UK road safety and mobility experts have published a report calling on the government to publish a new safe and healthy mobility strategy.
Titled Safe Roads for All, contributors to the report included Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety executive director David Davies and Dr Suzy Charman, executive director of the Road Safety Foundation.
The report defines safe and healthy mobility as that which prevents death and serious injury from road crashes, air pollution and inactivity, and achieves decarbonisation.
Safe and healthy mobility includes the concept of safe vehicles, which involves the use of e-scooters and other forms of micromobility.
Through its recommendations for government, the report argues that people and goods should be moved around civic spaces in a safe and healthy way, and that to achieve this, the government needs to implement a strategy that focuses on infrastructure, national connectivity, net zero and the green industrial revolution.
As part of these recommendations, the report sets out three goals: prevent harm from vehicles, care for victims and achieve a modal shift.
Micromobility firms across the UK are aiming to be part of this modal shift, with early data from the trials showing that the accessibility of e-scooters is shifting people away from cars in certain areas.
On the topic of micromobility, the report highlighted it as an important option, but one that needed to regulated effectively: “New forms of micromobility (such as e-scooters and hoverboards) offer new options and pose new challenges.
“The regulation of vehicles has an important role to play alongside consumer information and industry innovation. Regulation enables industry to establish cost-effective and world-leading solutions. Government can also help improve vehicle safety and emissions on a global scale; it is an international challenge that requires a harmonised policy approach.”
