Transport: Accident Prevention

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to take part in this important debate. I thank my noble friend Lord Attlee for initiating it. It was also a pleasure to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who is a transport expert like my noble friend. I am not a transport expert and I am not a cyclist—I think a combination of laziness and fear has prevented me. I am afraid I will probably concentrate on London, as that is my experience.

I was first sensitised to the issue we are discussing today as a local councillor in the 1990s in the London Borough of Islington, when I was aware of two fatalities in my area. As a Member of the European Parliament, I got involved particularly in supporting the See Me Save Me campaign, which was started by the Cairns family after Eilidh Cairns was killed in Notting Hill.

The death statistics are indeed terrible. I think there are about 14 fatalities of cyclists a year in London. Heavy goods vehicles represent only about one in 20 of the vehicles on the roads but are responsible for 55% of the fatalities. There are clearly some cowboy HGV drivers and employers but I feel that others are let down by the poor design of cabs and the lack of warning equipment leading to these fatal lorry blind spots.

The basic design of HGVs can and must play a significant role in reducing cycling fatalities and serious injuries, and I think there are three issues. The first is better design of cabs, allowing greater visibility to see cyclists and other road users. That can be done by lowering the cab, placing the driver in the middle of the cab, using more glass and improved mirrors. Secondly, there could be some kind of warning equipment. My noble friend talked about the possibility of equipment. I tried to follow the technical aspects of what he said, but it was about some kind of RFID on a bike. My experience has been more learning a bit about sensors on a lorry to warn the driver. But I take the point—I think that Transport for London makes the point, too—that there are so many different schemes, it is very difficult to assess their value. TfL is doing a study to try to get an evaluation of them. The third issue, which I will come back to in a second, is side guards on construction lorries.

I very much welcome the agreement recently achieved at EU level on a new directive on the weights and dimensions of lorries. That should deliver life-saving changes to lorry design, improving the direct vision under the front windscreen and minimising the risk of overrun and damage in the event of collision by replacing the blunt front with a more elongated and rounded one and an expanded glazed area with mirrors and cameras. Are the Government committed to the follow-up work from this directive? As I understand it, the talk is of a type-approval directive with a rather long timescale—longer than the European Parliament wanted—of about seven years. Are the Government committed to seeing the directive into law and to a mandatory requirement for HGVs to carry these safety features? Last year, in conjunction with some other politicians, I wrote to the Minister’s colleague Mr Stephen Hammond. It was slightly unclear in the reply whether there was that commitment from the Government. I would like to know whether there is a formal position of the Department for Transport on the prospect of a type-approval directive. I think that we do need to get HGVs fit for the 21st century.

As I said, TfL has commissioned a study to develop an independent testing method for vehicle safety technology. My noble friend Lord Attlee talked about the national role for the Department for Transport. I am sure that that is right, eventually; but in the mean time, it is good that TfL is doing some work on this.

I mentioned side guards, as others have. We know that among the HGVs involved in fatal collisions, construction lorries—tipper lorries, skip loaders and so on—are disproportionately represented. They are apparently exempt under the 1986 regulations because they claim to be vehicles designed and constructed for special purposes where it is not possible for practical reasons to fit side guards. TfL does not regard these vehicles as special purpose. Only in very special circumstances are they going on to such terrain where side guards would help stop people being pulled under the wheels of the lorry. The question is whether they really do need to travel around London without safeguards. I think that we are all a bit disappointed that the Department for Transport has been slow in launching its consultation on removing those exemptions from construction vehicles. Can the Minister give me a date when the consultation will be launched and a promise that it will be expedited and wide in scope, in the sense of reducing, as far as possible, any exemption?

While we wait for European and national action, I am pleased that the Mayor of London, Transport for London and London Councils have agreed on a London-wide ban on lorries not fitted with safety equipment to protect cyclists and pedestrians coming into London. I think that the Safer Lorry Scheme will be launched in September, once warning signs and so on are in place. All roads in Greater London, except motorways, will be covered by this scheme. It will require vehicles of more than three and a half tonnes to be fitted with side guards to protect cyclists and class V and class VI mirrors—I confess that I do not actually know what those are—to give drivers a better view of cyclists and pedestrians around their vehicle. I saw recently that Sir Peter Hendy, the boss of Transport for London, has indicated his willingness to mandate cycle-friendly HGVs on all contracts. It has been operating on the Crossrail contract, but it sounds as though he is interested in widening that procurement role.

I conclude with some points that are unrelated to lorry design or equipment. I very much welcome, as does my colleague Caroline Pidgeon on the London Assembly, the superhighways for cycle lanes in London. I have also been asked to find out, going outside London, when the Department for Transport will empower local authorities to enforce moving traffic offences, such as stopping in box junctions and driving in cycle lanes. Apparently, some foot-dragging appears to be going on there. I must stop now. I look forward to answers from the Minister.