Speech to Transport Times Road Safety Conference, 8th October 2008

Thank-you to Transport Times for inviting me here, and for arranging this important conference.

I feel privileged to be here today, especially after last week’s reshuffle, to discuss the Government’s road safety strategy as we make the final push towards delivering our targets for 2010, and as we develop plans for an even more ambitious programme in the years beyond.

We have made progress reducing road casualties since 2000, when we first published our road safety strategy. Compared to the 1994-1998 average, we’ve cut combined deaths and serious injuries by 36%, and are on course to meet our 2010 targets.

As I’m sure you know, the 2007 figures showed that road deaths in the UK fell below 3000 for the first time in more than 80 years.

That’s a real achievement, and it’s testament to the work of a huge number of professionals working in road safety – police, local authorities, charities, highways authorities, emergency services, the automotive industry and many others.

But 2946 deaths is still far too high. And 2007 was just one year.

Success one year counts for nothing the next. Indeed, it makes things harder – because the better we do, the more difficult it is to maintain that rate of improvement.

So we must guard against complacency at every level, and develop a mindset of continuous improvement, always seeking to learn, grow and get better.

That means our strategy must be grounded in reality, and achievable.

It not only means we need to analyse the accident data and tackle those areas where performance is not improving as fast as we’d like, but it also means we must focus on those places, those types of road, and those people with the most acute accident problems.

Of course we will continue to learn from our colleagues in other countries – like Holland - where safety regimes have been particularly successful in recent years. But advanced nations are finding it more difficult to push down deaths at the moment, after a period of good progress.

So we need to be more specific about our interventions to deal with the persistent problems of death and serious injury as they occur on our roads.

We need a deal with road users in which we help the responsible majority to comply, and allows us to crack down on the irresponsible few. 

We need to consider more innovative measures if we’re to continue pushing down the accident figures - based around better enforcement, better education, and better engineering.

Although only a small minority of motorists continue to flout the drink-driving rules, this minority of irresponsible drivers still accounts for one sixth of all road deaths in this country.

These people don’t care about the contempt in which they’re held by the rest of us. They don’t consider the potentially devastating effect that their behaviour may have on innocent victims, and they clearly don’t think that drink-driving may also destroy their own lives. They are utterly thoughtless.

So we are planning to step up efforts to root out and deal with this dangerous minority, and we will shortly be consulting on new anti-drink-drive measures, including proposals for more effective enforcement.

Tackling the problem of speeding will remain a key priority. Indeed, one of the biggest challenges of the next decade will be to make speeding as unacceptable to mainstream society, as drink-driving has become.

Although there are still far too many drivers who regularly break speed limits, we are slowly winning the battle against speed. That process must continue, backed by speed cameras where they are effective, by a police force focused on successful enforcement, and by THINK! advertising emphasising the message that speeding is not only dangerous, but also unacceptable.

Alongside enforcement is better education - and we have launched a formal consultation on proposals to reform our driver training and testing system, following a round of in-depth discussions with young people, employers, driving instructors and the insurance industry.  This is the start of a process through which we want to change the approach to driving – so that it is treated as a skill worthy of development throughout life. 

It is particularly crucial that we get our safety messages over to young people.  We want to provide a general appreciation of safe road use, including insights they will need as drivers, but which they can also use as pedestrians or as passengers in cars or buses.  In the Learning to Drive consultation paper we proposed to harness young people’s enthusiasm by introducing a foundation course in safe road use.  This will extend children’s knowledge and help them to adopt a responsible attitude, with respect for other road users. 

We are making a pre-driver qualification in safe road use available to young people primarily aged 14 -16.  This will be a ‘bankable’ qualification, which gives them a solid grounding in road safety and prepares them for learning to drive. 

Newly-qualified drivers and their passengers account for one in five of all car deaths in Britain.

So the aim of our consultation is to create safer drivers for life by creating a culture of extended and advanced training. 

We want the driving test to be a milestone towards lifelong learning. We will work with employers and insurers to develop post-test courses and qualifications that produce safer drivers.

We are also revising our actual driving test to place less emphasis on mechanical manoeuvres, so examiners can assess the full range of candidates’ skills – including their ability to drive independently and their awareness of broader road safety issues.

The final area of focus will be engineering.

I think it’s important to recognise the considerable achievements that motor manufacturers have made in vehicle safety over the past couple of decades.

However, increasingly, as cars become intrinsically safer, so we’re turning to designing safer roads.

The scope for safer road engineering is huge. From new tarmac surfaces giving skid resistance, to redesigned local street plans, improving pedestrian safety.

In July, I attended the launch of the Campaign for Safe Road Design at a conference organised by EuroRAP – the European Road Assessment Programme.

EuroRAP is also contributing to safer driving, by rating levels of risk on different routes, based on historical accident data.

Its central aim of highlighting specific routes for improvement will, I’m sure, help us cut accidents in the years ahead, by better informing Government, local authorities and road users about the risks posed by different roads.

Ladies and gentlemen, there’s much to be ambitious about as we look forward to developing our road safety strategy post 2010.

There’s a tremendous amount of work going on right across the industry both to reduce the number of crashes and the toll of deaths and injuries those incidents cause.

But as I said earlier, we can take nothing for granted.

Conditions on our roads are changing. More vehicles; more congestion; more aggressive drivers; more potential in-car distractions like mobile phones.

As conditions change, so our response must change – based on continuous improvement, and based on us all working together more closely than ever before, to turn our shared objectives into shared achievements.

In conclusion, Chairman, I am confident we can rise to the challenge, because in my time as Road Safety Minister, I’ve been fortunate to see at first hand the professionalism and dedication of so many people involved in making our roads safer.  Today I’m very glad that I have the opportunity to build on that experience, and work with you again.

Thank-you for all you do and thank you for listening.

(This speech represented existing departmental policy but the words may not have been the same as those used by the Minister.)