Road safety compliance consultation - Executive summary

Executive summary

1. This consultation document seeks views on proposals for measures aimed at improving compliance levels with key road safety laws. Transgressions of these laws are the cause of many hundreds of deaths, and many thousands of serious injuries, each year. We will take a longer-term look at our approach to road safety when we publish a consultation paper on our post-2010 road safety strategy next year.

2. There were 2946 road users killed in 2007, and a nearly 28,000 more seriously injured. That is 36 per cent fewer serious injuries and 18 per cent fewer deaths than the 1994–98 baseline[1].1 The Government’s target is to achieve a 40 per cent reduction in the total number killed and seriously injured by 2010. We are currently on track to deliver that target, but the level of road death and injury remains unacceptably high.

3. Compliance with road traffic law is key to achieving further reductions. This consultation sets out a package of measures aimed at helping the responsible majority of road users and cracking down on the reckless few. The package covers five issues:

• speeding;
• drink driving;
• seat belt wearing;
• drug driving;
• careless driving.

4. On each issue we have examined five different approaches towards securing greater compliance:

• greater awareness;
• effective enforcement; penalties;
• technology/incentivisation;
• the legal framework.

In addition, we are putting forward proposals to improve our suite of remedial training and testing schemes for driving offenders. Annex A summarises our proposals in each area and provides an indicative timetable for their delivery.

6. There are considerable differences in the nature of each problem, and we are targeting our proposals accordingly. For example, on drink driving, four decades of sustained effort have fundamentally hanged what is socially acceptable. But the small minority who still refuse to comply with the social norm are responsible for 460 deaths a year. By contrast, on speeding, we are still in the early stages of changing public attitudes and behaviour; we have made considerable progress over the last decade, but we still have a long way to go.

Speeding

7. Despite concerted enforcement, engineering and publicity efforts, around 50 per cent of vehicles still exceed the 30 mph speed limit, and there were 727 deaths where speed was recorded as a contributory factor in 2007. We continue to utilise an approach based on thoroughly-researched publicity combined with well-targeted enforcement. We are working to improve the effectiveness of both of these measures, while supporting emerging technology.

8. On enforcement and penalties, we will combine our continued support for safety cameras, including average speed cameras – backed by robust evaluation – with a better-targeted system of penalties. Extreme speeders are more likely to be involved in an accident and the consequences will be more severe when they are. And the evidence shows that the same drivers speed excessively across all speed limits. We therefore propose to introduce a graduated fixed penalty of 6 penalty points for drivers who exceed the speed limit by a very large margin – 20 mph in most speed limits.

9. We are helping compliant drivers to understand the effects of speed, and to make compliance easier through technology. We will refresh our THINK! speed campaign in 2009 with a continuing focus on 30 mph roads, where small changes in speed can make the difference between life and death for pedestrians and other vulnerable road users. We have published research showing the results of Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) trials, which we think shows promise as a means for drivers to more easily comply with the law voluntarily. We will work with partners within and outside government to
build on this research.

Drink driving

10. On drink driving, we have seen dramatic decreases in casualties over the last forty years. And there was a very welcome reduction in drink drive fatalities in 2007, which we must maintain and reduce further. Our approach is to tighten up the enforcement regime, while working towards a better understanding of the issue through research and new data.

11. We believe that effective enforcement is the key to tackling drink driving. We will work to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the enforcement process, by developing targeted checkpoint enforcement and through the introduction of evidential breath-testing equipment. At the same time, we propose to make it easier for the police to enforce drink driving by seeking a legislative opportunity to remove the option for a blood or urine test, now rendered unnecessary by the proven reliability of the breath test, and look at ways to improve our High Risk Offenders scheme to ensure that these offenders complete medical examinations before they are allowed to start driving again.

12. There have been calls for some years for a lower limit of 50 mg/100 ml, or less. We have said that we will keep the limit under review. A change in the prescribed limit would be a significant change of strategy. We want to have solid evidence on how many deaths and injuries could be avoided by a new limit, and we want to understand the wider social implications of a lower limit. We are therefore asking respondents to say:

• what priority they think should be given to a change in the prescribed alcohol limit for driving;
• what evidence they are able to offer – and what further evidence do they consider should be obtained – to support a fullyconsidered
  decision whether or not to change the limit.

13. We are working to improve our evidence base. The current introduction of digital breath-testers will provide detailed, accurate and timely data on the characteristics of drink drivers. We will combine this with a new roadside survey of drinking and driving in 2009. This research will support future policy and publicity on drink driving.

Seat belts

14. We have achieved a very high overall level of seat belt wearing – as high as 95 per cent in the front seats of cars, but there are a lot of irregular wearers in cars and other vehicles, and rear seat belts are much less used than those in the front. We have used that research to develop a new, hardhitting THINK! campaign which aired for the first time on 3 November. In addition, the Home Office is currently consulting on an increase in the penalty for failing to wear a seat belt from £30 to £60 in 2009.

Drug driving

15. We have limited information on the scale of the drug driving problem. However, evidence suggests that it is serious and increasing. We will work to ensure that data are collected that will enable the true scale of the problem to be judged, while addressing the obstacles to enforcement and tackling the perception in some sections of the public that drug driving is acceptable.

16. The current law requires proof that a driver is impaired by drugs. The procedure is complex and, as a result, cases are few. In addition to working with the police to find ways of enforcing the existing law, we will explore whether a new offence needs to be created to enable the police to deal more effectively with drug drivers. There are both policy and practical issues involved, however, and we welcome views on this. We will back this improved enforcement with a substantial publicity and education campaign in 2009/10 to challenge the misconceptions about drug driving.

17. Going forward, we will work towards a better evidence base by refining data collection on drug driving and ensuring that a comprehensive investigation of drugs (and alcohol) is undertaken routinely following fatal accidents.

Careless driving

18. Careless driving is a catch-all offence that covers general bad driving. Data collected by the police on the contributory factors to accidents suggest a substantial number of casualties result from this behaviour – at the extreme end, 408 deaths had ‘careless, reckless or in a hurry’ recorded as a contributory factor in 2007.

19. Levels of enforcement do not appear to match the scale of the problem. In 2006 there were fewer than 30,000 successful prosecutions for careless or dangerous driving, less than a third of the number for drink driving, and the number of prosecutions has dropped by nearly 75 per cent in the last two decades. With 79 per cent of careless driving prosecutions happening only after a collision, we need to tackle careless driving before it causes an accident.

20. We are proposing to make careless driving a fixed penalty offence, which will enable the police to enforce with a minimum of bureaucracy against careless drivers who admit their fault. This would reduce the costs of enforcement, as well as being simpler for drivers, and could free up police resources, allowing more police time to be spent on the road. The fixed penalty would be £60 and 3 penalty points.

[1] Department for Transport (2008) Road Casualties Great Britain: 2007 Annual Report. TSO: London.