Road Safety GB, PACTS, RoSPA and the IAM have all moved swiftly to back the Transport Committee’s call for the “Government to step up and provide stronger leadership on road safety”.
“While we support the idea of localism and acknowledge that individual areas of the country have different local road safety issues, with so many people and businesses travelling on roads throughout the country we feel it is important to have a national focus to bring all the efforts and work together.
“The Select Committee is concerned with the recent rise in fatalities. Statistically you would be naive to pay particular attention to one year’s worth of data but like the Committee we are obviously concerned that in 2011 fatalities rose compared to the previous years. We will be very concerned if there is an ongoing trend which shows casualties increasing in future years.
“Road Safety GB welcomes the opportunity to engage with Government and remains committed to helping road safety professionals and highways authorities across the UK to continue to facilitate education, training and publicity programmes which are well targeted and achieve best value.”
The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) welcomed the report and suggested that the Government is prioritising the economy over lives. Robert Gifford, executive director of PACTS, said: “Just over a year after the publication of the Government’s Strategic Framework for Road Safety and following the first rise in road deaths since 2003 and in serious injuries since 1994, it is time to take stock of how we are doing in road safety.
“In its report, the Committee has highlighted the lack of leadership being given to the road safety profession by the current Government. The Government seems more committed to reducing the deficit than it does to cutting deaths and injuries. Yet, as Mr Penning has said, the success of his time as road safety minister will be demonstrated in further reductions in deaths and injuries.
“The figures for 2011 show that there is no room for complacency with regard to road safety policy and activity. As we review the framework, we also need to develop a British version of Vision Zero, developing both an appropriate philosophy for improving safety and the means to achieve it.”
Simon Best, IAM chief executive, said: “We welcome the Select Committee’s report; it highlights the potentially lethal combination of reducing investment in road safety while scrapping casualty targets.
“We would like to see more suggestions on how to bring the worst councils up to the level of the best. It’s simply not fair that people are much more likely to die in a road accident in some areas than they are in others. The Government should be held accountable when it allows a local authority to fail on road safety.
“MPs are also right to raise young drivers as a priority. There is still much more that we can do in terms of training young drivers to give them the experience they need to be safe. The Government could save lives and reduce insurance premiums by investing in training for young drivers beyond the L test.”
Kevin Clinton, head of road safety at RoSPA, said: "RoSPA welcomes the Transport Committee’s report, which is timely because of the recently announced increase in road deaths.
"What the increase in road deaths and this report highlight is the need to review what is happening on road safety in this country, including what effects spending cuts and service reorganisation are having and how successful the Strategic Framework for Road Safety is being.
"Although we are still in the early days of the framework, we are pleased to see that the Government is going to review it this year. It is important to identify whether the road safety strategy can be improved because, as the economy picks up in the coming years, road use will increase and we do not want to find ourselves in a situation in which road deaths and injuries are rising as a result. We therefore need to prepare for economic improvements, as well as more people cycling and more young drivers coming back on to the roads. These are among the factors that may put an upwards pressure on road casualty figures and now is the time to review what is happening and what can be done."
Brian Gregory, ABD Chairman, says: “Despite much furore over switching off cameras and cutting funding for 20mph zones, it is obvious from the recent statistics that areas that have switched off or not installed cameras, such as Avon and Somerset, Swindon and Durham have actually achieved very good results, while areas such as Portsmouth, which spent much of their budget on 20mph limits, had the worst casualty increases in the country.
“The ABD demands a thorough appraisal of the effectiveness of all road safety measures. Giving power to local councils is all very well in theory but all too often they lack expertise and are keen on what they see as vote winning measures that appease local residents and pressure groups, rather than truly effective measures that save lives.”
For more information contact Hannah Pearce, Transport Select Committee, on 020 7219 8430, or click here to view the report.
The 2011 figures are still down from 2009 and marked on a graph show an even downward trend in line with the past few years. 2010 was clearly an exceptional year with a sudden drop and we need to look at the reasons. Could it be simply that much of the country was at a standstill for many weeks in 2010 due to snow at both ends of the year? A few weeks with hardly any traffic movement is bound to affect the statistics.
Dave Russell
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The report states that the Government should respond formally to the Times eight point manifesto and point 1 of that campaign is to fit sensors to lorries. They also list 10 areas where improvement can be made and point 5 was to fit sensors to lorries. Come on guys, we have the only cycle specific sensors on the market and have been trying to speak with Government for ages. Maybe now they will get in touch.
John Doors, cycle alert, London
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Oh dear, oh dear oh dear! If the report (and a few of the comments) are typical of the level of analysis and understanding of road accidents by authorities across the country – and after 12 years and thousands of hours studying these subjects I have good reason to believe they are – I can only fear for the future.
Central to the concerted wailing and gnashing of teeth over the very modest increases in some casualty parameters in 2011 after 3 years of almost unprecedented falls – i.e. statistical blips bound to happen sooner or later – is the wholly unjustified assumption of direct (and near instantaneous) causal relationships policies and spending on the one hand and casualty rates on the other.
How can I put this politely? THERE IS NO MEANINGFUL LARGE SCALE EVIDENCE OF ANY SUCH CAUSAL LINK – and even if there were, it would be long-term over years, not immediate.
Idris Francis
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Recently, I, as Chairman of a localised Road Safety Committee have had to “wind up”, “disband”, whatever word is right, after nearly 40 years of excellent work and campaigning. This is partially due to firstly, the County Council withdrawing support by not allowing County Councillors to attend the meetings which they always had done, and also because of the Highways Authority telling us that they would no longer listen to what we had to say on local issues. They would receive our letters, but would only file them. They would only listen to individual parishes with regards to any issue. We had represented these parishes for many years and had been listened to. I believe that this is a case of “united we stand and divided we fall” which is exactly what has happened. They will have all their answers as to why this has happened.
