A new road safety manifesto has been launched by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) to tackle the number of deaths and serious injuries sustained on UK roads.
More than 30,000 individuals are killed or seriously injured annually, at a societal and economic cost of approximately £43.5bn each year.
Supported by 33 leading organisations, the manifesto has identified four actions which it believes would revolutionise road safety:
These include developing a National Road Safety Strategy focused on prevention, protection, and post-collision response, establishing a Road Safety Investigation Branch to analyse road incidents, introducing Graduated Driver Licensing, and adopting Advanced Vehicle Safety Regulations.
Jamie Hassall, Executive Director of PACTS, said, “These four simple measures will be the building blocks to enable the UK to reduce the number of people that are killed and seriously injured on our roads. When we have strong leadership and a strategic approach the UK has managed to half the numbers of road deaths in a decade but since 2010 the fucus was lost and daily road deaths have remained at five a day. Investing in road safety is not just a moral duty but it’s good for peoples’ health and wellbeing, the environment, business, and the country.”
