A road safety expert has called on the Government to reintroduce casualty reduction targets and bring in European vehicle regulations in the much-awaited national road safety framework due this autumn.

Speaking at the Road Surface Treatments Association conference, Dr Suzy Charman (pictured), executive director at the Road Safety Foundation, said she was not optimistic about the changes being brought in.

‘It would be great if there was a casualty reduction target [in the framework] but I don't think there will be. There is no appetite in government for that,' Dr Charman said.

Speed reduction targets were scrapped by the coalition government. The last strategic framework for road safety was published in 2011 when Philip Hammond was transport secretary. It noted that casualty targets were included 'in both of the previous road safety strategies as a way to motivate and monitor progress'.

However, it went on to state that the coalition government did not 'consider that overarching national targets are now the most appropriate course for road safety'.

The number of people killed or seriously injured on UK roads has largely remained stable since 2010 - before then casualty figures had enjoyed years of marked decline.

Dr Charman also called for the general vehicle safety regulations that have been introduced in Europe to be introduced here.

'There is no reason why they shouldn't be. There is a great big kerfuffle about speed advisory systems but they are only going to beep at you,' she said.

'All of this package of general vehicle safety regulations and all the advanced driver assist systems I think are essential. They should be in there, but they probably won't be is my gut feeling.'

Dr Charman concluded with a call for further targeted road safety funding and an overhaul of the speed limit system, heavily criticising the current approach.

‘I would love to see a proper speed management approach. We are currently still setting speed limits on a basis of the 85th percentile speed, so we are asking the general population to judge what is an ok speed for that road and that seems to me to be a serious mistake. That is not a safe system. It is also not really reflecting the importance of active travel. We can't ask motor vehicles to set the speed limits for vulnerable road users.'

According to official figures published by the Department for Transport, there were an estimated 1,558 reported road deaths in 2021, a decrease of 11% from 2019 but up around 7% on 1,460 fatalities in 2020. These figures were affected by COVID restrictions.