Transport Select Committee Inquiry Into Road Safety

Transport Select Committee Inquiry into Road Safety

Response from Brake, the road safety charity, February 2008

About Brake

1. Brake, the national road safety charity, is dedicated to stopping deaths and injuries on roads and caring for people bereaved and affected by road crashes. Brake carries out research into road users’ attitudes on aspects of road safety. It also works with people bereaved and seriously injured in road crashes to campaign for changes in the law, which will benefit road safety and provide much needed support for road crash victims.

To what extent have targets for casualty reduction been a useful tool for focusing professional activity?

2. Targets can be extremely valuable in focussing activity and enabling stakeholders to gauge the success, or failure, of casualty reduction strategies. Targets are successfully used by organisations to help to motivate action to achieve results. However, the existing casualty reduction targets, as set by the Department for Transport (DfT) in 2000, had several limitations to their usefulness:

2.1. The targets were a long way to being met before they were even introduced. The targets were set in 2000, but were based on casualty statistics from the 94-98 baseline average. This meant that when the targets were introduced in 2000, several years had already passed, so significant reductions in casualties had already occurred. There had already been a 13% reduction in all KSIs from the baseline figure used before the target was set in 2000, and a 24% reduction in child KSIs by the same time. This meant that the targets were no where near as challenging as they appeared to be, and did not give an accurate picture of what was expected to be achieved over the ten-year period around which the strategy was based.

2.2. The targets were not challenging enough. Europe as a whole has a higher target – aiming to reduce the number of road crash fatalities alone by half by 2010. The fact that reducing road casualties does not appear to be a top priority for legislators or enforcers is symptomatic of the absence of motivating, challenging targets. Road crashes receive just a couple of paragraphs in the National Policing Plan, suggesting that enforcement of road traffic offences are not a priority. Road safety does not feature highly on the agenda of legislators either – despite the target being set in 2000, a long-promised Road Safety Act was delayed and was not passed until 2006, meaning crucial road safety measures requiring legislation had to be put on hold.

2.3. The targets were set for reducing ‘KSI’s (people killed and seriously injured) combined, as an assumption was made that deaths and injuries would follow a similar trend. In fact, the number of deaths on the road is falling at a much slower rate than the number of serious injuries - the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) forecasts that if the fatality trend was to persist and no new measures were introduced then the number of fatalities would fall by just 19% by 2010.1 It is clear that in order for targets to be meaningful, it is necessary to have separate targets for deaths and serious injuries.

2.4. The targets were not as wide-ranging as they could have been, and left significant gaps. Only one specific road-user group - children - was identified and given a separate target from the main, general target. There is no clear reason why this road-user group was selected while others were not. It would make sense for specific targets to be given to road-user groups that are particularly at risk or have disproportionately high crashes or casualty rates. DfT could have conducted an analysis of which groups are most at risk and set individual targets for these groups. For example, it

1 Tomorrow's Roads - safer for Everyone, Second three-year review, DfT, April 2007. could have been helpful to have separate targets for child pedestrians and cyclists, as casualty rates for this group are particularly poor in comparison to the rest of the EU. Other at-risk groups include young drivers, motorcyclists and at-work drivers.

What further measures need to be adopted to reduce deaths and injuries arising from drinking and driving?

3. There is evidence that the number of drink-drive crashes is rising – 17% more people were killed in drink-drive crashes in 2006 than in 1998. Estimates for 2006 suggest that 17% of road deaths and 6% of all road casualties occurred when someone was driving while over the legal limit for alcohol.2

4. There are a number of measures that need to be adopted to reduce deaths and injuries arising from drinking and driving:

4.1. The Government should reduce the drink-drive limit. The UK and Ireland are the only remaining EU countries to have a limit of 0.8 BAC (Blood Alcohol Content), and Ireland has pledged to reduce this limit by 2009. Most countries have a drink-drive limit of 0.5 BAC. Some countries (such as Sweden, Poland and Estonia), have limits of 0.2 BAC while some have limits of 0.0 BAC (Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary).3

4.1.1. The European Commission adopted a recommendation in January 2001 which proposed harmonisation of the BAC level at 50mg (0.5 BAC) or below4 and it is estimated that reducing the drink-drive limit in Britain to 0.5 BAC would save about 65 lives and 230 serious injuries per year.5

