This isn’t lights out on the Lighter Later campaign

After campaigning long and hard to get our clocks changed for good, Friday’s third reading of the Daylight Saving Bill ended in bitter disappointment for Brake and the 90 odd other national organisations backing the Lighter Later campaign.

Despite a tremendous turn out of supportive MPs – 144 stayed in the Commons to vote – following an impassioned lobbying campaign, the Bill was scuppered by a few MPs wasting time to prevent the Bill going to the vote.

It’s incredibly frustrating, given the case for putting our clocks forward by an hour year-round stacks up so convincingly. Pretty much everyone stands to gain, in all sorts of ways. Lighter evenings mean fewer road casualties, and reduced risk for those wanting to walk, cycle, jog or go anywhere in the evenings, and for children coming home from school. It would mean less hours of daylight wasted while we’re asleep, so more daylight leisure time, and reductions in energy bills and carbon emissions.

It’s yet more frustrating given that so much time and energy – including from charities like Brake with limited resources – has gone into pushing this Bill forwards, which would compel the government to review and act upon the evidence for changing the clocks.

Hats off to the Lighter Later team, who have done a fantastic job raising awareness about this issue and building support. Brake will be continuing to back the campaign as other avenues are explored – this certainly isn’t lights out for Lighter Later.

Read the latest, next steps for taking the campaign forward, and how you can help, at www.lighterlater.org.

Welcoming a forward step in tackling deadly drug drivers

The government announced this week that a panel of experts will be appointed to consider the practicalities of changing drug driving law, which Brake argues is long overdue.

Currently, it is not a specific offence to drive with illegal drugs in your system, only to drive while impaired by drugs. This presents the challenge of having to prove impairment for someone to be prosecuted for drug driving, so frequently these highly dangerous drivers escape justice. Alongside this obstacle, police still don’t have the equipment they need to detect drugs at the roadside, despite successive governments promising progress on the development of drugalyser devices. Currently, police use a ‘Field Impairment Test’, which involves various tests like walking in a straight line to gauge impairment. The trouble is, this is subjective, unreliable, and there aren’t huge numbers of police trained to do it. Yet in other countries, drugalysers are already being used successfully for roadside screening.

We don’t know exactly how many people are killed and injured by drug drivers in the UK because this data isn’t available, but there are numerous indications that drug driving is a widespread and deadly menace. Coinciding with the government’s announcement, Brake and Direct Line revealed research showing a horrifying one in nine young drivers (17-24) admit driving on drugs at least once in the past year – a slight increase from our survey four years ago, and a rate that’s four times higher than among older drivers.

We also know that illegal drugs can be lethal behind the wheel. Brake regularly supports families whose lives have been devastated, cruelly and needlessly, by a death or serious injury at the hands of a driver on drugs, and we bear witness to the appalling suffering they endure. At the same time, academic evidence demonstrates that a range of illegal drugs affect the skills, coordination and judgment required for driving. We therefore believe it is fair to assume that drivers with these drugs in their system are impaired, in the same way that we do through our drink drive law.

Brake has been campaigning for drugalysers and a law on driving on drugs for many years, urging our government to learn from regimes introduced successfully in countries like Germany to catch drug drivers. We have also been working to support the family of Lillian Groves in their campaigning, which has been determined and courageous. Lillian Groves was tragically killed age 14 outside her house by a driver who had been smoking cannabis. Her killer served just eight weeks in prison. Her family has gone on to campaign for ‘Lillian’s Law’ through the media, an online petition which Brake is promoting, and by lobbying politicians, including meeting David Cameron in November. Following this meeting the Prime Minister agreed that change was needed and promised to speed up the process.

We are therefore extremely encouraged to see what looks like a positive step on this critical issue. We hope the expert panel announced this week is a sign of rapid movement towards changing the law, rather than further delay. We will be continuing to work with the Groves family to call for the approach we must take to tackle drug driving, which is long-overdue: zero tolerance.

