"Disastrous" child road death figures – PM must act

New road accident figures released today were "disastrous" news for Britain's vulnerable road users, particularly children, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said.

They showed the need for Prime Minister Gordon Brown to make road safety a top priority and for it to become a fundamental part of education, health and environmental policies as well as transport.

Latest Department for Transport statistics show big increases in deaths among child pedestrians (up 13 per cent) and child pedal cyclists (up 55 per cent), as well a five per cent jump in motorcycle fatalities.

Kevin Clinton, RoSPA Head of Road Safety, said: "The figures are disastrous for vulnerable road users. It is appalling that we are seeing more children killed on our roads.

"There is an increase in deaths on built up roads - up two per cent - and that is where children, cyclists and pedestrians spend most of their time.

"These figures emphasise a real need to focus on making our roads safer for vulnerable people so that they can walk and cycle without fear. If we don't, we are going to see people continuing to use cars instead of cycling and walking and that can be detrimental in terms of health and the environment. Road safety has to become a top priority for the Government."

The increase in motorcycle deaths was very disappointing after a fall in deaths for two years in a row, he said. Motorcycle training should be improved and riders needed to develop the skills and experience to ride the larger and more powerful machines they were now using.

As well as speed management, ways had to be found to encourage the vast majority of drivers, who were not learners, to take refresher training.

Many people develop bad habits in their driving without realising it and training would help to iron these out and make them less likely to crash, he added.

RoSPA looks forward to Government consultations on improving the ways people learn to drive and also reducing the drink drive limit - a cut in the limit from 50mg to 80mg could save 65 lives and 230 serious injuries on Britain's roads each year.

The full figures show the number of people killed in road accidents fell by one per cent to 3,172 in 2006. There were 31,845 killed or seriously injured, down one per cent, and the total road casualty figure was down five per cent to 258,404.