Northern Ireland: Traffic Accidents (Hansard, 10 March 2003)

§ Lord Williams of Mostyn

The number of people killed as a result of a road traffic collision in the month of January in each year since 1998 is provided in the table below. Also provided are end-of-year figures for the total number of deaths in each of the previous five years.

Year	Number killed	Total number of deaths
1998	13	160
1999	9	141
2000	17	171
2001	10	148
2002	11	150
2003	19

164WA

Forensic detail for all of the collisions in 2003 is not yet available and it is difficult at this stage to say why the figures are higher than in the previous five years.

On 6 November 2002, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Angela Smith MP launched the Northern Ireland Road Safety Strategy 2002–12. This document sets out the strategic objectives to improve road safety over the next decade. It seeks to promote an integrated partnership approach across the statutory road safety agencies and departments and throughout the wider community.

From a general road safety perspective, the strategy makes clear the Government's commitment to improving road safety for everyone throughout Northern Ireland. It contains 161 actions focused on the main causes of deaths and serious injuries and aims at a one-third reduction (from the average for the period 1996–2000) in the number of people killed or seriously injured on Northern Ireland's roads by 2012 and within that overall target, a 50 per cent reduction in the numbers of children killed or seriously injured.

Some of the action measures to achieve the strategic objectives are already in place, others are scheduled to be in place within the next three years and further action measures will be introduced over the following four to 10 years.

Copies of the Northern Ireland Road Safety Strategy 2002–12 have been placed in the Libraries of the House.