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Road Safety

It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to contribute to today's debate with you in the Chair, Mr. Hancock. I congratulate the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) on securing the debate. As he has said, road safety, particularly in relation to young drivers, is especially important. We have already heard many relevant statistics, but I am afraid that I shall mention a few of them again, because as the hon. Gentleman said, they bear repetition and make one think about the scale of the problem. According to the Department for Transport, in 2006—the last year for which figures are available—2,943 people were killed on Britain's roads, 27,777 were seriously injured and 217,060 were slightly injured. Although I am extremely pleased that road deaths have fallen below 3,000 for the first time since 1926, there is no room for complacency. Members on both sides of the House will agree that there is still much to be done. In the last year for which statistics are available, almost 250,000 people, including more than 3,000 children, were killed or were seriously injured and had to face the trauma and consequences of road accidents. The comments that we have heard so far show that this is not a simple issue. We do not want to demonise all young people, and they are not all the same, just as all middle-aged people are not the same—as this House can testify. The latest consultation appears to give us a way forward that is, broadly speaking, worthy of support, but there is no simple, magic solution or one, central way forward to these problems. We have to accept that some people will always drive recklessly, whatever the Government try to do, and that there will always be people who simply do not think or care about the lives of others around them. It is important to acknowledge that accidents just happen sometimes, but we live in a society in which, increasingly, someone always has to be to blame for a problem. None of that detracts from the fact that more can and should be done to tackle this problem. The statistics that we have heard so much about show that young drivers are involved in more accidents than any other group of driver. One in eight car drivers is under 25, but one in four drivers who died on the roads in 2006 was under 25. So, although road deaths and injuries have fallen by a third since the mid-'90s, casualty rates for young drivers, particularly young male drivers, have not changed at all in that period. The numbers are not small. One in five car deaths on British roads involves newly qualified drivers and their passengers. I do not think that it has been acknowledged yet that newly qualified drivers are not always young drivers. In the spirit of not wanting to demonise all young people, let me point out that that statistic, which equates to more than 300 deaths a year, concerns all newly qualified drivers and their passengers. There is no doubt that inexperience at any age is a big factor. According to DFT figures, 20 per cent. of all new drivers have an accident within six months of passing their driving test, but that is not to say—it is important to restate this—that all novice or young drivers are poor drivers. On the contrary, we are talking about the minority, and possibly a small minority, of young, novice drivers who take unnecessary risks.