Conservatives Hear Make Roads Safe Message

A packed fringe meeting at the UK Conservative Party Conference has been alerted to the scale of global road deaths by the Make Roads Safe campaign.

Saul Billingsley, Make Roads Safe Campaign Coordinator

Shadow Transport Minister Owen Paterson MP

The meeting, organised by the Conservative Transport Group, heard how a recent highly publicised road crash in India involving Conservative Leader David Cameron’s entourage had ‘lifted the veil’ on the impact of road traffic injuries in the developing world. Saul Billingsley, Make Roads Safe Campaign Coordinator, told the meeting that the UK Department for International Development (DFID) should be urged to fund a global action plan for road safety being spearheaded by the World Bank’s global road safety facility, and that 10% of spending on roads in development grants should be earmarked for road safety. “This is about effective use of taxpayers’ money, to ensure that these new roads that DFID helps to finance do not end up killing a new generation of road users”, he said. Shadow Transport Minister Owen Paterson MP, who also addressed the meeting, supported calls for a new approach to road safety.

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