Road Traffic Accident Prevention

Andrew Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Sheerman]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I will not detain the Chamber for long with the rest of my speech, but I add that the UK is one of only five EU countries that does not legally require drivers to be tested by a medical or optical professional as part of their driving test, so she is absolutely right.

Another issue that is becomingly increasingly evident—with this I will upset the Minister—is the lack of police officers making sure that our roads are safe. The number of road traffic officers is down 23% from 2010. I raised this issue on Monday in Home Office questions, which you were there for, Mr Hollobone. The night before, I was coming back from Cambridge, with my wife driving, and on the M11 an enormous rescue van—a lorry—with another lorry on top was proceeding at over 65 mph where there was a 50 mph limit. The size and weight of that in an accident would have killed a lot of people. Road traffic technology is able to detect such drivers. There are those who drive—I said “like maniacs”, but perhaps that was a bit harsh—in a very dangerous fashion with no fear that there will be a flashing blue light and that they will be pulled over, and I have to say there is a relationship between proper policing on the roads and good detection. I go to many conferences on transport safety and have spoken at a number of big conferences this summer. I see wonderful technology there, but that will not replace the police—in cars and on motorbikes—on our roads. That point will probably upset the Minister most; he and I usually get on quite well.

The Government have said that they are serious about making our roads safer, but I will ask the Minister about another thing that will upset him—that is, targets. For some reason, both the coalition and the present Governments believed that targets are not the sort of thing that they should have. They do not like them, and there is a kind of ideological resistance to them. However, all the research across the world—he knows I believe in research—shows that if we do not have targets for road casualty reduction, we do not get the reduction. We have to have a road casualty reduction programme. That is a very important point. I do not know of any leading expert, in or out of the Government, who honestly disagrees with that view. We need targets in order to get a reduction.

I was taken by the people who got involved with us on Twitter yesterday and said that we need to have that wonderful, but perhaps unrealistic, target of zero casualties and zero deaths on our roads. That is visionary and optimistic, but we know that targets work. We all know that we do not get casualty reduction in any country, or any part of a country, without a partnership and a team that have passion and leadership and care about this useless waste of life.

Mr Hollobone, you know that I am passionate about this issue. I know that not enough of our colleagues in the House of Commons are still interested enough in transport safety. It is a bit unfashionable and not sexy enough for some, but it is vital to the people that we represent.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I thought that my hon. Friend might be perorating towards a conclusion. [Interruption.] No, there is much more to come. I commend him for his passion and all his work over the years on this important subject. Will he say something about cyclists’ safety in particular? I am sure that a number of the tweets he mentioned would have referred to that. Does he agree that we all have an obligation, whether as cyclists or as motorists, to promote cycling safety? He referred to the Netherlands: do we not have a lot to learn from the success of its dedicated provision for cyclists in the interests of safety?

[Mr Sheerman]

My right hon. Friend makes a very fair point. I made a decision that I would not cover everything in this discussion but, yes, increasingly there are vulnerable road users including cyclists and pedestrians, both children and adults. There is also an increasing concern—I am sure the Minister is listening—about the number of really horrid, terrible, tragic accidents involving heavy goods vehicles. All the conferences and presentations I saw this summer mentioned the increasing relationship between horrible accidents in places such as London and HGVs. But, to be honest, I have to say—I am not a London MP, but a Yorkshire one—there has actually been more improvement in road safety standards and casualty reduction in London than in many places outside. We can get carried away by the passion and enthusiasm, but my message is that these are avoidable deaths, and we should use good science, good evidence and practical work done in other places to learn and improve.