Read about Brake and Direct Line’s survey of young drivers on drug driving
Sign the Groves family’s petition calling  for Lillian’s Law
Support Brake’s not a drop, not a drag campaign for zero tolerance on drink and drug driving 
Read the government’s announcement on a drug driving expert panel 

We can all play a part in preventing drink drive tragedies this Christmas

A survey released today by Brake and Direct Line looking at drink driving behaviour among young people suggests the drink drive message is getting through to most. Far fewer young drivers admit getting behind the wheel after drinking than four years ago. But despite this progress, it remains that three in 10 are willing to take this deadly risk, and, worryingly, ‘morning-after’ drink driving is a major and growing trend: more than half owned up to this.

The question we are repeatedly asked is why would driving after drinking be on the decrease, yet more and more are risking driving early the morning after having a lot to drink? It seems likely that complacency and ignorance are both at play. Our surveys repeatedly indicate that while drink driving is claimed to be socially unacceptable – in that the vast majority acknowledge it’s a potentially deadly risk – there is still widespread misunderstanding about the effects of drinking even small amounts of alcohol, and about how long alcohol stays in your body.

This means while most people would say they never ‘drink drive’, many continue to think it doesn’t count if you only have one drink, or drive the morning after drinking a lot. Yet research shows that if you do either you’re taking a highly risky gamble with people’s lives. Just one small drink is enough to have a significant effect on your reaction times, judgment and ability to drive safely. And for the alcohol to leave your system, you should allow one hour for absorption, plus another hour for every small drink (containing one unit) consumed. So if you drink a lot, you could be under the influence all of the next day. The mistake many make is to think if they feel fine they are fine. But if you have alcohol in your system, your judgment is impaired, which means you can’t possibly judge your own impairment.

That’s why zero tolerance is the only responsible approach to drink driving. Hence we’re appealing for drivers to make a personal commitment to never drive after drinking anything – not a drop – and to plan ahead to ensure if they’re driving early the next day they limit themselves to no more than one or two drinks. We also continue to push the government to implement zero tolerance laws on drink driving. A lower drink drive limit, and increased police powers to enable random breath testing, would send a clear message it should be none for the road, and drink driving in any form won’t be tolerated.

But this isn’t just about drivers and the government adopting zero tolerance on drink driving: we need to all take this approach as a society. Drink driving remains one of the biggest killers on our roads, tearing families apart every Christmas and year round. If we are to stamp it out for good, we must make it truly socially unacceptable, and that means speaking out and doing everything we can to stop people driving on alcohol, even if it’s just one drink, or the day after the night before.

Brake and Direct Line’s survey of young drivers, and advice for drivers
Facts on drink driving
Brake’s not a drop campaign for government action

The campaign for 20mph limits marches on

Congratulations to the people of Leicester, many of whom are welcoming news that the streets where they live will be made safer through the introduction of 20mph limits. Leicester City Council is the latest in series of local authorities to recognise the significant benefits that 20mph deliver to communities. They plan to lower the limit on more than 100 residential streets, after a huge 84% of residents voted in favour. Just two weeks before, Islington Borough Council announced an extension of its 20mph scheme onto main roads, following a groundswell of support from residents; it had already made its side-streets 20mph earlier this year, making it London’s first 20mph borough.

The campaign group 20′s Plenty for Us estimates that seven million UK people now live in towns and cities that have adopted a policy of widespread 20mph limits, and this is growing. This is purely down to an increasing recognition among authorities and the public that 20mph limits prevent casualties and make communities more pleasant places that are more conducive to healthy, green lifestyles. It’s a recognition not only of evidence that 20mph limits mean fewer casualties (especially among people on foot and bicycle) but also of where our priorities should lie – that we should be putting the well-being of people and communities before traffic.

Those local authorities that have made the switch to 20mph are pioneers, going over and above current government guidance on local speed limits. At present, this guidance is in many ways discouraging and prohibitive on lowering limits, saying multiple conditions should be met and other options considered first. We hope a review of this guidance, currently being undertaken by government, will set that right, in line with the benefits we know lower limits deliver.