4.1.2. There is widespread support among the public for a lower drink-drive limit: of those who responded to the consultation paper ‘Combating Drink Driving: Next Steps’, 79% were in favour of a lower limit, 14% were against and the remainder had no clear view.6

4.1.3. When Sweden lowered its drink-drive limit from 0.5 BAC to 0.2 BAC in 1990 fatal alcohol- related crashes were reduced by 10%. Similar experiences were found in Austria, Belgium and France after lowering their drink-drive limits.7 The evidence for reducing the limit is overwhelming. A limit of 0.2 BAC or lower sends a clear and consistent message to drivers that they cannot drink at all if they are driving, ending confusion about how much is ‘too much’ and would be likely to lead to a significant reduction in drink-drive casualties.

4.2. The Government needs to type-approve roadside breathalysing equipment and to ensure all forces are equipped with the tools they need to perform evidential tests at the roadside. Having equipment to perform evidential breath tests at the side of the road saves the time and money of taking the driver back to the police station for tests, and allows an instant test to be given, rather than giving a test some time after being stopped. This frees up police time to get back on the roads and enforce road traffic laws.

4.3. Police should be given the power to perform random, targeted and blanket breath-tests. In most EU countries the police are entitled to use random breath testing, which means they do not have to have any cause to believe a driver is over the drink-drive limit before stopping and testing them. The only exceptions to this are Denmark, UK and Ireland. The power to test drivers randomly allows police to target particular areas or drivers – for example, stopping drivers driving away from town on a Friday night at closing time. It also allows them to perform blanket checks by setting up road blocks and stopping cars at regular intervals or stopping every passing car. This flexibility, when combined with increased enforcement is designed to make drivers feel they have a good likelihood of being caught if they break the law. A Swiss study in 1998 found that random breath testing was one of the most cost-effective safety measures that can be implemented. In 2005, Switzerland

2Road casualties Great Britain 2006: Annual report - September 2007 3 Drink Driving: Legislation, European Transport Safety Council, www.etsc.be/home 4 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexplus!prod! JO_RefPub&lg=en&serie_jo=L&an_jo=2001&pg_jo=31&nu_jo=43 5 Professor Richard E Allsop Centre for Transport Studies University College London, http://www.pacts.org.uk/parliament/briefings/lowerlimit.pdf 6 Tomorrow's Roads - Safer for Everyone: The second three year review, DfT, February 2007. 7 http://www.ias.org.uk/resources/publications/theglobe/globe200302/gl200302_p3.html achieved a huge 20% drop in road deaths, and preliminary figures show that this trend is continuing. Swiss Government analysis reports that the main reason for this has been a better control of two of the main causes of crashes - speed and alcohol. On 1 January 2005, the legal blood alcohol limit was lowered from 0.8 to 0.5 BAC and police were empowered to run random breath tests.8 Minimum levels of random breath testing is also one of the main elements of the 2004 European Commission Recommendation on Enforcement in the Field of Road Safety.

4.4. In many countries, alcohol interlocks, which require drivers to take and pass a breath test before their car engine will start, are used as a condition of probation for drink-drive offenders after their driving licence has been reinstated. As of 2006, 45 US states, the District of Columbia and most Canadian provinces and territories require or allow some offenders to use alcohol interlocks. 9 There is significant evidence for the effectiveness of alcohol interlocks in reducing repeat drink-drive offences:

4.4.1. An alcohol interlock study was carried out in Maryland, USA in the 1990s.The results indicated that being given an alcohol interlock reduced the risk of an alcohol-related traffic offence within the first year by about 65%.10

4.4.2. An alcohol interlock programme began in Alberta, Canada, in 1990. After six years the re- offending rate for the group which used alcohol interlocks was 18%, compared to 38% for the control group.11

5. The Road Safety Act 2006 provides for the possibility of using alcohol interlocks for offenders in exchange for a reduction in the period of disqualification. The Government should run pilots using alcohol interlocks with a view to rolling this out if successful.

How does Great Britain compare with other EU countries in its approach to reducing deaths and injuries?

6. Unlike some EU countries which have the lowest road death and injury rates, Britain does not have a clear, ambitious vision for reducing road crashes and deaths and perhaps as a consequence of this lack of a ‘vision’, road safety does not feature highly on the political agenda.

