Over the past three decades the UK has made great strides in reducing the number of people killed and seriously injured on our roads through innovation in education, enforcement and engineering. We can justifiably claim that our roads are among the safest in the world. However, road death and injury continues to plague our communities with around 450 deaths and serious injuries every week. Road traffic collisions remain the biggest source of death and injury for young people and the greatest danger that most people routinely face in their daily lives. Continued reductions in casualties cannot be taken for granted: in 2014 the number of people killed or seriously injured almost certainly rose. On a purely economic basis, preventing these avoidable crashes, deaths and injuries would make a significant contribution to our economic growth - the value of preventing reported road accidents in 2013 was estimated to be £14.7bn, and if accidents not reported to the police are included, this rises to around £30 billion. The previous Government published its Strategic Framework for Road Safety in 2011 in which it confirmed: “Our long-term vision is to ensure that Britain remains a world leader on road safety. There have been impressive improvements over previous decades and in recent years. We are committed to ensuring this trend is maintained. Alongside this our aim is to reduce the relatively high risk of some groups more quickly, in particular for cyclists and children from deprived areas. In the longer term, with improvements in technology, e.g. collision avoidance — which will continue to transform the way we drive and use roads and the ability of the system to protect all road users when things go wrong — allied with safer and better driving, we will see a very different world. We want to encourage all road safety stakeholders to join together to support us in making this vision a reality.” We believe there is much in this vision which remains valid. To sustain and improve our road safety achievements, and to prevent the number of casualties, and their costs, increasing as the economy improves, we need to strengthen the Strategic Framework for Road Safety by adopting the Safe System and vision zero approach. We need to develop a Safe System approach and a vision which challenges everyone who influences road safety to change the way we think about using our road environment and the way we work together to make it safer for everyone. The motivation of road safety professionals along with their professional bodies provides a platform upon which Government policies can be delivered but strong political leadership is essential to provide a coherent direction for the remainder of this decade and beyond. There is a willingness from individual stakeholders and leading organisations to continue to provide such support and input following that commitment to reduce death and injuries on our roads and maintain our high profile around the world in this area. This paper has been compiled by an alliance of road safety organisations comprising: Association of Industrial Road Safety Officers (AIRSO) Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) RoadSafe Road Safety Foundation Road Safety GB Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) We urge the Government to set out a new road safety action plan with priorities which will deliver high levels of casualty reduction. With this goal in mind we recommend the following programme of actions. (Author/publisher)
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