Global Road Deaths

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Sheerman]

I take that point. My hon. Friend is a great campaigning friend of mine. I did not know whether to apply for this debate under this Department or the Department for International Development. I hope that I am stimulating a relationship between the Department for Transport, which is very good—I will give it its due—and has a Minister who cares about this, and the International Development team, so that they make proposals.

Using our experience, research and knowledge to help people around the world is one of the best investments we can make in helping a developing country at the moment. Road crashes are the No.1 killer of young Africans aged between 15 and 29. Certain countries leap off the page, such as Tanzania and South Africa, because they are well above where they should be, given the size of their population, the nature of their roads, and the number of people driving cars and two-wheeled vehicles. Much of this has a heartbreaking real cost. Road crashes frequently kill or injure household breadwinners, causing loss of income, increased costs—such as those of caring for a disabled victim—and tipping people into deepest poverty.

The Overseas Development Institute report “Securing safe roads” contained in-depth analysis in three cities—Nairobi, Mumbai and Bogota. That analysis was led by the ODI and the World Resources Institute, which found that it is the poorest sections of society that bear the brunt of traffic-related injuries and deaths, and that politicians and the public tend to blame individual road users for collisions, rather than policy makers or planners.

Can I put this next point at the heart of my remarks? The fact is that, in many ways, cars have become much safer—like a cocoon. My wife recently changed her car because she wanted a hybrid car. It has automatic collision avoidance and 16 airbags. Cars are safer and getting safer still thanks to some of the great work that is being done on the new car assessment programme worldwide. The people in danger are the vulnerable road users—the pedestrians, cyclists and people on two-wheeled vehicles—across the world. Those are the people we really have to worry about.

In terms of other places, America is in fact slipping back on its success. There should be good laws and sensible research-based activity by Government, such as seatbelt legislation, as well as law enforcement, so that people are not let off, or able to pay bribes, because they do not want to be caught for speeding or drunk driving. In the United States, because the states have different rules and regulations, many of their cars do not have rear seatbelts or regulation on that. They are slipping behind. We need that mixture of wise laws, good science-based answers and ensuring that these laws are obeyed. How confident are the Government that their contribution to accident prevention overseas will be well spent?

There is a new United Nations trust, which we established last week. It has every possibility of being a good and substantial fund. The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile put in the first £10 million, and some companies will put in. However, given my experience with the World Bank and the Global Road Safety Partnership, there is a danger that we put too much emphasis on the private sector. Individual Governments must come in. I hope the British Government will put money into the United Nations trust, but they must ensure that there are strings attached, so that we know that the money flows to evidence-based, good ends.

We need to support the development of a road accident strategy across the world. We need to highlight what the Overseas Development Institute report says. We need to reframe road safety in public debates, making connections with issues that people care about, such as the economy, equality and education, and to build alliances at all levels of government, including local, regional and national. We must also produce, in every country, a dedicated road safety plan with short, medium and long-term objectives.

I have had the privilege to work with some very good people on this. Etienne Krug at the World Health Organisation in Geneva has been inspirational in the work that I have done. David Ward and the team from his organisation produced the wonderful report “Manifesto #4roadsafety”for the Global Network for Road Safety Legislators—that comes out of the Towards Zero Foundation. There are some very good people in this area, but at the end of the day, we must ensure that we have, as the World Health Organisation says, a policy called “save lives” based on an integrated safe-systems approach. The WHO report recommends 22 priority interventions in six key areas: speed management, leadership, infrastructure, vehicle safety, enforcement and post-crash survival.

To conclude, we know the answers. We can stop these 1.3 million deaths. We can reduce them dramatically if we work together on the basis of good laws that are enforced fairly and squarely across every country that we work with. We have an enormous opportunity to save lives, communities and families. Let’s go for it!