And we hope to see this wave of widespread town-, city- and borough-wide 20mph limits gathering pace. It’s especially encouraging to see in Liverpool, for the first time, the public health authority part-funding a big extension of the city’s 20mph limits. It makes sense given the huge burden placed on health services by road casualties and unhealthy, inactive life-styles. This kind of joined-up, bold and forward-thinking approach by authorities could have a revolutionary impact on the health, safety and well-being of local people; we hope more authorities across the UK will follow suit, and we continue to support the communities pushing for this change.

Read more on Brake’s campaign for 20mph limits

We need government action to tackle life-shattering young driver crashes

Today families and young people whose lives have been ripped apart by young driver crashes are helping Brake launch its annual Road Safety Week campaign – by appealing for action on the unacceptable loss of young lives on our roads. They are speaking out about the terrible impact young driver crashes have had on their lives, and the need to stop other people suffering in this way.

It is a shocking fact that preventable, violent, man-made road crashes are the biggest killer of young people in the UK, and globally [1]. The latest figures, released today by Brake, show a young person is killed every 18 hours on UK roads, and another young person is seriously injured every hour and a half [2]. So on a daily basis, young lives are being cut short or torn apart, sending devastating shock waves through families and communities.

Young people are often the victims of road crashes, but they are also often the perpetrators, due to inexperience, and a tendency of many to take risks. Brake and QBE Insurance’s survey of 8,000 young people, released today, finds the majority have had their lives endangered by a peer speeding or driving on drink or drugs [3]. Because of the deadly combination of risk-taking and inexperience, young people are far more likely to crash than older drivers [4], and are involved in one in four fatal and serious crashes [5], despite making up just one in eight licence holders [6]. In fact, helping young drivers to be safer is critical in improving road safety overall – given the huge proportion of crashes they are involved in, and given they are the drivers of the future.

Yet not near enough is being done by government on the issue. We have strong evidence telling us that reforming our system for training and licensing drivers, by introducing graduated driver licensing (GDL), would be a critical step. GDL includes a minimum learning period, plus licence restrictions for newly qualified drivers, so novices develop their experience gradually while exposure to risk is limited. GDL also, arguably, can create a greater respect for the huge responsibility of having a full driving licence, since it takes you longer to get there, without preventing those young people who need to drive due to lack of access to public transport from doing so.

GDL has been successful in countries like New Zealand and many US states [7]. The UN has recognised it as best practice in tackling road casualties by including it as a measure within its Decade of Action for Road Safety, which begun earlier this year [8]. And a University of Cardiff study has shown it would prevent an estimated 200 deaths and thousands of injuries annually in UK [9], sparing families needless suffering, and saving the economy £890million a year.

In Northern Ireland, the government is consulting on introducing this evidenced, life-saving measure. Brake has spoken out in support, and is appealing to Westminster to follow suit. Through our Road Safety Week media campaign this week we’re appealing to young drivers (and older drivers too) to ‘have a heart’: to help prevent crashes and casualties by always driving safely and legally. But we need the government to have a heart on this issue too. With latest figures showing road deaths have gone up after years of decline [10], the government must respond to the compelling evidence, showing how to help tackle the appalling loss and ruin of young lives in needless, violent crashes.

Read more:
Brake press release launching Road Safety Week campaign
About Road Safety Week, and ways to support the campaign
Evidence basis for calling for graduated driver licensing

[1] Death registrations in England and Wales: Table 2 Deaths by age, sex and underlying cause, 2010 registrations, Office National Statistics, 2011
[2] In 2010, 451 young people age 15 – 25 were killed on UK roads, 6,243 were badly hurt, some suffering life-changing injuries such as paralysis, brain damage or loss of limbs. A further 54,000 were slightly hurt. Figures provided to Brake by the Department for Transport and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, September 2011
[3] Results from a Brake and QBE Insurance survey of 8,110 young people age 15-25 across the UK conducted via schools, colleges, universities and youth clubs
[4] Reported road accidents involving young car drivers: Great Britain 2009, DfT, 2011
[5] Figures requested from the Department for Transport and the Police Service of Northern Ireland relating to 2010
[6] Reported road accidents involving young car drivers: Great Britain 2009, DfT, 2011
[7] Teenagers in Michigan, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, 2008; Intermediate drivers’ licence implementation, Washington Transport Safety Commission, 2006
[8] Decade of Action for Road Safety Action Plan, UN, 2011
[9] Restricting young drivers, The University of Cardiff, 2010
[10] Reported road casualties Great Britain: provisional estimates Q1 and Q2 2011, Department for Transport, 2011

