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Road Safety

A moment ago, I said to my hon. Friend that we are persuaded that introducing such restrictions at a stroke will not have the effect that he suggests. The measures that we propose in our consultation document include the educational qualification, changing the way in which people are trained, the star-rating system, the professional career development scheme for approved driving instructors and examining people in a different way, all of which will take time to roll out and have to be piloted. That does not mean for a second that we are wasting any time in our efforts to push these statistics down further. The fact that the figures have been moving in the right direction for the past 12 months is encouraging, but no more than that, because for several years they hit a plateau. We know that we have some of the safest roads in the world. After last year's statistics, we are back in second place in Europe, after Sweden. We are in contact with other European partners—particularly Sweden, the Netherlands and Norway—which have good safety records to ensure that we share best practice and information and that we use that intelligence and develop it. We are about to launch our consultation on the post-2010 strategy. Our 10-year strategy from 2000 to 2010 was to reduce by 40 per cent. the numbers of adults killed or seriously injured on the roads, and to reduce by 50 per cent. the number of children killed or seriously injured. We have achieved the reduction in child deaths and serious injuries. We are on track to achieve the reduction in adult deaths and serious injuries. We will consult on the next strategy and consider whether we should adopt the Swedish model of zero tolerance to road deaths. However, such a policy runs counter to British philosophy, which says that there is no point in setting a zero target because we know that we will not achieve it. Perhaps we should be more pragmatic. Let us set a target similar to that in Holland, which focuses on sustainable safety. We should consider whether we have a 10-year or a five-year strategy, and whether we separate deaths from serious injuries. The rates for serious injuries have been falling quite quickly, unlike those for deaths. The Road Safety Foundation raised a number of questions on the matter last week. The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby and I attended a launch, with other hon. Members, which focused on road safety design and engineering particularly on rural roads, on which so many crashes are taking place, including the crash that my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West mentioned at the beginning of his speech. Road safety engineering is a method of bringing such figures down more quickly.