in Birmingham since the year 2000 and my perception is that driving standards have declined over that time. In the last decade, for example, there have been just six average speed cameras operating over a 1,500-mile road network.

My observation is born out in official statistics: in 2014, four hundred and eleven people were killed or seriously injured (KSIs) in Birmingham; by 2024, that figure had risen to five hundred and thirty four - an increase of 30% in ten years. 

I wanted the film to convey the raw human cost of these collisions, while also making clear that meaningful change requires strong political leadership. In City of Cars, this is articulated by Chris Boardman, Active Travel Commissioner for England, who speaks poignantly about his own personal loss and desire for political commitment to life-saving measures. 

Watch Chris Boardman talk about road safety and personal loss 

Public protests and visibility 

Another crucial ingredient for change is visible public support. So when campaign group Better Streets for Birmingham began staging high-profile demonstrations on roads where people had been killed or injured, I knew it was important to capture this moment.

The protests led by Mat Macdonald, now West Midlands Road Safety Commissioner, showed that parents, children, grandparents - people not typically associated with activism, were willing to stand in the road, temporarily stop the traffic and demand change.  

Watch the protest for safer streets

In 2024, one thousand six hundred and two people were killed in road traffic collisions in Great Britain - the equivalent of roughly four large passenger planes crashing and killing everyone on board. A further twenty nine thousand, four hundred and sixty seven people were seriously injured. It’s hard to imagine the airline industry, or the government, failing to act decisively in the face of such calamitous loss of life. Yet on our roads, this scale of death and injury is repeated year after year with relatively little being done to reverse the grim toll. 

“War on motorists”

But even talking about practical ways to prevent road traffic collisions has become a polarising issue, with the emergence of a politically driven narrative, possibly underpinned by commercial interests, about a “war on motorists”. Rather than shrink from this, I would argue we need to address this negative framing of what are potentially life saving policies, and make a passionate, well evidenced and concise case for change.

Policy versus dangerous lived reality 

Birmingham’s Transport Plan 2031 sets out a vision for a city where more people walk, cycle or get about their neighbourhood under their own steam, reducing reliance on cars. Some progress has been made, including the redesign of the city centre giving pedestrians more space, and the creation of key cycle lanes such as the A38. But for most Brummies, ditching the car for active modes of transport remains a distant, if laudable, goal.

Communities are still plagued by dangerous driving, and many neighbourhood streets where children should be safe, feel inhospitable to anyone outside a car.  

This stark chasm between policy objectives written about in reports, and lived reality, became a central theme in City of Cars. It reflects the daily experience of those of us feeling under threat from the onslaught of careless or dangerous driving, limited enforcement and little in the way of safer street design. 

Watch communities under threat from dangerous driving

The human cost

Nothing underlines this point more clearly than the death of a child. In City of Cars, I highlight the deaths of two children killed by drivers just metres from their front doors.

In June 2023, twelve-year-old Azaan Khan was cycling home from the sweet shop when he was struck by dangerous driver, Shazad Alam, on Coventry Road. In April 2024, four-year-old Mayar Yahia was killed by careless driver, Javonnie Tavener, while walking along the pavement with her family and friends. 

I met Mayar’s father, Babiker, the day after she was killed, when I visited the crash site in Highgate. Over time, I got to know him and his wife Sara, who was lying seriously injured in hospital, separated from her husband, baby and two other children.

I can’t fully comprehend how they coped in those early months - Sarah had to be taken to her daughter’s funeral by ambulance as she was still too unwell to be discharged from hospital.  I saw how their friends and family rallied around them to take the children to and from school, look after the baby and cook for the family.

Documenting their unquantifiable loss and extraordinary resilience as they support their children through grief, has been profoundly moving. I keep the daily reality of their plight in my thoughts, and hope that by telling their story, and shining a spotlight on the dangerous driving still frequently exhibited on the street where Mayar lost her life, something will change. 

But more than two years on, little has. Despite a powerful campaign led by Mat MacDonald, and Mayar’s parents, plans to pedestrianise Upper Highgate Street - where the collision occurred - have been put on hold by Birmingham City Council. 

Watch Mayar Yahia Square 

What has changed?

People often ask whether anything positive came from this period of intense campaigning. The answer is yes - there have been tangible gains. 

Public and political awareness of road danger in Birmingham has increased, driven by social media and timely coverage from outlets including BBC Midlands Today, Radio 4’s Today Programme, local and national newspapers. After public outcry, good media coverage is critical. It creates a head of steam and pressure for action. 

Some practical changes are happening. Birmingham City Council has reduced speed limits on almost all roads in the city to 30mph and are working with West Midlands police to trial red light camera technology at certain locations.

There are plans to expand the number of average speed cameras from six to twelve. There’s also a new mobile enforcement “camera car” which records video evidence of parking misdemeanors. 

West Midlands Police have also improved their handling of footage submitted by cyclists and motorists. In 2025, more than 23,000 reports were submitted, the highest in any UK police force area, leading to increased prosecutions and driver education. While challenges remain, particularly around the 14-day legal processing window, enforcement has clearly strengthened.  

Moving forwards

Since winning best documentary at the Birmingham Forward Film Festival in 2025, City of Cars has been profiled on BBC regional news and local media, it has been shown to local and regional  government officials and representives, MPs at Westminster, neighbourhood forum meetings, to road safety and active travel campaign groups, at festivals, local cinemas and places of work, and I continue to receive requests to screen it.

I’m proud to have made a film which challenges the ongoing and historic injustice taking place on our roads. I was incredibly fortunate to work with grassroots campaigners from Better Streets for Birmingham and was buoyed up and carried along by their passion and knowledge.

I am deeply thankful to Mayar Yahia’s family who entrusted me with their painful story. 

What is needed now is sustained regional and national action underpinned by clear, honest and regular public communication about the devastating impact of road harm; better education around the law, articulating the eye watering economic and public health costs associated with collisions and poor air quality; and building stronger support for the policy and infrastructure changes required to stop the daily carnage on our roads.

There is still a surprising lack of awareness even about the basic rules - for example, that using a mobile phone while stuck in traffic is illegal, as is blocking a pavement with a vehicle, or that pedestrians now have greater priority under the Highway Code. This lack of awareness presents an opportunity: to inform, influence, and ultimately change behaviour.

The scale of harm on our roads is not inevitable. But addressing it requires political courage, public pressure, careful framing which humanises loss, ‘wins hearts and minds’ and sets out a clear pathway to reduce dependency on cars, demonstrates the positive lifestyle and health  benefits of safe active travel and reliable public transport. Only then will we stop the deaths, improve public health and achieve ‘Vision Zero’.