GERMAN FIGURES HIGHLIGHT UK ROAD SAFETY POLICY FAILURE
25 February 2005 - Safe Speed

Official figures released this week show that road deaths in Germany fell by 12% in a single year.

In the UK, road deaths have only fallen by 8% in the last DECADE. Safe Speed blames road safety policy failure for our awful performance and demands the resignation of the Transport Secretary.

Safe Speed has invested more than 8,000 man hours investigating modern road safety policy and finds it dangerously lacking.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) explains: ''Roads, vehicles and post crash medical care are known to be improving at an excellent rate. The growth in traffic is small by comparison and we are entitled to see road deaths falling. After extensive investigation I am absolutely certain that policy is to blame for failing to save lives on the road. Modern policy is based on nothing more than a few key oversimplified assumptions. UK road deaths should be down to around 2,200 per annum by now - and they would be if we hadn''t got policy wrong.''

Safe Speed demands the resignation of the Secretary of State for Transport - Alistair Darling. Paul Smith said: ''Well over 5,000 people have died in the last ten years on our roads who would not have died if the former beneficial trends had been allowed to continue. ''Speed kills'' road safety policy backed with speed cameras and speed limit reductions have been a complete disaster supported only by spin, false statistics and inadequate thinking. Alistair Darling must take responsibility, admit the mistakes and resign. Improvement will not start until the failure is admitted.''

There isn''t even an official excuse for the loss of trend!

One third of road deaths are now due to ten years of failed policy. The policy failure is based on the absurd belief that speed cameras would deliver road safety for free. With over 1,000 lives each year being lost due to bad policy, everyone should be saying: ''Let''s make speed cameras as unacceptable as drink driving''.

www.safespeed.org.uk

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