The head of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety has questioned whether National Highways’ latest safety ambitions go far enough, arguing that the government-owned company risks missing the spirit of Vision Zero despite repeatedly stating that safety is its “number one priority”.
Speaking on the Highways Voices podcast, PACTS Executive Director Jamie Hassall criticised the targets set out around RIS3 and the strategic road network, suggesting they lack the ambition needed to drive down deaths and serious injuries.
“National Highways have said safety is one of their top priorities, but the evidence is recently they’ve changed from a Vision Zero target of 2040 to 2050,” Hassall said. “Their current RIS3 target of 7.5% doesn’t even meet their old target under RIS2. If you look at the underlying trends, they’ll probably hit it by not doing anything.”
He argued that the disparity between National Highways’ targets and wider government ambitions sends the wrong message to the sector. “You’ve got the national target of a 65% reduction by 2035, and National Highways saying, ‘Oh, we can hit 7.5% by 2031.’ That to me doesn’t reflect well on National Highways or the government, because actually the government funds and controls National Highways,” he said.
Mr Hassall also suggested that the strategic road network operator should be incentivised to invest more heavily in safety improvements because of the wider economic impacts of serious incidents. “If they do improve safety, it’s not just about reducing casualties,” he explained. “A fatal on the motorway that closes the road for three hours has a massive knock-on effect. It pushes traffic onto inappropriate roads and can create secondary incidents.”
He concluded by calling for a far more ambitious approach to delivering a truly safe strategic road network. “What we want is a strategic road network that has no killed or seriously injured,” he said. “It’s the backbone of the country, and it’s the part of the network where you have the most control.”
Listen to the whole podcast here.
(Picture – Highways News)
