A long road to fewer deaths: The weekend's casualties highlight the need for different traffic policies, says Christian Wolmar

THE RECENT complacency about Britain's declining road death toll was quickly dispelled at the weekend by a series of fatal traffic accidents that left at least 18 dead. Two of these, the young sisters Maria and Rachel Reed, were mown down by a teenager driving a high-performance car. The accidents made the headlines partly because they were so horrific, but also - given that on average 12 people die on the roads every day - because of the paucity of other news.

Road deaths are actually at a record low in Britain. Figures released recently show that there were 4,273 deaths last year, fewer than the 4,886 in 1926 when statistics were first recorded and when there were less than one tenth of the vehicles now on the road. Deaths went down by 6 per cent last year, leading ministers and the Department of Transport to claim a 'remarkable achievement', brought about, they said, by a series of initiatives ranging from seat belt legislation and stronger enforcement of drink-drive laws to engineering measures such as sleeping policemen and better junction layouts.

Certainly, the authorities deserve some credit, particularly for changing the attitude towards drink-driving. Of all measures, this has probably done most to reduce the casualty rate. But the accident figures present a more complex picture, and the Department of Transport has little reason to feel satisfied. It is, after all, the very same Department of Transport that is responsible for a policy which favours road building at the expense of all other forms of transport, even though it knows that road is by far the most dangerous form of travel.

Nor do improvements in road death statistics necessarily result from a safer road environment or mean that as a nation we should be satisfied with our brilliant driving performance. If the road environment is so dangerous that the number of pedestrians and cyclists declines, the number of deaths will also decrease. That is hardly cause for satisfaction on the part of either ministers or motorists.

The Department of Transport's safety campaign places great emphasis on road safety information. Indeed, according to their uncle, the two Reed sisters 'must have known the Highway Code from cover to cover' because they lived on a main road. But it didn't do them any good. To pedestrians and cyclists, road safety is useless if it is ignored by motorists, the majority of whom never look at the Highway Code once they have passed their driving test.

Take, too, Britain's international record, which on the face of it looks good. In 1990, road deaths in Britain per head of the population were the lowest in Western Europe apart from the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway. Indeed, in terms of deaths of drivers and passengers, Britain's record is the best in a survey of a dozen countries, mainly in Europe, but also including the US and Japan. This is no reason for satisfaction, however. According to Bob Davis, author of Death on the Streets, published earlier this year: 'The main reason for Britain having a lower casualty rate for motorists is congestion on our crowded island. This reduces speeds, and the presence of other drivers also makes motorists more careful because it makes them aware of the danger.'

In terms of pedestrian deaths, Britain's record is only average for Western Europe. True, their number has declined by 50 per cent over the past quarter of a century, but the risk for pedestrians on each journey has probably increased because fewer people now brave the streets.

Mayer Hillman, of the Policy Studies Institute, suggests that the change in pedestrian behaviour has been enormous. In a study of the mobility of children, One False Move, he found that between 1971 and 1990, the number of seven- and eight-year-olds allowed to make their own way to school fell from 80 per cent to 9 per cent. In 1990, children were allowed to cross roads alone when they were on average two and a half years older than the children of his 1971 sample. This, he argues, has enormous social repercussions: 'Parents, usually mothers, spend a huge amount of time shepherding their children around, often by car, and, in turn, causing further congestion.'

There are also health implications. Mr Hillman found that nine out of 10 junior school children have bicycles but only 1 per cent use them to ride to school: 'There is a lot of evidence that children are not getting enough exercise and cycling is an excellent way of ensuring they do. But they are not allowed on the roads.' He points to the Netherlands, where there are excellent facilities for cyclists and where one in four journeys by women of pensionable age is by bicycle. 'They also have a low rate of heart disease but it is impossible to prove whether there is any link.'

Road deaths are said to be the price that we pay for mobility and the 'freedom of the car', much touted by successive transport secretaries. But accidents do not happen in a vacuum and there are all kinds of minor measures that can be taken to reduce them - from bringing our clocks into line with Europe to give an extra hour of light in the winter evenings, a peak time for crashes, to placing restrictions on drivers who have just passed their test.

But ministers are always reluctant to tread on the toes of the motoring organisations, the manufacturers and the road building lobby. Unless they do so, there will be little fundamental change. For example, reducing the speed and acceleration of high-performance cars would be an obvious way of improving road safety. Department of Transport figures show that high- performance cars - those which can accelerate to 60mph in less than 10 seconds - are involved in two and a half times more fatal accidents than 'standard' cars. Technological improvements mean that more and more cars are capable of such rapid acceleration, but ministers regard restricting the performance of cars as unnecessary regulation. How is it that nearly two decades after 70mph became the maximum speed limit, virtually all cars are able to exceed it?

Brigitte Chaudhri, the secretary and one of the founders of RoadPeace, a self-help organisation of people bereaved by road accidents, believes that road deaths have become a 'socially acceptable form of dying' and that little stigma is attached to the perpetrators. Her son was killed by a van that jumped a red light, but the driver was merely fined pounds 250. 'These deaths are simply ignored,' she says. 'The police said afterwards there was nothing they could do because people go through on red all the time. With that kind of attitude, it's not surprising that so many people are getting killed.'

If the death toll is to be reduced, there is a need to create a less car-oriented environment. This means starting at the planning level by, for example, discouraging the construction of out-of-town shopping centres accessible only by car, and creating pedestrian zones in the inner cities. There also need to be measures that will deter people from using cars, such as road pricing, an invasion of road humps and much more widespread implementation and enforcement of speed restrictions. But this, unlike the road death toll, is a price we seem unwilling to pay. Any limit on the freedom of the motorist, despite the daily carnage, is depicted as an attack on civil liberties - as is demonstrated by the lengthy campaign it took to pass seat belt legislation.

The real problem is that some of those who have been shocked by the Easter deaths are the very same people who will protest most vociferously at a policy designed to limit or restrict car use. The car has become the new opiate of the masses and, as yet, there are few votes in attacking it, despite the tragic events of the weekend.

(Photograph omitted)