Road Safety

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

I shall endeavour to be as brief as I can, Mr Bayley. First, I must declare an interest as a trustee of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety—an unremunerated trustee, I hasten to add.

I want to raise three broad points. The first is one I mentioned in the previous debate on electric vehicles. The Government need to address the fact that electric vehicles are very quiet, which poses a particular danger to visually impaired people. I was reassured by the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), that action is being taken at European level. However, it is important for road safety that the number of casualties does not increase with the number of quieter vehicles.

I also want to focus on the two groups where there is the biggest risk of road safety issues increasing: cyclists and young motorists. There have been a number of debates on cycling in the House. Several technological innovations, such as sensors on lorries, mirrors and the like, will help, but there are two essential components to making cycling safer. One is greater separation of cycle paths and roads, and the other is training. Milton Keynes is a leading example of separation; we have a completely separate cycle network. I appreciate that that would be difficult to retrofit into more traditional towns and cities, but that is the way forward; it is the single biggest thing we could do. On training, the Government need to explore new ways of building into training for drivers and cyclists the need to be more considerate of other road users. Many cyclists and motorists are perfectly considerate, but too many—an aggressive minority—believe they own the road, and that is true on both sides. When that mentality exists, accidents happen. I would therefore welcome the Minister’s comments on how we are improving training.

Finally, on young motorists, a number of initiatives to reduce the risks they face are worthy of consideration, and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) mentioned the use of increased technology in cars. Real-time information, a black box recorder or whatever we call want to call it, will also be an exciting way of reducing motor insurance premiums. If a young driver knows someone is watching them, that will encourage better behaviour.

There are other proposals—I will not go through them in detail—about restricting the times young motorists can drive and the number of passengers under a certain age they can have in their car, as well as having a zero alcohol limit for newly qualified drivers. The Government should have a way of evaluating all those options and, indeed, the type of scheme my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) ably mentioned.

There is another suggestion I would put on the table. The Institute of Advanced Motorists is an excellent organisation, but I am not certain the training it makes available for young motorists is that widely known. Perhaps the Government could facilitate a publicity campaign and work with insurance companies so that drivers who had further accreditation could have a discount on their motor insurance premiums. In the interests of time, however, and to give both Front-Bench speakers a decent chance to comment, I will conclude my remarks there.