Road Safety

John Slinger Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

I will also try to be short and sweet, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) on bringing forth such an important subject. He alluded in his excellent speech to the sheer number of fatalities, and it is perhaps worth reflecting on the fact that there are three times the number of road fatalities than homicides in an average year, which is something we could all bear in mind as we go about driving on the roads.

I want to draw Members’ attention to the importance of listening to our constituents who have sadly suffered the trauma of losing someone in a road traffic collision. In my constituency I have Giulietta and George Galli-Atkinson, who for 26 years have run the Livia awards, which recognise the professionalism and service to justice of police officers. I had the honour of speaking at the 26th award ceremony at the Metropolitan police headquarters this year. The awards are in memory of their daughter, who sadly was killed by a dangerous driver. I mention that because I believe it is incumbent on us to listen to the voices of those who have suffered the trauma and devastation of such unnecessary, preventable deaths. We need to hear their words and act on them. Community involvement is critical.

In conclusion, we must get the message across to our constituents that road collisions are, in all but the smallest number of cases, not accidents—they are preventable; they are avoidable. We must all take responsibility, including national Government. My hon. Friend the Minister takes these issues very seriously. We must tighten the law wherever we can and I know she is looking at various ways to do that. We must fund local authorities for their excellent work to help increase road safety and empower police forces to enforce our road traffic laws. We must do everything we can to empower ordinary citizens to engage with this really important issue. We must ensure that ordinary citizens are in control of our roads, not those who would endanger us all through their selfishness and criminality through dangerous and reckless driving.

Finally, we must take responsibility as individuals. Our constituents must take responsibility for driving more safely whenever they can so that we reduce the tragic number of avoidable and terrible deaths on our roads and the tens of thousands of serious injuries. We must reduce that number as much as possible.

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen for giving us the opportunity to reflect on these important matters and to encourage the Government to do everything in their power to ensure that the number of road deaths and injuries is reduced significantly.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

To help the Minister prepare, we have three more very short Back-Bench contributions.