Press
ReleasePress
Release
The Road Danger Reduction Forum (RDRF), in harmony with other road safety campaigning groups, is appalled by the lack of vision and leadership in the Government's new road safety strategy. The only coherent theme running through the document is the constant repetition of the dubious claim that Britain has an excellent road safety record. This generates unjustified and dangerous complacency amongst Britain's motorists. We believe that DETR needs to make a fundamental shift to a new agenda based on reducing danger at source which links road safety to wider sustainable transport objectives.
The claim to a good road safety record is based on the fall in reported fatal and serious injuries on our roads. Overall casualty numbers have, however, changed little in the last forty years (in fact slight injuries have significantly increased). This can be explained by numerous factors such as superior medical care. More important, fear of increasing danger from more motor vehicles has driven pedestrians and cyclists off our roads, some into ever more crashworthy cars where they have more crashes but are less likely to be seriously injured. As our record for child pedestrian casualties (and other indicators such as insurance claims) shows, for those who choose or have no choice but to walk and cycle the road environment is now often no less - or more - dangerous. The hidden casualties from the environmental destruction and the sedentary lifestyles these changes have caused will far outweigh any road casualty savings.
The Forum along with all rational observers knows that the only way to really increase safety on our roads is through a complete change in the culture of driving. Such an assertion is absent from the road safety strategy. There is no attempt to tackle the motoring lobby head on and place responsibility for reducing danger where it belongs, behind the driving wheel. Sadly this appears to be yet more backtracking on sustainable transport policy by the Government.
Where the Government should be taking a lead it merely passes the buck to more politically sensitive Local Authorities. The strategy includes some fine advice on good practice, but the response of most forward thinking Authorities is that they are already doing this. They expected so much more, a vision and commitment to really take road safety to the next level! Instead the Government has "wimped out"!
"The Government must force those who create road danger to take responsibility", said RDRF President, Lord Berkeley. "This is a moral issue, not one about selective statistics. We need to get back to understanding who is killing whom and reduce danger at its source - the motorised road user."
Chapter 1 - Introduction
On face value the targets (in 1.4) for killed and seriously injured look tough. However, if current trends continue they are likely to be met with no change in current practice. This is particularly so with the target for slight casualties, which is cynically to be measured per 100 million vehicle kilometres. Given predicted traffic growth this target could thus be met with overall numbers of slight casualties increasing.
Chapter 2 - Safer for Children
Whilst there is substantial comment on pedestrian and cyclist training for children there is no mention that a key objective of this should be to encourage more walking and cycling. Incredibly, there is no recognition of the concept of "critical mass". A key objective of road safety policy should be to increase numbers of cyclists and pedestrians to a point where motorists are so aware of their presence that they automatically take more care.
In section 2.27 the DETR claim to be "working with cycling groups and interested commercial organisations to make training more widely available". Yet they refused an invitation to make the keynote address at the first national conference on cyclist training which the Forum hosted in December 1999. They failed to even send a delegate. The Forum is leading a national campaign is to see top quality cyclist training made available to all and in January wrote to Keith Hill seeking a meeting to discuss this: he has not sent even an acknowledgement of our letter.
Chapter 3 - Safer drivers - training and testing
There is no mention of two measures that have received considerable discussion: raising the legal driving age and re-testing of (non-convicted) drivers. The measures suggested tinker at the edge of testing and training as a proper measure of regulation. At the moment virtually all those who wish to drive with a licence can do so, and benefits of being able to pass the test should be seen as offset by the pride generated by passing.
Chapter 5 - Safer infrastructure
There is no discussion about the criteria to be employed to evaluate safety schemes. If they are not based on new criteria derived from a danger reduction perspective, they will continue to be based on where personal injuries have been reported. There will then be no consideration for dangerous places where people such as cyclists and pedestrians have only not been hurt or killed because they have been intimidated from such areas, or are only there in numbers lower than the Government has claimed it wants to see.
Chapter 7 - Car design
The emphasis here remains on "crashworthiness" and performance improvements. There is substantial and compelling evidence that this serves to insulate drivers from the road environment and encourage them to take less care. We are appalled at the prospect of pedestrian safety being thought of in terms of "pedestrian friendly" car fronts
There is no mention made about the fact that new cars are not designed to be driven comfortably at low speed, have inaccurate speedometers, can far exceed maximum speed limits and many other factors which if tackled would radically improve real safety. On-board black box technology to assist in post-collision investigation is available but unmentioned.
Chapter 8 - Safer motorcycling Cont'd
This is discussed in terms of the casualties suffered by motorcyclists - but there is no mention of the threat that motorcycling can pose to other road users, particularly pedestrians. Once again, the DETR confuses the danger posed by some road users (the motorised) with the resultant hazards suffered by other road users.
Chapter 9 - Safety for pedestrians, cyclists and horseriders
The DETR marginalises the modes that it claims Government is supporting by lumping together cyclists and pedestrians with horseriders - and giving totally inadequate commitment to their safety.
The DETR still appears to see the appropriate response to danger being to alert the parents of the potential victims ("parents in particular should be aware of the heightened danger to children") (9.12). It is uncertain what is meant by saying that "There is no question of increasing the amount of cycling without a decrease in accident rates".(9.14). Does this mean that there will be a reduction in support for cycling - something which does not appear to be the case for other modes - on "safety" grounds?
The DETR finally admits (9.13) that it "could consider" casualty rates as a more rational measure than aggregated casualties - after we have called for this for years. But it has still not attempted to find proper data of real usefulness, particularly on measures of danger as well as casualty rates. Besides, we are concerned that any commitment to casualty rate reduction may be based on erroneous estimates of the effectiveness of some measures: in particular, an excessive emphasis on cycle helmets dwarves an oblique reference to on-road cycle training, which is given the same amount of attention as bicycle bell fitting.
The DETR does not refer to the danger to pedestrians posed by motorcycling, but by contrast, special attention is given (9.10) to the minuscule proportion of pedestrian deaths that involve cyclists - although not the similar proportion of cyclist casualties that are the legal responsibility of pedestrians.
Chapter 10 - Better enforcement
Law enforcement and sentencing is a crucial area. The perception of realistic chances of being caught and banned for driving offences can be a potent measure for road safety. Yet the only definite measures proposed are partial and minor.
Amending maximum fines for careless driving will not fundamentally reduce the scandal of drivers who or are responsible for having killed or injured being allowed to continue driving.
There are no attempts to measure levels of rule and law infraction and devote resources accordingly. There are no attempts to address the problems of failing to stop incidents, and intelligent systems to approach it.
These are only some of the serious deficiencies in the Road Safety Strategy, which we hope the Government will quickly lay to rest.
For further advice contact: Ken Spence 01904 551331, Mike Baugh 01225 394254, Robert Davis 0181 451 1309, Cathy McKenzie 0171 502 0406
Note to editors: The RDRF is a local government road safety organisation whose membership includes 26 local authorities.