Banning drivers is not working

According to a report by Shahzad Sheikh 140,000 drivers lost their licenses last year. This is a 15% increase. Why are the numbers rising? It’s from lowered speed limits, more speed cameras and more enforcement mainly although using a hand-held phone is also a problem.

Have these tougher measures actually improved road safety and reduced the number of casualties? In essence no.

In 2023 there were 29,643 killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties, little change compared to 2022 according to the latest DfT report based on police STATS19 reports.

Clearly the policies adopted on improving road safety are not working even ignoring the fact that these figures need adjusting for changes in the number of vehicles on the road and traffic volumes.

Congestion Getting Worse

TomTom, the provider of SatNav systems, has recently reported on traffic volumes and congestion. London as usual comes out badly and is getting worse. Average time to travel 10 km in London is now over 33 minutes. That makes it by far the worse of major cities in Europe. See https://www.tomtom.com/traffic-index/ranking/ for more details.

The London Mayor’s Transport Strategy to reduce congestion and improve road safety is not working as could be expected. When dogma takes priority over rational analysis and sensible policies there is no improvement.

New York recently introduced a Congestion Charge for the Manhattan area to cut traffic congestion and improve funding for public transport. Is it working? That’s debatable and surrounding areas like New Jersey are complaining. Donald Trump is trying to overturn the change.

I suggest that any improvement will be temporary as traffic will soon adjust to fill up the new road space. You cannot price people off the roads as there is too much unsatisfied demand, as has been demonstrated in London where the data has been ignored.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://x.com/Drivers_London )