Whitehall has designs on road safety shift

23 July 2008
 
The Government has indicated that safe road design could form the bedrock of the post-2010 road safety strategy.

The Road Safety Foundation earlier this month launched a new campaign calling on the Government to make safe road infrastructure programmes central to the post-2010 strategy (Surveyor, 10 July).

This could save 10,000 deaths and serious injuries a year, and £6bn to the economy, it claims.

Road safety minister, Jim Fitzpatrick, this week told the transport select committee he did not accept all of the foundation’s calculations, ‘but there certainly was a very strong cost benefit-analysis case put forward’, which the Government was looking closely at.

He said safe road design ‘could very well be a key plank in the post-2010 strategy, as well as looking at what can be done in the short term to improve roads’.

He added: ‘There is a very clear need for us to look at that, and to see how strongly we place it in our future strategy.’ The minister also said the ‘impressive’ 28% drop in child accidents was likely to be due to the increased roll out of 20mph zones.

The Government does not have the data to hand yet, but it would reinforce guidance to local authorities ‘were it to be the case’ that 20mph zones were mainly responsible for ‘this minor success’.

He said the Government was seeking data from local authorities which had introduced it ‘wholesale’, such as Portsmouth and Hull. In areas where 20mph speed limits have been introduced effectively, with physical restrictions, there has been a 67% reduction in child accidents, he said.

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