UK's new road safety ‘Dev’s Law’ named after Indian-origin accident victim

London, Jan 7 (PTI) The UK on Wednesday unveiled a series of stricter road safety norms, including “Dev’s Law” named after an eight-year-old Indian-origin boy killed in a 2018 accident on a busy highway.

The Department for Transport (DfT) said its new road safety strategy will save thousands of lives on UK roads by tackling drink driving, improving training for young learner drivers and introducing mandatory eye tests for older motorists.

It will also make Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) compulsory in new vehicles, something Dev’s mother Meera Naran has been campaigning for since losing her son in the tragic road collision over seven years ago.

“I welcome this much-anticipated road safety strategy and am pleased to see a number of measures set out to reduce road deaths and serious injuries,” said Naran, a senior lecturer at De Montfort University in Leicester.

“I am especially grateful to the Secretary of State [Heidi Alexander] for giving me her word that she would honour Dev and recognise the importance of legislative change to adopt the General Safety Regulations, as Dev’s Law and for delivering on that commitment.

“I look forward to working closely with the department to ensure that the appropriate steps are taken to establish a robust and effective framework,” she said.

AEB monitors the road ahead and automatically slows down the vehicle if the driver does not respond to a potential collision. Naran believes that such a technology would have prevented her son’s death when his grandfather's car was struck by a truck on the hard shoulder of the M6 motorway in Birmingham.

The government’s new strategy mandates 18 new vehicle safety technologies, including AEB and lane-keeping assistance, as it sets up a new Road Safety Investigation Branch to analyse collision patterns and inform prevention strategies.

“No one wakes up in the morning intending to harm someone else, and Dev’s Law is a way in which we can keep ourselves and others safe on our roads and prevent more families going through such painful losses,” said Naran.

The government said its strategy sets out an ambitious plan to reduce deaths and serious injuries on Britain’s roads by 65 per cent by 2035, with a greater target of 70 per cent for children under 16.

“We are taking decisive action to make our roads safer for everyone, from new drivers taking their first lessons to older motorists wanting to maintain their independence. The measures we are announcing today will save thousands of lives over the coming decade,” said Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander.

According to official statistics, approximately four people die on Britain’s roads every day and thousands more are seriously injured each year. The new strategy is targeted against speeding, drink and drug driving, not wearing seat belts and mobile phone use.

“Our vision with this ambitious road safety strategy is clear: to ensure that people can travel safely on our roads however they choose,” said local transport minister Lilian Greenwood.

“One of the hardest parts of my job is speaking to families who have lost loved ones on our roads and this is something we as a government are taking action to prevent. No family should have to endure that loss, and this strategy sets out how we will work to ensure fewer do.

“Experts and campaigners have long called for a comprehensive strategy that treats road safety as a shared responsibility – from car manufacturers and town planners to drivers and legislators,” she said.

New measures will also target a growing problem of illegal number plates, including "ghost" plates designed to fool camera systems, while also cracking down on uninsured drivers and vehicles without a valid MOT (Ministry of Transport certificate).

Edmund King, director of the Automobile Association (AA) Charitable Trust and AA president, added: “This is a positively radical reframing of road safety, which is long overdue. We commend the government for its wide ranging and ambitious strategy and ambitious targets, which we hope will save the lives of thousands of people.

“Tackling drivers who drive under the influence of drink or drugs, people who don’t wear their seatbelts and those getting behind the wheel without insurance are key to reducing road deaths and serious injuries. We also endorse the mantra of road safety being a lifelong education, not just when learning to ride or drive.” The DfT said its strategy adopts the internationally recognised Safe System approach, which acknowledges that while human error is inevitable, deaths and serious injuries are not. Rather than placing responsibility solely on individual drivers, the system will ensure that road design, vehicle safety, enforcement and education work together to protect road users. PTI AK NPK NPK