On 2nd October 2023, the Government published a ‘Plan for Drivers’. The plan has five themes, and some proposed actions will be bad for drivers as well as other road users.
Whose voice has the government listened to?
The title of the second theme ‘Stopping unfair enforcement’, with five actions, contrasts with the title of the fourth theme of ‘Cracking down on inconsiderate driving’. These themes pull in different directions. The latter has four actions about uninsured drivers, middle lane drivers, noise enforcement, and roadside littering. The unfair enforcement theme deals with 20 mph speed limits, 15-minute cities, low traffic neighbourhoods, and levying of fines.
Mark Harper, the Secretary of State for Transport, writes in the foreword that ‘it is not right that some drivers feel under attack’. Government’s should base actions on evidence about impacts of measures and not the feelings of a few drivers.
Why would drivers want chaos?
Managing the highway network is a political issue as well as a technical issue. The road network has been expanded and managed for the benefit of motor traffic and drivers since the 1960s. The United Kingdom and its professional transport engineers and planners have planned, designed and managed that system. The motor car now dominates the urban environment. Other road users make do with space left over.
Individuals driving on the highway are regulated. This is to maintain capacity and enhance safety for everyone. The alternative to regulation on the roads is chaos.
Trade-off between speed and death
The plan claims safety benefits from investments in previous years. Road collision and injury data, published on 28th September 2023, shows that cars are the vehicle type most often involved in fatal collisions when other road users are killed. Of the 1,711 people killed in collisions in 2022, 685 (40%) were killed in a collision with a car, but were outside the car (See Chart 4).
Lower speed limits save lives, but Action 12 under ‘Stopping unfair enforcement’ suggests updating 20mph zone guidance to prevent ‘blanket’ use. The guidance is more nuanced than the word blanket implies, and local authorities are asked to ‘consider the introduction of more 20 mph limits and zones, over time, in urban areas, to ensure greater safety for pedestrians and cyclists’.
The Welsh approach is that 20 mph is the urban area wide ‘default’ speed limit. Emerging evidence on 20 mph as a default urban speed should be used to strengthen English guidance and save lives, including drivers’ lives.
The mis-reading of ‘planning’ as ‘policing’
Action 13 suggests it will ‘stop local authorities using so-called ‘15-minute cities’ to police people’s lives’. The concept of enhancing access to goods and services for people within a journey time of 15 minutes from home is a planning rather than policing policy. The mis-apprehension implicit is comical. Everyone, including drivers, would benefit from a planning approach that reduces the need to travel.
Impacts in local authority decision making and powers
Action 14 suggests that low traffic neighbourhood implementation may depend on them not attracting public opposition. This reduces the ability for local policy makers to make appropriate decisions in the best interests of the local population.
Actions 15 and 16 are about fines and local authorities’ powers of enforcement. A consultation is proposed on removing local authorities’ access to Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) data for civil enforcement of offences. This would remove the ability for local authorities to enforce some civil offences.
On the same day as publishing the Plan for Drivers, the network management duty guidance to support active travel was withdrawn.
Local authorities have duties and powers in relation to planning and highways. These proposed actions, and the withdrawal of the guidance, will inappropriately limit local authorities’ abilities and ambitions to plan and manage the highway network.
Overall, the plan for drivers will make travel worse for everyone, including drivers.
CTS conducts research on experience of the travel environment and society and the motor vehicle. This blog was written by John Parkin, Emeritus Professor of Transport Engineering at UWE.