Road Safety: Schools

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

First of all, I want to congratulate the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth) on securing this important debate. She spoke powerfully about the fact that our road safety has to be children-centred. I agree with her that 20 mph zones around schools should be the default position, and any council would then have to make an application stating why it should not happen.

We have heard from the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince), the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tristan Osborne), my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord), the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris), the hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger) and the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae). I hope I got all their constituencies right. All the hon. Members told heartbreaking stories and gave sensible suggestions about how we can make roads around schools safer for children.

Road traffic accidents devastate families and communities and too many children are killed or injured where they should be safest. Every death is a tragedy, but it is not inevitable. Although there has been a reduction in the number of road fatalities in recent decades, particularly for children, there is still much more we can do. Over the past six years an average of 1,190 children have been injured each month within 500 metres of their school.

A third of road fatalities are caused by speeding. Bath community speed watch in my constituency, a bunch of highly dedicated and motivated people who stand for hours in all weather, have caught over 80,000 speeding vehicles. The volunteers do truly lifesaving work to reduce speed and dangerous collisions in Bath. I have talked to them, and as we have heard already, they often get abused for doing a job that saves lives. Speeding kills. Better enforcement of existing laws has been central to reducing death on our roads, and I was surprised to learn that almost half of traffic accidents occur between 3 pm and 6 pm, when children have already finished school. Bath community speed watch are therefore doing a very important job. They are also going into schools and educating young children on how to keep safe. I wish the children would then take home the message that the most dangerous thing is speeding cars, and also sometimes the way parents behave outside schools—something I have never understood in all my life as a parent, councillor or MP.

Families need to be less reliant on the car. However, far too many people do not have any alternatives to car travel because we do not have enough good bus services. Many of my young constituents have to rely on very bad bus services. All those things are linked. Young people do not cycle enough. Why? Because they do not get adequate training.

[Andy MacNae]

Will the hon. Member give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Wera Hobhouse]

I fear I do not have time, but I am sure the hon. Member would make an excellent point.

Bikeability is an important scheme that we should all support, but the funding from the Department for Transport is currently not secure.

On average, nine young children are harmed on our roads every day, and 3,402 children aged seven and under were killed or injured on roads in Britain in 2022. There are many brilliant projects and many dedicated people who want to make a difference, but we need to do a lot more. To repeat what the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury said, we need to create road safety that is centred entirely around children. They are the most vulnerable and they are the future generation. We cannot afford to see all those thousands of young people injured and killed on our roads, and 2025 should be the year when we make a big difference to that.