A justified outcry to a horrific tragedy

Over the past few days Brake has been speaking out about motorway safety following Friday’s horrendous M5 crash, which claimed seven lives and injured many more.

The magnitude of this horrific event – thankfully unprecedented in recent years – meant it made the front page of every newspaper, was subject to a parliamentary debate, and sent out shock-waves not only through local communities, but at national level. However, while the scale of this tragedy was exceptional, sadly the suffering inflicted on the bereaved and injured victims was not.

Britain’s roads are among the safest in the world, and you are least likely to crash on our motorways than on any other type of road. But while we can make these favourable comparisons, it remains that there are 18 deaths and serious injuries every week on Britain’s motorways, each one devastating for the families involved, and each one in violent, man-made and preventable circumstances.

Brake offers desperately needed support to those bereaved and injured in these crashes, as we do to those affected by the M5 crash. We therefore understand that each one of these casualties constitutes a terrible catastrophe. It is crucial that we remember the’forgotten victims’, who suffer equally to those affected by the M5 crash, but whose suffering doesn’t make national headlines, and whose numbers are added to week by week. No doubt if all crashes received as much attention as Friday’s, road safety would receive far greater national priority and investment, rather than being sidelined politically, as it appears to be at present. This crash comes at a time when road safety spending by government has been slashed, dangerously blithe messages about speed are being touted, and national targets for reducing road casualties have been abandoned.

A question Brake has repeatedly been asked following Friday’s crash is ‘how can we learn from this to make our roads safer?’ Clearly, it is too soon for us to draw conclusions about the causes of this crash: the police investigation will take some time. However, this remains an entirely appropriate question, because no matter what the investigation finds, it is crucial that our response to this crash – and indeed all crashes on our roads – is to act to make roads safer, to prevent further needless suffering. That is the humane response, which should of course follow such a horrific event.

But while crash investigations are incredibly important in developing our understanding of how and why these awful events happen, to inform our efforts to make roads safer we already have a large body of academic evidence to draw from. We have a wide range of studies and evaluations from within the UK and overseas on what the main risk factors are on roads, and what’s most effective in preventing crashes and casualties.

It’s particularly pertinent to point out at this point that we already have evidence that raising our motorway speed limit to 80mph – a policy currently being proposed by the government – would result in more crashes, deaths and injuries. This point was made yesterday by Bob Russell MP to the new Transport Secretary Justine Greening at a debate parliament. The response was that we need to let the police get on with their investigation rather than prejudging the causes of the crash.

But the fact is we do not need the results of the investigation into Friday’s crash to tell us that raising the motorway speed limit is bad for road safety – the evidence is already there. But we can use the entirely justified outcry following this crash to spur opposition to this abhorrent and inhumane policy, and to drive action to prevent other families seeing their worst nightmares come true.

Read more:
Brake’s support services for those bereaved and injured in road crashes 
Comment by Peter Wilby, The Guardian, on the M5 crash and rising road deaths
Parliamentary debate on the M5 crash
Brake response to government proposals on raising motorway speed limit

Time to change the clocks for good

We have long known that our GMT/GMT+1 system – where we’re on GMT in winter, then forward an hour in summer – is bad for road safety. This archaic system, put in place for reasons of limited relevance today, means that for most people, a large proportion of our daylight hours are wasted while we sleep. And when the clocks go back, we experience the worst of this, with it getting light long before most of us are out of the house, and getting dark long before we return.

