‘Northern Powerhouse’ means opportunities for safer roads, says road safety group

As their Economies grow cities in the Northern Powerhouse should seize the opportunity to make their roads safer, according to road safety group SteerSafe. Manchester and Leeds should look to London to see what has been done to protect vulnerable road users in the capital – then do better, it advises.

“There is a plethora of initiatives in the capital to protect vulnerable road users which whilst commendable do not go far enough,” said founder of SteerSafe Christopher Hanson-Abbott OBE.

Described as ‘a fiasco’, the much vaunted Safer Lorry Scheme ignores the latest 360 technology. Already widely available, a single monitor continuously provides all-round vision into all blind spots at once.

“The Northern Powerhouse cities will have a chance to outperform London when it comes to road safety and they should seize it. They shouldn’t be content with simply copying the capital, they should learn from its experience and build on it.

“And they should start soon – because as investment starts to pour into the North West there will be yet more construction vehicles on already hazardous roads.”