7. Although it sets casualty reduction targets, as do other EU countries, prior to recent speeches by the current road safety minister, the Government had not made any clear acknowledgement that every road death is unacceptable. Sweden expresses its view that it is unacceptable for there to be a single death or injury on the roads through ‘Vision Zero’ - the vision is that eventually no one will be killed or seriously injured within the road transport system.12 Britain should follow Sweden’s lead and make it clear that it is ethically intolerable that deaths and injuries should continue on the road. This would help to focus policies, strategies and legislation by having a clear aim and ambition.

8. Other countries also demonstrate that road safety can, and should, be prioritised by Government. On 14 July 2002, President Jacques Chirac declared the “fight against road violence” one of the top three priorities of his second term in office. In Luxembourg, road safety has been declared one of the first political priorities. The UK needs to follow these examples in order to make tackling road deaths and injuries a clear political priority.

How do approaches in reductions in risk on the roads compare to those adopted in other modes of transport?

9. There is a general perception perpetuated by Government that road deaths are not as disastrous as deaths occurring on planes or trains. Plane or train crashes are treated like national disasters, with Government ploughing massive resources into its emergency response, and into investigations following the event. In contrast, because of their frequency, road crashes are often treated like unavoidable facts

8 Road Safety Performance Index - Making progress happen – ETSC 2006 9 MADD International Technology Symposium, Summary Report, November 2006 10 Alcohol Interlock Implementation in the European Union; Feasibility Study, (SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research, 2001) 11 Alcohol Interlock Implementation in the European Union; Feasibility Study, (SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research, 2001) 12 Swedish Ministry of Transport and Communications, 1997 of life, with one of the main aims of the emergency response being to get traffic moving quickly, rather than focussing on investigating the crash.

10. The Government approach to plane and train crashes is that no risk will be tolerated. This is evident from the level of training required of pilots and train drivers, which is far more extensive than the training required for driving a car. Medical checks and extended periods of practical training are required before people legally able to take responsibility for the lives of their passengers on a plane or train. Yet with no professional training, no medical check, and with very little driving experience, people are able to drive on busy carriageways with passengers in their vehicle.

11. The fact that there is a lower drink-drive limit for train drivers and pilots than for car drivers is another indication that risks that the Government will tolerate on the road, will not be tolerated for other modes of transport. While the Government deems it acceptable to allow car drivers to drive with 0.8 BAC – a level that allows them to be intoxicated and for their faculties to be impaired – the legal limit for plane and train drivers is 0.2 BAC, meaning they cannot have a single drink before taking control of their vehicles. The reluctance of Government to take the simple step of reducing the drink-drive limit for car drivers demonstrates that they consider risks on the road to be more acceptable than risks on the railways or in the air, despite the fact that many, many more deaths and injuries occur on the roads than on trains and planes put together.

12. Variations in acceptable risks when it comes to engineering are startlingly obvious. Mechanics do not need a qualification, meaning cars can be maintained by people with no expertise, and no guarantee that the vehicle is safe or roadworthy. In contrast, aircraft maintenance mechanics undergo thorough training and must re-train as new equipment becomes available.

13. Resources devoted to crash investigation also highlight the difference in approach to different modes of transport. One example of the resources given to investigating crashes on other modes of transport is the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB), the independent railway accident investigation organisation for the UK. It investigates railway accidents and incidents on the UK's railways to improve future safety on trains. No similar body exists for road crashes, and often minimal time or manpower is given to investigating crashes. The police investigation is a key element in securing the decision to prosecute by the Crown Prosecution Service, as well as an actual conviction in court, but is all too often left to just one or two police officers, whose main concern is to clear the road and get traffic moving following a crash. A good first step towards this measure would be to adopt the Association of Chief Police Officers’ Road Death Investigation Manual as a statutory requirement to ensure a comprehensively high standard of ‘accident investigation’. Currently all forces are signed up to the manual, but follow it to different extents.

Are there specific blockages caused by shortages of appropriately trained and skilled staff?

14. There are shortages of trained and skilled police officers able to efficiently enforce road traffic law. More dedicated road traffic officers trained in a whole range of traffic checks and enforcements would allow for improved enforcement of traffic law and would act as a disincentive to those who might currently break the law because they think they can get away with it.