The impact of this in road safety terms is that more pedestrians and cyclists are out and about when it’s dark and they are harder to spot, meaning more casualties. These dark evenings also, of course, have a significant impact on our lifestyles and the environment, because we all have to switch our lights on.

Yet there is an incredibly straightforward solution, calls for which have become more vociferous as the Lighter Later campaign has gained momentum in the past year. If we were to put our clocks forward by an hour year round (so GMT+1 in winter, and GMT+2 in summer), we would shift our daylight hours to be much more closely aligned with the average person’s waking hours.

The impact, it is estimated, would be 80 fewer deaths and hundreds fewer serious injuries each year, plus at least 447,000 tonnes of carbon pollution cut annually, a £2.5-3.5bn boost to the leisure and tourism industry, and, it is thought, a happier and healthier population [1].

The Daylight Savings Bill currently going through parliament would require the government to review and act upon the benefits and costs of such a change – which, given the evidence, should spur some long-overdue action on this issue. That’s why, as our clocks go back to GMT+1 for winter, it’s an ideal time to call for the clocks to be changed for good.

Read more about the benefits, and sign up in support of the Lighter Later campaign

[1] References for all statistics can be found at www.lighterlater.org/benefits

The true meaning of exceptional hardship

The term ‘exceptional hardship’ was debated with fervour this week, as Brake and Direct Line revealed that a huge proportion of drivers who clock up 12 points or more are being let off by claiming that this is what they or others would suffer if they lost their licence [1].

Data we obtained from the DVLA shows that of the 23,521 drivers who have 12 or more points on their licence, only 13,449 have actually been disqualified [2] – the consequence that most of us would expect in this situation. The remainder have kept their licence, despite repeatedly committing dangerous, anti-social crimes, and despite ample opportunity to change their ways.

This is a desperate state of affairs for two simple reasons. Firstly, if the system is failing to mete out appropriate punishment for breaking vital safety laws on our roads, there is less deterrent from committing offences that directly endanger lives, like using a mobile at the wheel and speeding. Secondly, these drivers who have racked up 12+ points – over 30 in some shocking cases – are themselves posing a huge risk to themselves and all other road users they come into contact with. Yet rather than remove these drivers from the road while we have the chance,  protecting the public and stopping crashes before they happen, we’re letting them off because a ban would cause ‘exceptional hardship’.

We believe quite simply that if you have repeatedly flouted the law and endangered lives, you don’t have any right to continue driving. If your livelihood depends on driving, then you should have made sure it was safe and legal – and our system already has second chances built in for drivers to do this.

We should remind ourselves that no one has forced these drivers to break the law – they have done it of their own volition, and they have done it time and time again. If we are to consider the hardship these drivers may face from a driving ban, we must contrast that with the profound and appalling hardship suffered by families who fall victim to a death or serious injury on the road – tragedies that are very often caused by law-breaking drivers who thought they could get away with it.

Read more: Brake’s news release calling for action on 12 point + drivers

[1] Information provided by the DVLA to Brake through a Freedom of Information request in August 2011
[2] 13,449 drivers disqualified according to report in the Independent on 28 August 2011 citing DVLA data

The need for comprehensive support for the ‘forgotten victims’

Last week Brake held the first of our annual seminars for police family liaison officers (FLOs). These officers are at the coalface in dealing with the appalling aftermath of road crashes, so it was really valuable hearing from them about their day to day work and the issues they grapple with. FLOs break the news of a road death (and in some cases of a very serious injury) to families, and keep them informed about the police investigation. They perform an extremely tough role, one that is critical to families’ ability to begin to deal with the terrible circumstances are thrown into.

Because these officers are usually the first officials families come into contact with at the outset of their nightmare, it is they who families often turn to for information and guidance. While it isn’t the role of FLOs to provide emotional care, they can provide an empathetic service that is helpful in families being able to cope with the shock and grief, including referring to appropriate sources of support. This includes providing Brake’s support pack (stipulated in the manual FLOs follow to be provided on their first visit, after all road deaths) and, often, flagging up Brake’s helpline and other services. This signposting is critical in Brake and other providers being able to reach families in with much-needed, specialist support.

