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Road Safety

I said that I would talk later about whether the targets were stretching. When we compiled and presented the report and the strategy, we did not have the benefit of the 2008 casualty figures, which are recognised across the Chamber as an extremely welcome and substantial reduction. We are carrying out a consultation and we will reflect on the targets in the light of the figures that we published last week, and of the consultation and the responses to it. We will certainly take those issues on board. Under the current strategy we are saying that road deaths and serious injuries to children should be reduced by at least half by 2020. Our progress on reducing child casualties has been better since 2000; we have reduced child deaths and serious injuries by 55 per cent. from our baseline. However, that progress is for the nought-to-16 age group, and progress has been much less marked for the slightly older age groups. We therefore propose to extend the target to cover 16 and 17-year-olds.