Leasedrive Velo Blog

This week is Road Safety Week, the annual initiative organised by Brake, the independent road safety charity. I hope it’s a better week than most, which sees seven deaths and 71 serious injuries recorded each day on our UK roads.

We pat ourselves on the back that road deaths have declined in this country. In 2008, there were 2538 people killed on our roads, the lowest annual figure since records began in 1926. The figure represented a 14% drop over 2007 despite a European road assessment programme report rating 58% of our A-roads as either neutral or poor for safety.

The total number of deaths or serious injuries in 2008 was 28,567, 7% fewer than in 2007. For once, Government targets have been met. Government wanted to reduce the number of deaths or serious injuries on the roads by 40% by 2010, compared to the mid-90s average. Job done, for now, but no room for complacency.

As a country, we lie sixth in the global road safety league with 54 fatalities per million of the population. Malta tops the league, followed by the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway. Given the traffic on our roads, that’s not a bad figure but we want to be top.

Purely from a cold economic perspective, we need the figures to improve further. Preventing a fatal injury in a road accident is estimated to be worth £1.65 million to the UK economy. With around 200 road deaths and serious injuries every week involving someone driving ‘at work’, clearly it makes sense to reduce casualty rates. After all, about a quarter of all vehicle miles driven annually are for work purposes and that excludes commuting to and from work.

If you cycle or walk to work, the dangers are higher. One in 20 road deaths involve cyclists and the latest Department for Transport figures revealed that 820 cyclists were killed or seriously injured in the three months to June, a 19% increase over the same period to June 2008. Motorcycle riders saw a 5% rise indicating a lot more needs to be done to protect two-wheel road users. Meanwhile, driver statistics dropped 4% continuing the downward trend. Even pedestrian deaths and serious injuries dropped by 8%.

As I stated, there is no room for complacency and judging by the erratic and downright dangerous driving of some minor elements on Friday night rush-hours still more emphasis needs to be placed on driver education.

We could even start by dropping the term ‘rush-hour’, which is a misnomer in itself judging by the levels of traffic congestion. None of us wants to reach the next world any sooner than we want.

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

Everywhere I go, I hear people talk of green shoots appearing. Our own business has certainly seen an upswing with several major new account wins recently. You shouldn’t really see green shoots appearing in tarmac – certainly not if it has been laid properly – but it appears there are green shoots on the surface there too!

The AA and Trafficmaster recently announced an 11% increase in traffic congestion on our roads since September, indicating an upswing in economic activity as more people take to the roads chasing business or have more money in their pockets to pursue leisure activities.

We may not like congestion but as an indicator of an uplift in economic fortunes, it has to be seen as a positive turnaround.

The news certainly has to be welcome relief after the report published earlier in the year by the AA and Trafficmaster, based on a survey of 75,000 drivers and five years data, that congestion on motorways and major trunk roads had reduced by 31% over the past two years.

The report deduced that 23% of commuters who lost their jobs in the previous 12 months were responsible for half the drop at 15% during morning weekday rush-hour. And, of those in employment, 20% advised they had worked from home more often, 14% had used public transport and 12% had shared cars, all to save on commuting costs.

The recent increase in traffic congestion, after the first fall in 20 years, has also to be seen as encouraging, given the backdrop of escalating fuel prices. These are set to see £5 per gallon at the pumps by the end of the year, not exactly the most wonderful Christmas present to receive!

If the green shoots continue to grow steadily stronger over the coming 12 to 18 months, albeit slowly, it is to be hoped the next Government in power – because there will be new brooms sweeping through the corridors of Westminster come next summer – invests more of its transport-generated revenues back into transport, namely on improving our transport infrastructure and improving the driving habits of all motorists.

As I’ve maintained many times before, we need to keep the country on the move to keep the economy on the move.

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

Much has been written about the UK Corporate Manslaughter (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and Corporate Homicide (Scotland) Act, which came into force in April last year, but we have yet to see a successful motoring-related prosecution.

The first prosecution is due to be heard next February when Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings will be charged under section 2 of the Act after a young geologist sadly died when the walls of an excavation pit collapsed.