Brake is currently working to develop its national support services – our literature and helpline – to ensure we provide the best possible support to as many victims as possible. We’re improving the helpline’s capacity (to meet demand that continues to rise – we receive about 140 calls per month), developing our provision of practical advocacy, refining our work helping victims access appropriate face to face support, and working closely with police to ensure the service is being explained to victims. We’ve been able to do this through a Ministry of Justice grant earlier this year (the first time the government has provided funding for our helpline) alongside continuing support from corporate sponsors.

But despite the progress we have made this year – achieving more funding, expanding and improving our services, and continuing to build on our relationship with police – we still have a long way to go before all road crash victims get the support they need and deserve.

In July Victims’ Commissioner Louise Casey published a review of support needs of victims of homicide and culpable road death, recognising that the profound suffering and needs of bereaved road death victims are on a par with those of homicide victims. Ms Casey highlighted that while millions has been invested Victim Support’s Homicide Service, providing professional, face to face care for homicide victims, there remains a gaping hole in support for victims of road death.

We currently await an evaluation of the Homicide Service, which should help us consider how we can best work towards an integrated, high-quality offer of support for road crash victims. And we continue to engage the Ministry of Justice, speaking out for bereaved and seriously injured crash victims, highlighting that all are deserving of government-funded support (not just those where a criminal prosecution follows). We will be arguing this in the government’s forthcoming consultation on a new Victims Strategy, which will hopefully take into account Louise Casey’s points. Brake will be calling for all the ‘forgotten victims’, who are subject to such acute pain and trauma, due to man-made, violent events, to be given a comprehensive offer of support, funded by government.

Read more:
Brake’s Forgotten Victims campaign
Brake’s support services for road crash victims
Victims’ Commissioner’s report on the needs of homicide and culpable road death victims 

A step towards justice for road crash victims

Through Brake’s work supporting families bereaved and seriously injured in road crashes, we hear first-hand about the terrible devastation and trauma these victims suffer. We also hear, very often, about their outrage over lenient sentences given to the drivers who have inflicted such suffering on them.

Today an important announcement was made by Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, which should help to address the long-running injustice of drivers who cause serious injury being let off with little more than a slap on the wrist. For the first time, we will have a criminal charge that specifically recognises the causing of serious injury by dangerous driving, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

At present, drivers who cause devastating serious injuries through irresponsible and reckless behaviour can only be charged with ‘dangerous driving’, with a maximum penalty of two years, or ‘careless driving’, with a maximum penalty of a fine and disqualification only. This means that time and time again these drivers get away with a few months in jail or, worse, a paltry fine that serves only as an insult to the victims and in no way befits the consequences of their crime. In some cases, these are drivers who have inflicted permanent debilitating injuries meaning victims require round-the-clock care.

This new charge means drivers who seriously injure will face a significantly longer maximum sentence – a huge victory following a long-running campaign for this – but this alone won’t mean justice is done in all cases.

Firstly, although this is a step in the right direction, we would like to see the maximum penalty for causing serious injury by dangerous driving on a par with that for causing death by dangerous driving, which is 14 years in prison. But we also need to see courts handing out the full range of penalties available to them, up to the maximum in the most serious cases. At present, it’s rare to see courts hand out more than seven years to dangerous drivers who kill. If the same is true of the new serious injury offence then it will make little difference to the punishments meted out.

In addition, Brake wants to see the ‘careless driving’ charges scrapped. Until this happens we will continue to see drivers who kill and injure escaping justice. It seems obvious to us, a charity supporting the families directly affected, that ‘careless’ is a desperately inappropriate term for driving that has resulted in a death or serious injury. Surely if someone’s actions behind the wheel have ended a life or inflicted bodily trauma then they were, by definition, ‘dangerous’? This needs to be recognised by the law if we are to follow through on this important progress in achieving justice for road crash victims.

Read more:
Brake’s media statement on the announcement
Brake’s campaign for justice for victims of life-changing serious injury
Brake’s support services victims of road crashes