Wide-ranging report urges Government to scale up investment to support safer roads

A new report is calling on the DfT to ‘revolutionise’ Britain’s roads – banning pavement parking nationwide, putting cycle training on the national curriculum, setting a 20mph default speed limit in urban areas and retraining the police and driving instructors. 

The report, published by The Bikeability Trust and Living Streets, indicates that poor public awareness of 2022 updates to the Highway Code is creating conflict between users of all modes of transport.

Less than two thirds of adults are able to correctly answer a Highway Code question on pedestrian priority, according to a YouGov poll commissioned as part of the report, while people who never cycle are 50% less likely than cyclists to correctly answer a Highway Code question.

The report calls for cycle training to be enshrined in the national curriculum alongside swimming. 

More than 78% of respondents polled agreed cycle training was one of the most important measures needed to enable primary and secondary school pupils to travel to and from school by cycling and/or walking.

The Bikeability Trust and Living Streets recommend that the Government fund universal access to Bikeability cycle training for all school-age children in England, align all adult cycle training with the National Standard for Cycle Training, expand and fund the Cycle Savvy Driving programme, and develop national training standards for commercial cargo bike use.

The report’s YouGov polling also shows that nationwide, 81% of people agree there is too much motor traffic around schools. The majority of people of all ages object to increased levels of motor traffic around schools; and people want safe routes that link residential areas to school gates, with minimal conflict with vehicles.

Main road crossings, quiet 20mph streets and segregated cycle lanes were the most important measures to achieve this.

The report also calls on the Government to introduce a nationwide ban on pavement parking this term.

Pavement parking has been banned in London since 1974 – and in Scotland since 2023. Now the rest of the nation should follow, the report says.

Pavement parking undermines pedestrian freedom, forces people to take risks by moving into the road and obstructs access for wheelchair users and parents with buggies.

And the report’s YouGov polling shows that parents with children under four are twice as likely to reconsider walking due to pavement parking, with one respondent saying: “There are many pavements in my neighbourhood that I can’t walk down hand in hand with one of my children, let alone two, because of the cars parked on the pavement”.

Elsewhere, evidence submitted to the report focused on the disproportionate risks faced by vulnerable road users, with risks more pronounced for women than men. The YouGov polling shows that women are 30% more likely than men to say they feel less safe walking or cycling in their local area than 12 months ago.

And the increasing prevalence of SUVs is highlighted as a growing threat to road safety, especially for pedestrians and cyclists, with evidence that children are eight times more likely to be killed in a collision with an SUV than with a traditional small car.

The report’s other recommendations include:

• Aligning new cars to EU standards on smart-tech such as Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA), Emergency Lane Keeping Systems (ELKS) and Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB)

• Legislating to curb the rising size and weight of private cars on UK roads – SUVs and pickup trucks now account for 66% of all new vehicle registrations in the UK

• Swedish-style progressive fines based on income percentage, where fines for traffic violations are based on a percentage of a person’s income

• Embedding Bikeability and the Highway Code into primary and secondary education.