Meeting of the Parliament 25 March 2014
As the convener of the cross-party group on accident prevention and safety awareness, I am particularly pleased to speak in this important debate.
The cross-party group held a meeting in November on road safety, at which we heard excellent presentations from a number of contributors. George Cairns from Glasgow City Council spoke about the drive safe Scotland and go safe Scotland initiatives, which emphasise that all communities, and all of us, are responsible for road safety. Robert Atkinson from the Scottish centre for healthy working lives and the Scottish occupational road safety alliance spoke about the issue of occupational dangers, which members have mentioned in today’s debate; we know that 20 road deaths each year involve people at work.
Paul Richardson from Scottish Borders Council gave a presentation from a practitioner’s point of view. Scottish Borders Council, like councils in the north-east and in some other areas, has particular problems because of the rural nature of the roads and the fact that there are tourists driving on those roads, and it understands very well the problems that are associated with young drivers.
Although I understand the Government’s frustration at Westminster’s lack of progress towards a GDL scheme, Scotland has not stood still on the issue—far from it. I was delighted to hear last week that Scottish Borders Council is funding a two-year programme that will allow 17 to 25-year-olds in the area that it covers to get free advanced driver training, which is very positive.
I will focus primarily on the presentation from Kevin Clinton, who is head of road safety with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. He spoke about the use of black-box technology, which could be quite revolutionary in the context of a GDL scheme. It is an innovative way to increase young drivers’ awareness, helps parents and carers to understand the driving practices of young people, and encourages young drivers to continually learn and constantly monitor their progress and driving abilities. Its use has also raised public awareness about the type of driver technology that is available.
The telematics are quite advanced; I did not understand until I saw the ROSPA presentation how sophisticated black-box technology is and the opportunities that exist for its use. It enables personal risk taking to be calculated for every driver, and it highlights aspects of driving that could be improved. It also enables an accurate analysis of the driver’s behaviour and can incentivise people to improve through giving constant feedback on their driving. For young drivers, those aspects can significantly reduce risky driving behaviours, especially among high-risk young drivers.
The Scottish Government has published the Transport Scotland document, “National Debate on Young Drivers’ Safety: Final Report”, which asked young people about their attitudes to placing physical restrictions under a GDL scheme and about the use of technology. Although physical restrictions on driving at night and on the number of people in new vehicles was resisted by the young people—especially the males—who took part in the survey, there was quite a positive reaction to the use of technology. Although driving is still a high-risk activity, the monitoring may have a significant impact on young people’s behaviour.
I was delighted that the Scottish Government has undertaken the young drivers at work black-box project with ROSPA, which looks specifically at young drivers in work. It is unfortunate that the results of that project are due to be published on Friday, as they might have been helpful for the debate, but I am looking forward to their publication.
The project approached companies that are already involved in driver safety and the management of occupational road risk with the Health and Safety Executive to ask them to take part in the pilot. They found that the driver safety scores, the trip scores and the constant feedback that they received improved the drivers’ performance.
Technology can tell us about the pace, calmness, smoothness and anticipation skills of a driver—really significant bits of information that are useful to employers and young people. I hope that black-box technology will be considered under the GDL.
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