Sandy Martin
Main Page: Sandy Martin (Labour - Ipswich)Department Debates - View all Sandy Martin's debates with the Department for Transport
(5 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Matt Rodda
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. That should be looked at and reviewed across the UK as a whole.
I would like to move on to another aspect of this very important area. The 2017 release stated:
“The population of older people (aged 70 and older) has increased relatively rapidly over recent years. This carries implications for higher levels of casualties in this age group in the future.”
What do Ministers propose to do to address that issue? The Minister touched on it, but much more detail is needed. With an ageing population, older road users could become much more vulnerable.
At the other end of the age scale, it is encouraging to hear that the overall number of child casualties of all severities decreased by 2% to 15,721, which is one of the lowest years on record. However, I am sure we can all agree that this figure remains far too high and that the Government must strive to make our roads safer still, especially for vulnerable road users.
Between 2010 and 2016, the number of deaths from road accidents remained broadly consistent, as we have heard. However, the number of pedestrians killed on our roads increased.
Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that far too many drivers of motor vehicles still seem to assume they always take precedence and that we need a fundamental change in attitude towards pedestrians and cyclists, so that car and lorry drivers start treating non-drivers with respect?
Matt Rodda
I agree with my hon. Friend’s suggestion. He makes an interesting point.
I return to the wider point about vulnerable road users. Although the number of cyclists killed on the roads in 2017 was slightly lower than in 2016, the 101 deaths was very similar to the levels seen since 2010. If we look at where those fatal accidents occurred, of the 1,793 road deaths in 2017, just over 1,000—or 60%—took place on country roads, 626 occurred on urban roads and 99 took place on motorways. That is a 2% increase since 2016. While the number of people injured on motorways has decreased, there was a 6% increase in the number of deaths on motorways. How does the Minister plan to address that important and worrying statistic?