However, unfortunate as the circumstances were, this does not relate to driving at work. So when will we see the first motoring-related prosecution?

When the Act came into force, much play was made of the fact that companies could be fined up to 10% of their turnover. That certainly concentrated minds in boardrooms up and down the country but then various legal specialists doubted how successfully a case could be brought against a company for a death involving an ‘at work’ driver. To date it seems legal opinion has been justified on this score when more successful prosecutions can be pursued through the current list of motoring offences.

So have organisations been let off the hook? Draft guidelines have just been published indicating that organisations can be fined anything from half a million to several million pounds if found guilty under the Act.

Other health and safety offences could attract fines of £100,000 upwards.

Consultation is currently taking place on these draft guidelines with final ones to be published after 5 January 2010, no doubt in time for the aforementioned case in Bristol.

Now that an indication of the level of fines has been published, expect a rush by directors to legal advisors for a latest update but don’t necessarily expect any motoring-related prosecution under the Act any time soon. More’s the pity.

While the Act concentrated the minds of many organisations, a new death by careless driving offence, which came into force five months later, is considered by many in legal circles as potentially having far more wide-reaching consequences.

Simply talking or texting on a hand-held mobile phone at the fatal moment, or driving without proper insurance, could result in imprisonment for the driver.

Whatever, organisations need to pay due regard to their duty of care responsibilities under the various Acts and drivers need to pay due attention on the road.

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

Money can often be a deal breaker and the Copenhagen climate change summit may be no different.

Currently, there is a deep abyss between what the developed countries are prepared to pay to secure climate change and what the developing countries are demanding by way of support to toe the line.

Will a compromise be reached or will Copenhagen be yet another nail in the coffin, as we march inexorably towards the destruction of our planet?

At the core of the deal is the amount the developed countries will pay the developing countries, led by China and India, to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions while at the same time expanding their burgeoning economies.

For 200 years, the western economies have been chucking CO2 into the atmosphere like there was no tomorrow. Now, while accepting responsibility for their past misdemeanours, they expect the developing countries not to follow suit, a position clearly they will have to pay for.

If you were China, you wouldn’t want to hold back economic development purely to appease the West’s concerns on climate change. Naturally, you would seek compensation to put the brakes on economic growth!

So what are the developing countries looking for? A cool £245bn! The EU is the first not to blink and has countered with its own proposal – £20 to £50bn per annum depending on what actions the developing world takes, more specifically the poorer countries. The UK’s contribution could be around £1bn.

The rich western economies have accepted that, since they have caused the problem, they must provide the solution and will have to assist the G77 developing countries to grow economically in a low-carbon way. This will cost money, huge sums of money. Many of the G77 developing countries are very poor and the only way to get their people out of poverty is to grow rapidly economically. It’s almost a Catch 22 for the climate.

The monies to be paid by the developed world has to go towards two main objectives – reducing carbon emissions and preparing for climate change, such as building flood defences. The first is called mitigation, the second adaptation.

China and the G77 calculated in August that the developed countries should pay between 0.5% and 1% of their gross national product each year, equating to nearly double to four times the current amount of overseas development aid.

Now here comes another crunch. China and the G77 insist this money must be in addition to that development aid, not a substitute for it.

Hence, the significance of the EU response.

This week we have the Copenhagen pre-negotiations when the 192 countries involved in the treaty try to thrash out some kind of compromise. And a big compromise it’s going to have to be given the chasm between the two figures currently on the table – £20bn versus £245bn!

In addition, the EU has insisted that while China and India will be beneficiaries, they should also contribute too, as they are rich developing countries.

The developing countries it is estimated will eventually account for 90% of all future emissions growth, which is why securing a deal is so important. It also kind of puts the contribution of the automotive industry into perspective. In the UK, road transport accounts for around 20% of CO2 emissions with cars responsible for 11.5% of this.

We must continue doing our bit but we must all hope and pray the policy makers do theirs as well and thrash out a workable deal come December. After all, the future of our planet is at stake.