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I am obliged to call the Front-Bench spokespeople no later than 5.8 pm. The guideline limits are five minutes for the Scottish National party, five minutes for Her Majesty’s Opposition and 10 minutes for the Minister. Then Mr Sheerman has a minute or so to sum up the debate at the end. There are five hon. Members seeking to catch my eye, including at least two former firemen. I am afraid there will have to be a time limit of four minutes to ensure that everyone gets in.

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On resuming—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The debate will now run until 5.54 pm.

[Luke Pollard]

Before the interruption, I was talking about road signs. Whether they point to Plymouth, Perth, Paris, Panama or Phnom Penh, they are important around the world. The issue was brought to my attention by one of my constituents, Trevor Gorman. His son, also called Trevor, was killed in a road accident last June on the A38, which runs through Plymouth. Trevor was driving with two friends when their van collided with a road traffic post, killing all three men. The post they collided with was made of steel, and was not designed to collapse or crumple to absorb the impact. Experts at the inquest said that the pole met requirements when it was erected in the 1990s, but had not been replaced since then.

The accident that took the lives of these three young men could have been prevented. Thanks to Highways England, the steel signpost has now been changed to a lattice-type pole that crumples in the event of an impact. I wrote to the Minister on 15 March trying to raise awareness of the importance of crumple-able lattice poles in preference to hard steel poles that do not crumple when hit by traffic that comes off the road. I wrote to and met Jim O’Sullivan, the chief executive of Highways England. He confirmed that the sign would be replaced with a crumple-able post, not the same steel post that has been used in the past. That is really important, because as there is more and more traffic, more and more hard, galvanised steel posts are being erected on motorways and lesser roads across the world. In Britain, many of those hard posts are being replaced by lattice-type posts. I invite hon. Members, next time they are driving on busy motorways, to have a look at the signposts. The lattice-type posts—those that can be seen through—crumple if they are hit by a car, absorbing the impact. The pole will not come loose and hit people in cars, which is how Trevor Gorman and his friends died.

We have an obligation not only to learn from best practice of replacing hard, galvanised steel poles in the UK with crumple-able, collapsible poles, but to ensure that best practice is shared around the world. I am sure that hon. Members will be familiar with the 1968 UN convention on road signs and signals, which sought to standardise the amount of signs. What it did not do is standardise the poles to which those signs are attached. I invite the Minister to engage in international collaboration and co-operation on road safety. Could the best practice that is being adopted on our roads in the UK—replacing hard poles with collapsible poles—be shared with our international neighbours?

Mr Gorman, who has been running a fantastic campaign to raise awareness of this issue, wants to ensure that no other families suffer the knock on the door spoken about by my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield. If we can do that not only in England and for traffic authorities across the UK, but around the world, those three young men who died on the A38 because their van hit a pole that could not collapse might not have died in vain.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to the first of the Front-Bench speeches. To help our Opposition spokesmen, I will ask the Clerk to set the clock to show how long a five-minute speech should last. I call Alan Brown for the Scottish National party.

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[Matt Rodda]

My hon. Friend puts it very well. I seek consensus on this issue and I hope the Minister will consider the points that my hon. Friend has made so eloquently. He did not mention the reductions in the police, but I should add that there is a link to that as well. I hope the Government will also reconsider their cuts to the police service.

It is worth bearing in mind that the road injury statistics are rising. A Department for Transport statistical table for the year to September 2017 showed that serious road injuries had increased by 7%. We should focus on that point and seek consensus. As I mentioned earlier, the Minister should seriously look at the UK taking a leading role in promoting road safety globally. What discussions has the Minister had with colleagues in the Department for International Development about global road safety? I also believe, in addition to domestic consensus, that there should be consensus between Departments. We should seek to work with our international partners.

In conclusion, although we have one of the safest road networks around, we should not be complacent. The Government should be doing much more to make our roads even safer. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on some of the important points raised in today’s debate.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

If the Minister is kind enough to finish his remarks no later than 5.52, that will allow Mr Sheerman two minutes to sum up the debate.