Since the first national road safety target for Great Britain was set in 1987, great progress has been made in reducing casualties on our roads. But there is so much more to do. Road collisions are still the major cause of death and serious injury to young people and the biggest danger that most adults face in their daily lives. Road traffic danger affects people’s lives in many ways: it discourages some people from walking and cycling, the freedom of children is restricted and older drivers often limit their driving. Despite great improvements in emergency services and trauma care, thousands of people are left with life-changing injuries while the families of casualties may find their lives changed forever too. In 2013 (the most recent year for which full data are available) some 183,670 people were reported injured, including 23,370 killed or seriously injured, at a cost to society of over £15bn, according to official government figures. PACTS has calculated that on current trends some 350,000 people will be killed or seriously injured in Great Britain between 2010 and 2030 at a cost to society of £110bn. PACTS and Direct Line believe that casualties can and should be reduced further and faster. Once the outcome of the 2015 UK general election is known, the Government will consider its strategy for road safety. Members of Parliament have vital roles in promoting road safety — passing legislation, scrutinising the Government’s policies and representing the interests of their constituents, many of whom will be personally affected by road trauma. As the democratically elected representative for the constituency, an MP will often be the person to champion local road safety issues and to bring together the many public and private organisations involved. Good information is an essential basis for effective road safety actions and the UK has a long-established and robust system for compiling road casualty data. This information, however, is rarely presented at Parliamentary constituency level. Indeed, until recently this was not technically possible. Instead, it is shown using local authority boundaries or other bases which rarely coincide with constituency boundaries. This makes it harder for an MP to see the overall picture for their constituency, to track local progress or to compare one constituency with another. To address this problem, PACTS commissioned Road Safety Analysis Ltd to create a set of online reports — one for each Parliamentary constituency - that present key information in a simple format at constituency level. The result is the Constituency Road Safety Dashboard. This was possible only as a result of support and funding from Direct Line. A further unique feature of the Dashboard is that it presents information on casualties to the residents of the constituency, even if the crash occurred outside the constituency. These casualties would also be a concern for the MP, their constituents and quite possibly for local services and businesses. There will be many reasons why casualty rates and progress are higher or lower in certain constituencies. The figures provided here are not measures of performance. They are intended to highlight differences and to prompt questions about how progress can be made. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting