Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and East Dulwich)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to encourage local authorities to issue public safety campaigns to reduce the number of pedestrians involved in traffic accidents.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Road Traffic Act 1988 gives local authorities the responsibility for carrying out a programme of road safety and to take preventative measures including dissemination of information such as public education campaigns.
The Government wants to see roads which are safe and which meet the needs of all users, including vulnerable road users such as pedestrians. The Government encourages local authorities, schools and the public to use its THINK! road safety educational campaigns and resources, which cover a wide range of issues. These campaigns encourage safer behaviours, so as to reduce the number of people killed and injured.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and East Dulwich)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effect of local authorities enforcing 20mph zones in built-up areas on the level of pedestrians involved in traffic accidents.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Department has not carried out a study on the effect of speed enforcement in 20mph zones (which have traffic calming measures such as chicanes and speed humps) or on 20mph limits (which have signs only).
DfT guidance recommends that successful 20 mph zones and 20 mph speed limits are mutually reinforcing, i.e. the existing conditions of the road together with measures such as traffic calming or signing, publicity and information as part of the scheme, lead to a mean traffic speed compliant with the speed limit. Within this approach, to achieve compliance there should be no expectation on the police to provide additional enforcement beyond their routine activity, unless this has been explicitly agreed with the local traffic authority.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and East Dulwich)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans he has to increase road safety nationally.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Department is currently taking forward a number of road safety measures in accordance with its publicly stated road safety priorities, through the Road Safety Statement.
In June last year, the Department issued a written statement to Parliament which included a progress report on the actions from that statement. Full details are available on the www.gov.uk website.
(https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/road-safety-recent-progress-and-future-work)
The Department intends to publish a refreshed road safety statement and a two-year road safety action plan later this year.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and East Dulwich)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many serious road traffic accidents there were in (a) the UK, (b) London, (c) Borough of Lewisham and (d) Borough of Bromley in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The table below provides the number of serious reported personal injury road accidents in Great Britain, London, Borough of Lewisham and Borough of Bromley between 2007 and 2017.
Please note that the number of serious accidents provided is as reported by the police. Since 2016, changes in severity reporting systems for a large number of police forces mean that serious injury figures are not comparable with earlier years. In particular figures for London in 2017, and to a lesser extent 2016, are impacted by the Metropolitan Police Service changing system in November 2016.
Serious reported road accidents, 2007 to 2017
Year | Great Britain | London | Borough of Lewisham | Borough of Bromley |
2007 | 24,322 | 3,268 | 111 | 121 |
2008 | 23,121 | 3,061 | 106 | 104 |
2009 | 21,997 | 2,828 | 99 | 107 |
2010 | 20,440 | 2,627 | 100 | 80 |
2011 | 20,986 | 2,550 | 99 | 69 |
2012 | 20,901 | 2,793 | 96 | 78 |
2013 | 19,624 | 2,112 | 57 | 61 |
2014 | 20,676 | 1,979 | 56 | 46 |
2015 | 20,038 | 1,882 | 50 | 64 |
2016 | 21,725 | 2,291 | 63 | 80 |
2017 | 22,534 | 3,622 | 110 | 102 |
Source: DfT STATS19 |
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The data we hold only covers reported personal injury road accidents in Great Britain, we do not have data for Northern Ireland.