Road Safety

15. What steps she is taking to improve road safety.

In January, we published the road safety strategy, which envisages a safer future for everyone on the road through targets to cut deaths and serious injuries by 65% for everyone and by 70% for children by 2035. It also promotes partnership working between Government, local authorities, industry and others to save thousands of lives and ease pressure on the NHS.

I was grateful to the Secretary of State for visiting Kenrick Way in my constituency last year, which is used as a racetrack by dangerous car cruisers, making residents’ lives hell. I have been campaigning for a camera to be installed there, which finally happened a few weeks ago, and I found out yesterday that it has already caught people driving at 125 mph along this residential road. Other countries install technology to limit speeds for repeat offenders, so can the Secretary of State set out what kind of technological solutions we are looking at to limit speeds for repeat dangerous drivers in this country?

I recall the visit to my hon. Friend’s constituency, where I met her and the west midlands police and crime commissioner, Simon Foster. I remember being struck by how dangerous and pervasive that form of reckless behaviour is on her local roads. The Government are considering whether to mandate alcolocks in cars in cases of repeat and high-risk drink-driving offenders. My hon. Friend raises an interesting question about whether technological solutions could also be applied in cases of dangerous street racers. I will ask officials in my Department to do more work on what the possibilities are.

Residents of Park Avenue in Eastbourne like David Tomlinson and Cat Harris have been campaigning with the headteacher of Ratton school, Gavin Peevers, and folks in my team like Euan Morrison to make their road safer after cats have been struck by speeding cars and children have had near misses on the way into school. The previous Conservative-led county council failed to implement more traffic-calming measures to tackle speeding and road safety, so will the Secretary of State join me in encouraging the new Reform-led county council to tackle those issues on Park Avenue?

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his campaigning on this issue. We do need to make the environment around schools safer for children. Some of the most successful and enduring interventions to improve road safety have been things like school streets initiatives. If traffic-calming measures can reduce the number of people being killed or seriously injured, it is right that local authorities look at the local situation and do not hesitate to make the interventions that could make all the difference.