Road safety will be key priority for Scottish Lib Dems
As a toddler my babysitter’s son was killed on his motorbike following a head on collision with a car. I remember the transformation the grief of that brought in her. For the rest of the time I knew her, the shadow of that tragedy punctuated every aspect of her life.
We will all have known someone affected by road death in our lives, and while technological advances in airbags, crumple zones and driver aids like assisted braking have helped to reduce the rate of road mortality the number of people dying on Scotland’s roads is creeping up once again.
In Edinburgh last year, there were 480 traffic collisions which resulted in 607 casualties and eight deaths. That is the highest number of people to die on the roads of our capital since 2016.
All told, road death figures in Scotland were up 12 per cent on the previous year, with 161 people tragically losing their lives.
I know from working with road safety campaigners in South Queensferry how communities can often feel powerless to secure change, left at the mercy of a macabre formula, where a certain number of fatalities must occur before speed cameras and other traffic calming measures are installed on any given stretch of road.
There are clear government failures here too. Last year there were 18 deaths in the Highlands and a further 24 in the North East yet despite decades of promises, the SNP have consistently failed to dual key northern thoroughfares like the A9 and the A96.
The dualling of these vital arterial links was a flagship policy of the SNP when they came to power in 2007 and they are still nowhere near achieving that. NASA put a man on the moon in half that time.
Dualling these roads is essential and will be a key priority for the Scottish Liberal Democrats at the coming Scottish Parliament election. On top of the unanswerable economic case for making road access to northern Scotland easier, the vast majority of fatal collisions take place because of motorist confusion. For example, there are intermittent sections of dual carriageway along the A9, but if the weather is poor or you are inexperienced with the road, it is easy to become disorientated and miss a junction or end up in the oncoming lane when the road drops back to single carriageway.
In Edinburgh we need to invest in road safety as well. That starts with dealing with deteriorating road surfaces which lead to so many accidents. We must listen to locals as to where those accident hotspots are and not wait for the worst to happen, but instead ensure the city’s roads are no longer pockmarked with craters and fraying tarmac.
We also need to make it easier for people to leave their cars at home. Since the pandemic the SNP Government has presided over the erosion of our public transport network to the point where across Scotland there are now 100 million fewer bus journeys undertaken each year. All of this contributes to too many cars trying to use roads that are not fit for purpose. It’s time to get Scotland moving again, fixing our roads so that they are smoother, stronger and safer too.
Alex Cole-Hamilton is Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and MSP for Edinburgh Western