Focus of work
The vision of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) is a transport system that is free from death and life-changing injury, and where all users feel safe. In 2020, FIT funded a project by PACTS to analyse and re-present road casualty data in a clear and accessible format, showing a more balanced perspective on safety. PACTS has identified that conventional road safety analysis emphasises vulnerability but often fails to show danger. This leads to the simplistic conclusion that walking and cycling are “dangerous” and therefore “the problem”, which is detrimental to promoting active travel.
Impact
PACT published its report What kills most on the roads? in November 2020. The report and its findings were very well received, generating the biggest response on Twitter (now X) that PACTS has ever seen.
A series of events were held to promote awareness and understanding of the report’s findings, and the Department for Transport (DfT) welcomed the report and agreed to make changes in its reporting of road casualties, which was one of the report’s central calls. The DfT’s statistics team now publish reports on “Reported road casualties Great Britain: road user risk”, and reference this PACTS report.