Road safety professionals look overseas for new ideas
Tuesday 23 February 2010 Back to Blog
Van contract hire drivers could be affected by calls from road safety professionals to adopt traffic laws from abroad.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) held its 75th Road Safety Congress today (February 23rd), with this year's theme being 'international'.
A series of speakers addressed the conference on lessons that could be learned on road safety from other countries.
Among them was Amy Aeron Thomas, executive director of RoadPeace.
She recommended to the delegates that the UK adopt a system of "stricter liability", as used by countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and France.
Under the law, a driver who hits and injures a pedestrian or a cyclist is automatically liable to pay compensation unless they can prove otherwise.
The event was opened with a speech from road safety minister Paul Clark, who said: "Whilst we have every reason to congratulate ourselves on what has been achieved over the past 10 years - and we're amongst the top countries for road safety – we can still learn and benefit from the experience of others."
According to RoSPA, over 16,000 cyclists are killed or injured in reported road accidents every year in the UK.