Road Safety Week (21st-27th November)

21/11/2016

Five people are killed every single day by something we already know how to cure. Our roads are dangerous places, where hundreds of deaths and serious injuries take place every week.

But by changing our driving behaviour, we can help to make our villages, towns and cities safer places to be. Every action that we take, as a driver or as a passenger, can change the outcome of a journey and the future of a family.

That’s why we’ve chosen to focus on the six elements of the Brake Pledge for Road Safety Week 2016 (21-27 November): Slow, Sober, Secure, Silent, Sharp and Sustainable.

So take action, make a difference, and Pledge to do six simple things to save lives this Road Safety Week.Register now to be part of Road Safety Week 2016 and get a free electronic action pack. Take part in the Week by promoting our Make the Pledge theme, or focusing on any other road safety issue that is important to you.A few facts on why our theme is important:

Slow: Breaking the speed limit or travelling too fast for the conditions is recorded by police at crash scenes as a contributory factor in more than one in four (27%) fatal crashes in Great Britain [1].
Sober: Having even one drink before getting behind the wheel can affect your ability to drive. In 2013 one in 10 (11%) drivers/motorcycle riders killed in a crash had alcohol present in their body, even though they weren’t over the legal blood-alcohol limit [2]. One in seven road deaths are at the hands of someone who has driven while over the limit [3].
Secure: Seat belts are still seen as an inconvenience by some drivers, yet using one reduces the chance of dying in a crash by 50% [4]. 21% of car occupants killed in crashes were not wearing a seat belt [5].
Silent: Drivers who perform a complex secondary task, like using a mobile, while at the wheel are three times more likely to crash than non-distracted drivers [6].
Sharp: Booking in for a regular eye test should be at the top of any driver’s to-do list. Road crashes caused by poor driver vision are estimated to cause 2,900 casualties and cost £33 million in the UK per year [7].
Sustainable: By minimising the amount we drive, and walking, cycling or using public transport instead, we are making our communities safer places, and doing the best we can for the environment and our individual health. Air pollution is a major killer: there are an estimated 29,000 deaths per year from particulate matter pollution in the UK [8], 5,000 of which are attributable to road transport [9].

[1] Reported Road Casualties Great Britain 2014, Department for Transport, 2015, table RAS50001
[2] Statistical data set: Reported drinking and driving (RAS51), Department for Transport, 2014, table RAS51007
[3] Provisional estimate for 2014, fromReported road casualties Great Britain: Estimates for accidents involving illegal alcohol levels: 2014 (second provisional), Department for Transport, February 2016
[4] Oral evidence: Road traffic law enforcement, HC 518, Transport Select Committee, 7 December 2015
[5] The Impact of Driver Inattention On Near-Crash/Crash Risk: An Analysis Using the 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study Data, US Department of Transportation, 2006
[6] Estimating Local Mortality Burdens associated with Particulate Air Pollution, Public Health England, 2014
[7] Steve H. L. Yim and Steven R. H. Barrett, “Public Health Impacts of Combustion Emissions in the United Kingdom”,