15. Brake is also concerned that numbers of front line VOSA enforcement staff have increased only minimally during the past few years and numbers of enforcement checks have fallen.13 Brake is concerned that a lack of trained staff and decreasing checks means commercial vehicle safety is not being adequately enforced.

16. Shortages of Road Safety Officers (RSOs) mean community road safety education does not live up to its life-saving potential. We hear anecdotally from RSOs that they do not have enough staff to give all the training and education they would like to schools. Increased numbers of RSOs would allow for improved road safety education.

17. There is a shortage of road crossing patrols. In recent years, the number of lollipop men and women has declined at an alarming rate. In 2005, at least 25% of posts were vacant across the country.14 Research carried out by Jet in 2005 showed that the safety of school children across the UK was in jeopardy due to the continued shortage of crossing patrols. Councils across the country reported an average 18%

13 Effectiveness Report 2006/2007, VOSA 2007 14 School-run Violence Drives Lollipop People Off the Roads, (LARSOA, 2005) shortage an in some areas the shortage was much higher – in the London Borough of Lambeth shortfalls were as high as 70%.15

What further policies, not already widely used, might be considered for adoption and what evidence there is for their success?

18. Brake recommends that the following policies are considered for adoption:

Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL)

19. There is currently no minimum learning period or requirement for professional tuition, which means novice drivers may obtain a full driver licence aged 17, without adequate tuition and with very little experience. Brake would like to see the introduction of GDL to allow new drivers to build up their driving skills and experience gradually and help prevent the tragic deaths of young people on our roads.

20. Brake proposes a three-stage licence comprising of a learner period followed by a test, and a novice period during which time restrictions would be placed on the driver before drivers could obtain a full licence. GDL has been implemented in many other countries such as New Zealand and the US, with high levels of success. Following the introduction of the GDL system in New Zealand, there was a reduction in car crash injuries of 23% for 15-19 year olds and 12% for 20-24 year olds. After GDL was introduced in the State of Washington, USA, annual fatal and serious crashes involving 16 and 17 year- old drivers fell by 59%.

21. For more information, visit the Licensed to Kill? campaign on Brake’s website www.brake.org.uk.

22. Regular re-testing

The current system of allowing drivers to drive for life after taking just one test does little to ensure drivers keep their skills and knowledge up-to-date. A driver’s standard of driving, knowledge of the rules of the road, or medical fitness to drive may decrease over time, and so regular re-testing is vital to ensure that all drivers are competent and safe. This has been acknowledged by Government when it comes to commercial vehicle drivers who must complete a Certificate of Professional Competence which must be renewed every five years, with a minimum 35 hours of approved training every five years. Regular checks for competence are equally important for other drivers because all drivers, professional or not, put lives at risk on the road.

23. Time-over-distance speed cameras

A policy should be undertaken to replace all fixed-site cameras with ‘time over distance’ cameras. Time over distance cameras provide a better incentive for drivers to slow down and stay within speed limits for longer stretches of road, rather than just slowing down for a fixed-site camera, and then speeding up. A recent report found that the use of SPECS time over distance cameras reduced vehicles exceeding the speed limit by 53%, and those exceeding it by more than 15mph by 100%.16

24. 20mph limits

We need a default 20mph speed limit in urban areas. At the moment, 20mph limits are at the discretion of local authorities who follow recently-reviewed guidelines from the Department for Transport on setting speed limits.17 These guidelines recommend that the needs of children are taken into account, and give some encouragement to local authorities to install 20mph limits. However, communities that campaign for 20mph limits around their schools by lobbying their councils are still often turned down on the basis that ‘there hasn’t been a death yet’, or because there is a lack of funding, or because the importance of traffic flow is prioritised on a particular urban road. The Government doesn’t monitor how many 20mph limits have been installed; in effect abdicating all responsibility to local authorities.

25. Yet the evidence is clear – reducing the speed limit will save lives. The first three 20mph zones in the UK were implemented in January 1991. Five years later, the Transport Research Laboratory reviewed the results from 250 zones in England, Wales and Scotland. The average speed in these areas fell by 9mph.

