Road risk to deprived area children

The Department for Transport (DfT) should give priority to promoting targeted road safety schemes in the deprived areas that suffer most from child pedestrian casualties, added the report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee.

The report said the DfT was aware that police data used to measure its road safety casualty targets "consistently understated" the annual casualty figure.

Commenting on the report, the committee's chairman, Edward Leigh, said: "The department has now identified the scale of the mismatch - some 230,000 casualties were reported to the police in 2008 against an estimated true figure of around 800,000. It is extremely important that the department now devise a formula for adjusting the police data so that we get a more accurate picture each year of the department's progress against its targets."

The report said it was "surprising" that the DfT was unaware of a strongly-held perception that, through the irresponsible behaviour of some cyclists, they were a hazard to themselves and other road users.

The committee said the department should devise education, training and publicity measures to target such anti-social behaviour, particularly when it broke traffic laws.

The report, entitled Improving Road Safety For Pedestrians And Cyclists In Great Britain, also called for schemes to reduce speed, including the use of speed cameras, 20mph zones and road humps. It added that there was "substantial evidence" that there would be fewer road casualties if Britain put its clocks forward one hour throughout the year.

A Department for Transport spokesman said: "We welcome the committee's acknowledgement that Britain is one of the safest countries in the world in terms of road deaths.

"We've cut the number of child pedestrians killed or seriously hurt on the roads by 57% since the mid-1990s - that means 76 fewer deaths and 2,307 fewer serious injuries in a year. But the death of even one child is one too many and we will continue working to cut this terrible toll.

The spokesman went on: "To improve safety for children, as well as other pedestrians and cyclists, we plan to encourage local authorities to introduce more 20mph zones in residential areas and around schools."