Member News
By Mark Spencer MP - 5th November 2010
Mark Spencer MP writes for ePolitix.com following his Westminster Hall debate on improving safety on the A614.
According to the Institute of Advanced Motoring, on an average day, nine people die on Britain's roads; six of them are killed on rural roads. And two thirds of fatal and serious casualties on rural roads happen on 60mph or 70 mph speed limit roads. We need to look at why roads like the A614 pose such a danger, work out what's going wrong and how we're going to fix it.
I would like to see an increase in the LTP3 settlement allocated to the county council to allow them to improve the A614/B6030 (Rose Cottage junction), Mickendale Lane, the junction of Ollerton Roundabout/A614 and the Gravelly Hollow junction.
However, looking at the worst stretch of the A614 for accidents, it is clear that crashes involving drivers under the age of 25 are disproportionately high, relative to their numbers and I believe that we need to look at improving road safety by improving the driving behaviour of young drivers.
The AA have said "learner drivers should be encouraged to gain as much practice as possible before taking their tests" and the Institute of Advance Motoring have said that "newly qualified drivers need to gain more experience as learners, particularly to build better hazard perception".
We both agree that the best way to facilitate this is to support the addition of learners to the policies of qualified drivers, usually a parent, to allow them to learn over a longer and more extensive period of time than expensive driving lessons allow.
As it stands, such an arrangement is often prohibitively expensive; placing a 17 year old learner driving a 1.1 litre Renault Clio ranges in cost between £2,500 and £20,500 making their learning and improved motoring development, a major financial commitment for most families.
Alongside various motoring organisations, I believe that such a premium does not reflect proportionately the risk posed by a supervised learner. Insurance companies must make a differentiation between the 17 year old who has just passed and the individual with his mum in the front seat with a firm eye on the speedometer.
The reality is that while we must ensure that all the road safety tools are physically in place; bright lines, proper lighting, adequate junctions, these measures will mean nothing if drivers lack the experience to use them.
The key point is that young drivers are not trained on the roads most likely to kill them such as rural single carriageways, often at night and in the wet.
Such roads/conditions must be included in the driving test or in a reformed approach to driver training that encourages young drivers to get as much experience on as wide a range of roads as possible. If we take these two sets of measures together, I believe that this administration can make real and lasting impact on the current waste of lives we see on British roads.
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