We cannot afford to delay a UK-wide road safety strategy
By Rebecca Morris, June 2025
On average, five people die and 80 are seriously injured, every day, in crashes that are entirely preventable. These are not ‘accidents’. They are foreseeable consequences of policy failure, gaps in regulation and a national absence of urgency.
The UK needs a national road safety strategy - and it must be a Vision Zero strategy. The only acceptable long-term target is zero deaths and serious injuries. Anything else implies that we’re willing to accept avoidable trauma as a by-product of mobility. But if the person killed was your child, your partner, or your friend, would you still think that target was unrealistic?
Recently, I shared those daily casualty figures in a television interview. The statistic has stayed with me – and it resonated with my eight-year-old son, Oliver, too. Over half term, he asked how many people die on the roads globally each day. He used a calculator and worked it out: 3,260 people, every day, lose their lives on roads around the world.
That figure doesn’t include the 20 to 50 million people each year who are seriously injured or left with long-term physical or emotional trauma. The scale of this public health crisis is vast. Yet in England, we are still waiting for a meaningful, coordinated response.
Young drivers, lasting consequences
A meaningful road safety strategy must be built around Vision Zero principles and the Safe System approach, but it must also include targeted interventions to address known risks - including the disproportionate involvement of young drivers in serious collisions.
In Britain, 24% of fatal or serious injury crashes involve drivers aged 17 to 24. These crashes don’t just affect the people in the car. In 2023, nearly 5,000 people were killed or seriously injured in collisions involving at least one young driver - including pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and other road users unconnected to the driver.
We need to do more to protect everyone on the road - and introducing a form of Graduated Driving Licensing (GDL), which helps young and novice drivers to build their skills, confidence and judgement over time, rather than granting full driving privileges immediately, must be part of that approach.
GDL is a proven system adopted in countries including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. It has been shown to reduce fatal and serious crashes involving new drivers by 20-40%.
The benefits are measurable. Yet the UK Government continues to delay.
A promise made, a policy missing
In November 2024, Road Safety Minister Lilian Greenwood MP stood on stage at the Road Safety GB Conference and promised a new UK-wide strategy. It felt like a moment of change - a signal that leadership was returning to the national conversation. But over six months later, there is still no published strategy, no visible progress and no sense of urgency.
Meanwhile, road deaths are not falling. Despite the hard work of road safety professionals across the country, the UK has seen little to no reduction in fatalities over the past decade. We are not improving the situation – we are maintaining it.
Leadership exists - but not from Government
In the absence of national leadership, local authorities and regional partnerships are stepping up. I want to acknowledge and commend the work being done by organisations such as Transport for Greater Manchester, Vision Zero West Yorkshire, Vision Zero South West, Kent County Council, South Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership, Transport for London, Surrey RoadSafe, Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership and Safer Essex Roads Partnership. All have committed to Vision Zero and are working towards eliminating deaths and serious injuries by 2040.
But how far can we expect local initiatives to go when there is no national direction, no statutory coordination and no Government mandate to act? The truth is, the next 15 years will look no different from the last if we continue down the same path.
Other countries have already demonstrated what national leadership looks like. Scotland and Wales have both committed to Vision Zero. So have Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, New Zealand and Australia. England remains behind – despite having the tools, expertise and capacity to lead.
Too often, we fall back on the line that “we already have some of the safest roads in the world.” But that complacency is costing lives. ‘Safe’ is not safe enough when five people are dying every day. Safety is not static. It is something we must continuously improve.
A collective response, a shared responsibility
In the absence of a national strategy, collaboration is essential. That’s why I’m proud to be part of the Vision Zero Community powered by Co-Pilot - a professional space for those committed to doing things differently. It’s where consistency, innovation and shared responsibility come together. If you work in this sector and believe in a future free from road death and injury, this is the place to be.
We cannot keep managing the damage. We must prevent it. And we must do so together, with urgency, clarity and determination.
The time for a national road safety strategy is not next year. It’s not when it becomes politically convenient. It’s now.