Football clubs tackling road safety

Four top football clubs are to help tackle the problem of child accident rates on the roads

Four top football clubs are to help tackle the problem of child accident rates on the roads, the Government has announced.

Blackburn Rovers, Sunderland, West Bromwich Albion and Leeds United will take part in a THINK! child road safety campaign.

The teams will use their after-school clubs, activities in schools and match days to help youngsters learn about road safety.

The new initiative will focus on helping six- to 11-year-olds learn how to find safe places to cross the road.

The clubs taking part in the new pilot project are all based in regions where there are higher than average casualty numbers for children aged six to 11. This work will be supported by local road safety officers and council road safety programmes.

Road Safety Minister Mike Penning said he was delighted at the clubs' participation.

"Britain's roads are among the safest in the world, but last year more than 1,600 children were killed or seriously injured - that's 31 children every week.

"We need to think of new ways to reach children and make sure that they are given the skills they need to keep themselves safe on the roads as they grow up and gain independence."

Call to ditch road safety cuts

The Institute of Advanced Motorists claims cutting back on road safety spending is a "false economy"

Cutting back on road safety spending is a "false economy" and achieving casualty-reduction targets by 2020 will save 2,500 lives and more than £4 billion, a report from the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) has revealed.

The report, entitled Deaths and Injuries on Britain's Roads, showed that in 2009 the UK was number one in the world road safety league table of safest roads, having been sixth in 2007 and fourth in 2008. In the EU, the UK has half the road death rates of Austria, Belgium, Portugal and Luxembourg.

"These staggering figures prove conclusively that investing in saving lives on the roads saves the country money, so funding being taken away from this area is a false economy," said IAM policy and research director Neil Greig.

The IAM also revealed that each fatal accident cost the UK economy £1.79 million in lost output, health care, pain and suffering. Mr Greig added: "Meeting our casualty reduction targets has meant that deaths on Britain's roads have halved over the past 20 years with 31,000 deaths avoided and savings to the economy of around £50 billion.

"The IAM calculates that achieving similar targets for road deaths by 2020 would save society 2,500 lives and the economy over £4 billion."

He also urged public bodies "to focus on the benefits to all road users and to the economy of investing in road safety education and awareness, training for younger drivers and riders, and targeted safety improvements to roads."

Meanwhile, the IAM report showed rural roads were still the most dangerous in the UK, accounting for two-thirds of fatal and serious casualties.

It also concluded that despite falling casualty rates, young drivers were still the most at-risk category. Mr Greig added: "With changes to the theory and practical parts of the driving test under way, and an ever-increasing focus on the risks faced by younger drivers, we hope that this number will continue to fall."

Road safety minister Mike Penning said: "We are committed to further improving road safety and fully appreciate the economic as well as personal benefits this can bring. That is why we have taken steps to develop drug-screening technology to make it easier for the police to prosecute drug drivers and, as the IAM recognise, have made improvements to the driving test."

He went on: "The importance of tackling the country's deficit means that we have had to make tough decisions in all areas of our spending. However, we have also removed ring-fencing from local authority grants so that councils are able to set their own priorities. We would expect that road safety would remain a priority for local communities and that local spending would reflect that."

Tube safety staff job cuts anger

Plans to cut back safety staff on London Underground have been attacked

A fresh row over job losses on London Underground flared up when union leaders complained that safety staff were being cut back.

The Transport Salaried Staffs Association said it "beggared belief" that jobs in LU's Safety Directorate were being cut by 50% under plans for hundreds of job losses which have sparked a series of strikes.

The union said it had been told that 65 jobs out of a total of 127 at LU's headquarters were being axed.

General secretary Gerry Doherty said: "It beggars belief that at a time of heightened security in the capital the Mayor is talking about cutting back on safety staff on a system used by three million people every day. This news comes during the inquest into the July bombings five years ago in which the heroism of LU staff has been widely recognised and praised.

"This is the thanks they get from a Mayor who is more interested in scoring cheap political points than entering into serious negotiations with the trade unions on maintaining and improving the Tube in the run up to the Olympics in 2012."

Members of the TSSA and the Rail Maritime and Transport union have staged three 24-hour strikes in recent weeks over plans to cut 800 ticket office jobs, with another walkout planned for the end of the month.

A Transport for London spokesman said: "As part of the review announced last month to reduce back office jobs at London Underground by around 800, around 60 posts will be removed from the company's Health, Safety and Environment directorate.

"The posts represent less than a quarter of the directorate's total staff and are non-operational advisory roles, not in those teams which carry out maintenance and safety checks on the railway."

Meanwhile, Labour's Mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone and Labour's London Assembly transport spokeswoman Val Shawcross have written to Mayor Boris Johnson listing a series of questions about the delays and disruption to Tube services in recent weeks.

The Mayor was asked to explain the "daily problems" being experienced by travellers and questioned about any actions he had taken to improve services.