§ Mr. David MarshallTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has to improve road safety in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonThe Scottish Office is committed to playing its full part towards achievement of the Government's target of reducing road accident casualties by one-third by the year 2000. The Scottish Office will work closely with local roads authorities to draw up the road safety plans recommended in the Local Authority Association's "Code of Good Practice" endorsed by COSLA in 1989. It will initiate appropriate engineering works and standards, publicity, education and enforcement measures and legislative changes to improve road safety in Scotland.
In addition to a very substantial ongoing investment on the road network in Scotland, the Scottish Office has set up 599W an accident investigation and prevention (AIP) unit with its own budget to finance safety schemes on trunk roads. A rolling programme has been prepared by the local authority agents, whose accident remedial unit's viability and establishment has been largely underwritten by the volume of trunk road work, thus allowing expanded expenditure on local roads.
The Scottish road safety campaign, which is largely funded by the Scottish Office, has an ongoing programme providing publicity and education materials in Scotland to raise public awareness of the importance of road safety. This is in addition to the Department of Transport's national campaigns.