15 Jet Lollipop Barometer, (Jet, 2005) 16 The National Safety Camera Programme: A Four Year Evaluation Report, University College, London and PA Consulting Group, 2005 17 Chapter 5: Shared Priority – Safer Roads’, Local Transport Plan 2006-2011 (Hull City Council, 2006) The total number of crashes fell by 60% and the number of accidents involving children fell by 67%. The number of crashes involving cyclists also fell, by 27%.18 In 2003, the Health Development Agency called for a reduction in the speed limit to 20mph on residential streets. It estimated that this measure would reduce child deaths and injuries by a massive 67% — or 13,000 children — each year.19

26. One local authority that has led the way is Hull City Council, which has introduced 20mph zones on a quarter of its roads. There has been a 74% reduction in the number of crashes involving child pedestrians, and a 69% reduction in child cyclist crashes in the three years since the zones’ introduction, compared with the three before the speed limit changed. The overall number of crashes in Hull has been reduced by 56%, and there has been a 90% reduction in serious or fatal injury collisions.

27. Not only does reducing speed reduce the frequency of crashes, but it also reduces the severity of any crashes that do occur - there is a direct relationship between the speed of a vehicle and the severity of injuries. At 40mph, 85% of people hit by vehicles die, at 30mph, 20% of people die and at 20mph it is just 5%. 20

28. For more information, visit the ‘Watch Out There’s a Kid About’ campaign on Brake’s website www.brake.org.uk.

More roads police

29. The number of police officers with responsibility for roads policing duties has fallen over the past decade despite the consistent increase in traffic volumes over this period. According to HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, in 1996-7 there were 9,201 dedicated road policing officers, while by 2003-4 this number had fallen to 7,636. 21 Some forces have scrapped their road policing units, creating ‘rapid response units’ or ‘problem-oriented policing’ (POP) units, which combine road policing duties with other activities.

30. This increasing under-resourcing of roads policing means there is a lack of routine enforcement on our roads, such as speed, drink-drive, seat belt, mobile phone and tyre checks. It also means that in many forces, budgets for training and equipment for traffic police have been slashed.

31. We need to see a commitment from Government to putting more trained roads policing officers on our roads.

32. For more information, see Brake’s ‘Police Our Roads’ campaign page on its website www.brake.org.uk.

33. Compulsory road safety education

Road safety education is not a compulsory part of the National Curriculum and often not taught, despite the availability of teaching resources from the Department for Transport and other agencies. We want compulsory, effective, road safety education for children of all ages to teach our children to be as safe as possible when using roads. The National Healthy Schools Programme is dedicated to making children healthier, happier and safer,22 yet road safety does not feature as a key theme of this initiative, despite the fact that road deaths are one of the biggest single causes of death for children, and despite the fact that in a recent Brake survey, 48% of children said they worried about being knocked down while walking or cycling.23 Traffic kills children and affects their health, happiness and well-being, so it is ludicrous that road safety it is not a compulsory element of children’s education.

34. Improved vehicle technology

In the longer term we need the Government to develop strategies around emerging vehicle technology. This includes creating legislation that makes use of GPS-linked speed-limiters and technology to record driver behaviour and journey patterns. There are several other very simple steps that could be taken to

18 TRL Report 215 - "Review of Traffic Calming Schemes in 20 mph zones 19 Health Development Agency, Prevention and reduction of accidental injury in children and older people, (2003) 20 Department for Transport, Managing Speed on our Roads 21 Hansard, (written answers, 10 Jan 2005 : Column 364W) 22 www.healthyschools.gov.uk 23 Brake Road Safety Week survey of 16,116 children aged 5-15, www.brake.org.uk improve the safety of vehicles, such as making it compulsory for high-sided vehicles to have retro- reflective tape to improve the visibility of high-sided vehicles.

What should be the priorities for Government in considering further targets for casualty reduction beyond 2010?

35. When setting its targets for beyond 2010, the Government should prioritise setting casualty reduction targets for road users who have a disproportionate crash and casualty rates. If current trends continue, Brake recommends that the Government targets speeding drivers, drink-drivers, young drivers, child pedestrians and cyclists and motorcyclists, all of which have disproportionately high crash and casualty rates.

For more information, please contact Rachel Burr, campaigns officer, on 01484 530085