A truly effective road transport network depends on safety, as the efficient movement of goods and people is undermined by road trauma. Yet road crashes continue to cause profound personal tragedy and economic loss, with over 1,600 deaths and 30,000 serious injuries annually, costing society £55 billion, 2% of the UK’s GDP. These collisions are not inevitable; they can be prevented through bold, coordinated action.
The Government’s commitment to a new road safety strategy presents a vital opportunity to position the UK as a global leader in harm reduction. Achieving this requires a human-centred approach that acknowledges every road traffic victim as one too many and confronts the inequalities that make our roads less safe for some.
By embracing the internationally recognised Safe System principles, which account for human vulnerability and fallibility, the UK can build a transport system that is both safe and efficient for all.
Looking to the past to guide the future
Nearly forty years ago, the UK’s Road Safety: Next Steps report set ambitious casualty reduction goals, leading to strategic action under both Conservative and Labour governments that cut annual road deaths from over 5,000 in 1987 to under 1,850 by 2010. Since then, nationally progress has stalled, with 1,671 deaths in the UK in 2024, virtually unchanged in over a decade.
Delivering across Government priorities
Investments into road harm reduction bring wider benefits. Effective road safety strategies in the UK’s devolved administrations address not just the need to reduce deaths and injuries, but also other policy calls.
Road safety is central to delivering the Government’s’ wider missions. These include easing pressure on the NHS, supporting active travel and public health, advancing clean energy and low-emission transport, improving access to jobs and education, enabling safer mobility through new technologies, and fostering safer streets that encourage broader use of transport options.
A new dialogue around road safety
Despite expecting safety in daily life, our roads remain disproportionately dangerous, with five deaths daily and many serious injuries. The Safe System offers a proactive, collaborative framework to eliminate road deaths and serious injuries, built on principles that acknowledge human error and vulnerability, and applied across five components: safe roads, users, speeds, vehicles, and post-crash response. This model underpins local strategies in Scotland, London, and Greater Manchester. While public awareness of the Safe System is limited, its goals resonate, 56% of people support a strategy aiming for zero road deaths.
Recommendations for a world leading strategy
PACTS makes the following recommendations to restore UK leadership in road safety:
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- Ally across Government to address road harm reduction and build governance and accountability
- Develop a road harm reduction strategy which is based on the Safe System
- Create an enabling environment for the innovation of safety measures, beginning with the foundations on which to build further actions.
Andy MacNae MP, PACTS President – The safety of our roads affects us all. A collision can not only devastate the lives of those directly involved, but also of families and friends, co-workers and neighbours. With over 30,000 people killed or seriously injured in collisions each year, we cannot afford to ignore this. By establishing a community-centred approach, based on the international best practise that PACTS outlines, the Government can finally make our roads safe for everyone.
