PACTS 31st Westminster Lecture on Transport Safety was delivered by Professor Nicola Christie of UCL in the Attlee Suite at Portcullis House on Thursday 9 November 2023. The event was made possible with support from National Highways.
Professor Nicola Christie is currently Director of Engagement for the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at University College London and President of the London Road Safety Council.. Her research has found that the risk of injury increases significantly when people are driving for work as well as links between deprivation and child casualties. Nicola’s recent work has been into the safety of gig-economy riders.
Throughout her career, Professor Christie has been tackling the complexities of transport safety from new angles. At the 31st Westminster Lecture on Transport Safety, she spoke on Why we need to level up road safety. This is based on her extensive work which has considered the disparities of health, age and deprivation with safety outcomes. Her recommendation for improving safety is the adoption of targeted universalism, where safety is identified as the universal goal with targeted strategies employed to meet each population group’s needs. Safe System goes some way to achieve this but requires proactivity, rather than reactivity.
Concluding her lecture Professor Christie spoke about her most recent research into the experiences of gig economy workers. Her warning is that “the gig economy is a perfect storm of risk factors”. Charters for employees and changes to business law to increase accountability are her recommendations for improving safety.
