The Government’s Road Safety Charter:
What Does It Mean for Your Business?

Right, good morning everybody. Hope you can all hear me. I think it seems to be coming out of there. Welcome to the first session in this year’s driver safety theatre presented by Driving for Better Business from National Highways. We’ve got a very important first session today. I’d like to welcome Claire Reese, who is head of safe system for road safety at the Department for Transport, and Claire’s team is responsible for the road safety strategy that was launched on the 7th of January. In that there was reference to a work related road safety charter for businesses. So Claire is going to talk us through where her team has got to with that, what the future likely holds, and more importantly what it means for your business.

We’ve got a short presentation from Claire and then we’ll open it up to questions from you and we’ll take it from there. So without further ado, Claire, thank you very much.

Thank you, Simon. Good morning everybody.

And it’s apt that we are here on International Workers Memorial Day. It is really important what we are talking about here today. I’d like to welcome you all and give you a bit of background on where we are with the strategy and why we have done one now.

If you look, the statistics are stark. Road collisions account for far more killed and seriously injured casualties than any of the other modes of transport. Unfortunately, our progress has plateaued. We do make small progress, but as you can see from the graph, COVID had an impact where we did see a reduction, but generally we are plateauing. So now it’s time to do something. We have not had a strategy since 2011, and the Government will take the decision to start looking at road safety in detail again.

It is not just the moral benefit. Loss of life and serious injuries are life changing and impact many people’s lives. It is also important to know that casualties impact the economy too. The NHS is impacted by about £3 billion, including ambulance costs and wider pressures on the NHS. Output loss due to collisions is estimated at £6.9 billion. So we really need to start doing something to bring this down.

It is interesting to realise as well that certain people are more vulnerable at different times of their lives. Younger drivers are vulnerable. It then plateaus through midlife, and unfortunately for older people, the risk increases again as we get older. So it is time to start doing something to bring this down.

There is our road safety strategy. If you have not read it, I suggest you do. It is a very good read. It has very ambitious targets: a 65% reduction in the number of people killed and seriously injured by 2035, and a 70% reduction in KSI figures for children. There are safety performance indicators in Annex A of the strategy, 14 lagging and 3 leading, helping us keep on top of progress towards 2035.

It is all underpinned by the safe system, hence my job title. We know that human error is inevitable, but collisions are preventable. Deaths and serious injuries are not inevitable. The road and vehicle environment should be designed to protect people as much as possible. We also build in behavioural change and post crash response. All of these pillars are important to making sure the system works seamlessly.

So where do we fit in? There are four themes to the strategy. We have aligned to the pillars and the enablers. For work related road safety, we are in the supporting road users theme.

As you can see as well, there are five consultations currently open. Please feel free to respond if you wish to put forward views. We have young and novice drivers, older drivers, predominantly eyesight testing. If any of you are motorcyclists, we are looking to reform licensing testing and training of category A. There is also a motoring offences consultation including the drink drive limit. These are open until the 11th of May.

Turning back to where we are today, the safe driving and riding for work. We have announced that we will be doing a work related road safety charter. You may ask what the need for this is, but look at the statistics.

459 people are killed in collisions involving a working driver or rider. That is 29%, nearly a third of all road fatalities. 238 working driver or rider and passenger casualties are killed or seriously injured. Those figures are too high. It is not just the people working, it is also the impact on those caught up in it. Nearly 5,000 non working people are involved in a collision involving a working driver or rider. The proportion of KSI casualties in these incidents is 23%, nearly a quarter.

Our aim is to reduce work related road risk and improve safety for all road users. We will include HGVs, light goods vehicles, cars, motorcycles, e cycles and cycles, from the large to the small. This is everyone’s responsibility, but we can only do it in collaboration with business and industry.

There are already good schemes out there. We are all aware of Driving for Better Business, but also TfL has a meal and grocery delivery motorcycle charter. DVSA Earned Recognition and TyreSafe are also examples. We are not reinventing the wheel. Where good practice exists, we will take that on board.

We are going to start a two year pilot and evaluate whether it is working. Are people signing up? Can we see early impact? Our initial success will be measured on engagement, and we will also look at safety impacts and culture change where we can. It is only two years, so we have to be realistic.

That is our aim, but we need everybody’s help. So without further ado, Simon, any questions from the audience?

Why are you doing this now? We have had a succession of governments that have not taken this particularly seriously. Why now?

We have not had a strategy for 15 to 16 years and the Government felt it was time to do something now. There has been limited progress, although traffic has increased. There is some improvement, but it is not enough. Around 1,600 people die in a year, which is not acceptable. Now is the time to do something about it. However, it is everyone’s shared responsibility. There is no silver bullet. We all have to do our part.

A question was asked about e cyclists and cyclists. How would you regulate that?

It is not going to be regulated. This is a voluntary scheme. We are asking employers to buy in. There is no legislation involved. We are relying on voluntary participation, including engagement from the gig economy and delivery industry.

Another question raised concerns about lights and helmets for cyclists. There are already laws regarding lights, which are enforced by the relevant police force. Cycle helmets are recommended but not mandated. That is open for discussion as part of the charter.

We have held our first stakeholder meeting, which was very positive. We had a wide range of participants, from small cycle courier representatives to large HGV operators. Everyone was able to understand each other’s viewpoints. We do not want to reinvent the wheel. We want to build on good practice.

We will start a focused steering group. You cannot write something like this by a huge committee, so we will refine the process and work over the summer. There is no definitive timeline yet.

A question was raised about going beyond legal compliance to good practice. That is exactly the intention. We want to encourage industry to go beyond compliance and embed safety culture, not just tick boxes.

We are looking for businesses to make a commitment to go the extra mile. There are benefits in doing this properly, both in casualty reduction and cost savings.

Telematics was mentioned as an example. It is not legally required, but we see strong evidence that it reduces collisions, so it is something we would encourage as good practice.

We are encouraging supply chain involvement. Larger organisations may require suppliers to sign up to the charter. That helps raise standards across the board.

We will wrap up there. Thank you very much to Claire for answering the questions.

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