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Government’s ‘Strategic Framework for Road Safety’ widely criticised20 July 2011by Emma Jamieson The Government’s ‘Strategic Framework for Road Safety’ has been criticised in an open letter to the Times. The letter, signed by Robert Gifford, Executive Director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety and endorsed by four former transport ministers, and numerous road safety academics and practitioners, called on the Government to "implement strategies that will meet the European target of reducing [road] deaths by 50% by 2020". Gifford states that the Government's Strategic Framework shows "a noticeable lack of ambition" as "to achieve the central forecast contained in this document, we only need to cut deaths by 4.7% over the next decade (that is less than 0.5% a year), compared with a fall of more than 16% in the single year from 2009 and 2010". Gifford points out that the UK Government supported the European Commission's setting of the new target of halving road deaths by 2020 and that meeting this target "would save more than 4,600 lives in Britain by 2020, a benefit to the country worth more than £7 billion". The letter did not offer suggestions as to what the Government should do to achieve this 50% drop in road deaths and it must be acknowledged that most of the drop in road deaths over recent years is due to improved safety features in car design rather than Government policies or interventions. In the box below, we've listed important potential interventions to reduce road deaths. Possibly the most significant, and one that was recentty rejected by the Government, would be to reduce the legal alcohol limit for driving. The public are very much in favour of a drop in the drink driving limit while there is compelling evidence from experts, as embodied in the North Report, that it would save lives. Even those just under the current legal drink driving limit are six times more likely to crash than those that have not been drinking.
Changing young drivers' attitudes to reckless driving and training them to a higher skill level are both central to reducing road deaths. These are areas that the Government proposes to address via enhanced road safety training at school and improvements to the driving test. They are also currently overhauling the Pass Plus to replace it with a new training programme that they hope will be more readily recognised by car insurance providers via lowered premiums, so improvinig uptake. It is known that electronic stability control, such as ABS, reduces accidents and road deaths. As a result, there will be a global requirement for it to be fitted as standard in all new cars from 2012. A large Thatcham study of autonomous emergency braking found that around 10% of all accidents, that's 270,000 crashes every year, could be prevented if cars were fitted with autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems. To render this also mandatory would undoubtedly reduce road deaths. Mandatory Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) deploys technology that is currently available to restrict vehicle speeds to comply with the speed limit. The international research agency MIRA and the Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) in Leeds have researched the use of mandatory ISA and have shown that it would reduce road deaths by 50%. Sweden has already introduced 'advisory' Intelligent Speed Adaptation. This warns drivers when they enter a new speed limit or if they infringe it but does not prevent speeding. According to the road safety charity Brake, this is effective in controlling speeds for around a quarter but a larger number are willing to speed even with advisory Intelligent Speed Adaptation. Mandatory ISA, where the car is prevented from speeding, would therefore appear to be a better solution. In fact, Intelligent Speed Adaptation is not a new idea. As long ago as 2002, the Transport, Local Government and Regions Committee recommended that ISA technology should be supported via an EU directive requiring all new vehicles sold from 2013 to have Intelligent Speed Adaptation capability. In the AA's national 'Streetwatch' survey in which 40,000 vehicles were observed at junctions and roundabouts, it was found that 4.9% of drivers were not wearing a seat belt. As a third of all road fatalities were not wearing a seatbelt, this is another area for potential targeting as occured throughout Wales in a recent police campaign. Drivers underestimate the risks of being distracted at the wheel, as we reviewed in a recent news item on driving without due care. Indeed use of mobile phones while driving, especially by young drivers, has been increasing. The potential life-saving effect of a reduction in the speed limit to 20mph in residential areas is presented in our next news article: Public worried about children's road safety next to their homes. Although not an exhaustive list, these are key areas that could have a powerful impact on reducing road deaths. If the Government is indeed to be more ambitious in reducing road deaths, in line with the EU target, then these areas merit careful consideration. |
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