Web chat with Dr Stephen Ladyman MP

Road Safety Act

Posted by larsoa on November 9th 2006

Congratulations on your work taking through the new Road Safety Act. LARSOA welcomes the measures and looks forward to them helping improve the UK's road safety record even further.

However, we are disappointed the opportunity was not taken to introduce some simple measures which would also have helped:

reducing the blood alcohol limit
introducing graduated driver licensing for new drivers
increasing penalties for seat belt offences, especially for drivers who allow childfen to travel not properly restrained

Will you comment on these and give some hope you will consider them for future legislation?

This question is now closed.

Thank you for your frank

Posted by larsoa on 09/11/2006 - 16:45

Thank you for your frank answer.

On the issue of the blood alcohol limit, we understand your point. However, we feel a reduction would signal to those drivers who might be tempted to have just one or two drinks to think again.

We look forward to continuing discussing these issues with you in the future!

Road Safety Act

Posted by Dr Stephen Ladyman on 09/11/2006 - 16:29

Whenever you write a new bill it has to reflect the priorities of the time its written (the start of the process) and by the time it is passed people will always have developed ideas about what else could have been in it.

I don't agree with you on blood alcohol I'm afraid. The number of people killed who were found to have between 50 and 80 mg is about one tenth of the number killed in accidents with over 80. It seems to me, therefore, that we have to target our resources on enforcing the law over 80mg before we worry about lowering the limit. Perhaps by the time we next write a road safety bill we will have made inroads into the 'over 80' group and then it will be time to change the law.

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