10 June 2011
Brake, the road safety charity, PO Box 548, Huddersfield, HD1 2XZ
Tel: 01484 559909 Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

This week the Government launched its transport ‘Red Tape Challenge’ asking the public to suggest which transport regulation, including road safety regulation, should be scrapped. Road safety regulations cited on the website, www.redtapechallenge.cabinetoffice.gov.uk, include the wearing of seatbelts for adults and children, speed limits on motorways and rural roads, and mandatory helmets for young horse riders.
 
The website states that “once the consultation closes Ministers will have three months to work out which regulations they want to keep and why. But here’s the most important bit – the default presumption will be that burdensome regulations will go. If Ministers want to keep them, they have to make a very good case for them to stay.”
 
Brake is extremely concerned by the blasé approach the Government is taking to removing hard-fought for life-saving regulation. Thousands of people owe their lives to these regulations, particularly those relating to seat belts and speed limits.
 
In the last decade, road deaths and serious injuries fell by 44%, [1] and they are predicted to continue to fall if the status quo in road safety is maintained. [2] However, it remains that six people are killed and 70 more are seriously injured on UK roads each day, with the UK lagging behind many other European countries in some respects such as child pedestrian safety. [3] Brake therefore argues that tighter regulation is needed in key areas to tackle these devastating and preventable tragedies. 
 
Julie Townsend, campaigns director for Brake, says: “As a charity that supports people suffering unimaginable heartbreak that results from a road death or serious injury, we are appalled by the message that this sends out. The suggestion that life-preserving road safety regulation is merely ‘red-tape’ belittles the importance of saving lives on our roads, and is an insult to the bereaved and injured victims whose lives are turned upside down by these preventable tragedies. It is akin to questioning child protection law, or any laws that prohibit violent, life-threatening behaviour.
 
“It is telling that many of the comments appearing on the Government’s site are calling for more regulation to protect vulnerable road users in particular. We should be focusing our energies on how we can best develop road safety regulation to stop the daily carnage, which very commonly affects the young, and which is a very significant social and economic burden.”

[1] 2009 statistic, compared to 1994-98 average, Road Casualties Great Britain 2009, Department for Transport 2010
[2] Post 2010 Casualty Forecasting, Transport Research Laboratory 2009
[3] Road Casualties Great Britain 2009, Department for Transport 2010