Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that road safety interventions can be targeted at locations with high numbers of damage-only collisions and near-misses before a (a) killed and (b) seriously injured outcome occurs.

Local authorities have a statutory duty under section 39 of the 1988 Road Traffic Act to take steps both to reduce and prevent collisions. It is not for the Department to take steps to define local interventions but for local authorities to determine what measures are appropriate in individual cases as they have the local knowledge and it is right that they focus on the areas of highest risk, which may be where tragic collisions have occurred - but there is nothing to stop them implementing road safety measures elsewhere.