Robin Pegg, Norfolk
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When the Police figures show KSI falling, but all other indicators show serious injuries not falling, and when this is reported by the British Medical Journal and by Transcom to be under-reporting by the Police, and eventually the DfT investigate and find large-scale under-reporting by the Police, I think we do have to conclude that road safety did “stall” for a long time leading up to the recession.
Like you Tanya, I do not believe there was “manipulation” or “an order” in that deliberate sense but there may be a fundamental problem when the people that record the data know that they are expected to record less of it and may therefore be more “careful” about ensuring an injury actually is serious before recording it as such.
Overall road safety across GB 1950-2009 can be seen here: http://speedcamerareport.co.uk/05_gb_road_safety.htm
Dave Finney – Slough
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I also don’t believe there is any evidence for an increase in Police under-reporting to try to manipulate the figures to meet the 2010 targets. Under-reporting of serious injuries via Police data is an international phenomena and has been researched for many years. The quality of the data is variable worldwide and in fact, the information recorded in the UK is some of the best. In the Netherlands, for example, there is an under-reporting of fatalities. Whilst Stats19 data is not perfect, it allows us to undertake trend analysis because of the consistency in reporting/under-reporting. I really don’t believe that there was an order to Chief Constables to lose serious collisions either through non-attendance or by downgrading severity in order to reach the targets.
Lastly, there are issues with undertaking trend analysis on hospital data because there have been changes in practice over time. Furthermore, the health sector has different reasons for collecting data which do not necessarily marry up to the needs of the road safety sector – the inclusion of off-road cyclists is an example. What we need to aim for is better linking up of the two data sources in order to have the best understanding of what is happening on our roads as possible.
Tanya, Suffolk
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I would still question that recession is the over-riding influence on casualty rates – a lot more research needs to be done to understand the links between economic downturns and road collisions. For example, in 2011, decreases in deaths were seen in Latvia, Spain, Bulgaria and Romania yet these countries saw a mixture of growth, slow growth or were in a recession. Conversely, Estonia, Sweden, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK all experienced increases in road deaths in 2011 where some of these countries experienced the fastest growth of the EU, whilst others experienced slow growth or stagnated (like the UK). The UK re-entered recession in early 2012 so I don’t think we can attribute the 2011’s casualty figures to an improving economy (and as I said previously, the growth rates in 2011 were very similar to 2010 when we saw large decreases in casualty rates).
Tanya, Suffolk
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Good points Tanya. Deaths are the only reliably recorded figures and serious injuries recorded by Police tracked deaths all the way up to the start of the 40% target. After that, Police figures fell in line with the target despite deaths hardly changing, hospital admissions staying much the same, F+R figures showing no fall, insurance claims not falling and total collisions not falling. It has to be concluded that road safety had “stalled” with the Police under-reporting serious injuries by ever greater amounts.
Suddenly, just as the recession loomed, road safety dramatically improved (not just in the UK) as it has done in previous economic bad times. Obviously, as you state, there are other factors but the recession is clearly the over-riding influence.
We have yet to find out why there was a slight increase in deaths last year, it could be that we are coming out of recession or perhaps just a statistical blip?
Dave Finney – Slough
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If the recession ‘saved the day’ in terms of reductions in KSI casualties then what happened in 2011? The UK was officially in recession from early 2008 to mid-2009 when annual reductions in KSI casualties were 7% and 6%. Growth rates in quarters 1, 3 and 4 were almost identical in 2010 and 2011 (when the UK was not offically in a recession) yet the there was a 9% reduction in KSI casualties in 2010 and a 2% increase in 2011.
So how did the same growth rates that in 2010 caused a decrease in casualties cause an increase in 2011? There is surely more to these casualty rates than leaving them to fluctuations in the British economy.
Tanya, Suffolk
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I must agree with Eric that results in Portsmouth are very worrying, particularly since RSPs, far from raising the alarm, are promoting widespread increases in 20mph schemes, despite the evidence.
And I must agree again with Eric regarding honesty. For instance, the 1st target to reduce casualties by a 1/3 was a total failure (they hardly changed at all) and the 2nd, to reduce KSI by 40% was going to be a total failure until the recession saved the day.
Worse still, the 40% KSI target was simply an extension of the previous trend. Had road safety simply continued as it had before, the target should have been met quite easily. The fact that it required the recession to restart improvements ought to have been a major cause for concern.
Yet we hear almost nothing from the authorities on these concerns, and they even promote more targets!
Dave Finney – Slough
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Much of the thrust here is concerned with “the effects of the cuts”. The flipside is to look at the effects of the expenditure. Millions are being spent on 20mph schemes and yet they are resulting in increases in casualties – particularly among cyclists and pedestrians. The recent results from Portsmouth (serious injuries up from 91 to 143) are the latest shocking indicator.
It is not acceptable to promote schemes in the name of road safety when they damage it. The Transport Committee need to look at this, and Road Safety professionals need to be more honest with themselves and the public about the effects of “interventions”.
Eric Bridgstock, Independent Road Safety Research, St Albans
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How about the many road safety teams and emergency services going through ‘money saving’ changes last year. That could account for some of this.
Liam
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Perhaps the latest highlighted problem [this week in fact] that the NHS emergency services have in getting accident victims to A&E within the hour following an accident may have some effect on figures.
Could there be a correlation somewhere?
bob craven Lancs
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