Road Safety

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

This is a massive issue. With the Christmas season, Christmas parties and the rush of the season approaching, it is imperative that the message is reinforced that the holiday spirit is wonderful, but driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs is never acceptable at any time of the year, and certainly not at Christmas time.

Two hundred people are still killed in drink-drive accidents every year. Even after 30 years of drink-drive education and enforcement, more than 70,000 people are still caught drink-driving annually. Often it is an innocent person who suffers, not the driver who is over the drink-drive limit. In 2016, 100 pedestrians were killed or injured by drink-drivers, as were 330 car passengers and 40 children. In 2016, almost half a million roadside breath tests took place, and some 60,000 drivers or riders failed or refused to take the test. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the maximum blood alcohol limit is 80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood, but in Scotland that has been lowered to 50 mg.

I remind the Minister that the Government commissioned Sir Peter North to conduct a review of drink and drug driving law in 2010. In that review, evidence was heard that drivers with a blood alcohol level of between 50 mg and 80 mg are two to two and a half times more likely to be involved in an accident than drivers with no alcohol, and up to six times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash. We must be ever mindful of those figures.

In 2000, the Government’s road safety strategy estimated that reducing the limit to 50 mg would save 50 lives and prevent some 250 injuries each year. When that was reviewed, it was estimated that it could save 65 lives and prevent 230 injuries each year. I ask the Minister to give further consideration to the North review, which concluded that a reduction to 50 mg would

“undoubtedly save a significant number of lives.”

It estimated at the time that 168 lives could be saved and 16,000 injuries prevented annually, and after six years, some 303 lives annually could be saved.

Finally, I want to refer to the Highway Code as it pertains to the safety of horse riders. If my understanding of the figures is correct, my constituency has the largest number of people involved in the horse industry and sector in Northern Ireland. A review is to be undertaken into this issue, but could the Minister ensure that there is a mention of horses in that? I underline that case because of the 40 riders killed, 237 horses killed and almost 900 horses injured on our roads in the last seven years. Some 85% of road incidents involving horses are because drivers pass too close or too fast to them. In particular, I ask the Minister to look at strengthening section 215 of the Highway Code on horse riders and horse-drawn vehicles, to include the British Horse Society’s “dead slow” advice to drivers on how to pass horses safely. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments.