The UK has some of the safest roads globally, yet there are still over one-thousand fatalities occurring on roadways every year. There have been several efforts to try and tackle the number of deaths, including several in-depth investigation studies, datasets and digital systems that collate valuable detail about collisions such as, STATS19, RAIDS, and CRASH. However, more needs to be done to cull the number of deaths occurring on our roads.

Currently, no stand-alone body exists to investigate road traffic collisions with the remit of learning and prevention. The aim of an RCIB would be to conduct thematic investigations, drawing on all available evidence, to make recommendations to the relevant organisations to mitigate or prevent such incidents in future. The consultation on the RCIB looks to gather suggestions on how the RCIB should operate and what powers it should hold as an organisation and was split into three sections:

Section 1

This section looked to explain the current state of play in regard to accident investigation.

Part of the response from the CIHT included was:

CIHT would welcome working with RCIB and gain insight to the findings and investigations to share lesson learnt to inform our 14, 000 members working with the highways and transportation sector.

CIHT believe the four E’s of Road Safety – Engineering, Enforcement, Education and Emergency – remain a vital way of thinking about improving safety outcomes on roads. On the point around education, CIHT would welcome working with government to develop further training for professionals on road safety, taking advantage of the reach offered via digital training.

Section 2

This section outlines the business case for an RCIB such as who it would work with, the statutory basis and the benefits of such an organisation.

CIHT agree with the creation of a RCIB and included the following around the responsibilities of such an organisation:

CIHT believe that consideration should be given to the RCIB to be able to have legal powers to seize evidence and compel witness cooperation if required, to provide greater evidence and in-depth knowledge for proceedings which have halted as a result of police limited resources. In addition, particular focus should be given to the use of quantitative data analysis in the review of collisions, such as vehicle telemetry data, which police forces currently do not have resource to acquire and analyse.

CIHT believe that the STATS19 database require improving the accuracy of data collated. CIHT support the PACTS STATS19 review and believe this review can be applied to the RCIB. The review calls for the DfT to improve:

• collecting information on seat belt and helmet wearing in slight injury collisions;
• continuing to collect information on journey purpose and aligning it with National Travel Survey;
• adding a category of “powered personal transporter device” to the vehicle list – to record e-scooters etc;
• rationalising the contributory factors collected and grouping them under the five Safe System pillars.

Section 3

This section looks at the potential remit of the RCIB and the legal provisions necessary for such an organisation to operate effectively.

In response to this section, the CIHT agreed with the proposed powers of the RCIB, which were:

1. notification of fatal and serious collisions
2. carrying out investigations through access to existing records and primary involvement where necessary
3. preservation of evidence
4. co-operation with existing organisations
5. disclosing evidence 6. publication of reports and making recommendations

The CIHT believe these powers to be necessary in order to gain an in-depth understanding of incidents and their causation allows for maximise learning opportunities and to reduce future risk. However, the CIHT also proposed some additional investigative powers:

There are complexities with defining adequate funding. Often, investigations risks being halted as they may have difficulty securing adequate resources to continue, meaning safety learning opportunities are currently being missed.

CIHT believe recommendations should include further insight into the root causes and underlying issues behind cause of accident contributing greatly to developing effective safe systems interventions and initiatives.

 CIHT believe consideration should be given to the RCIB to investigate with preventative powers to limit scale, risk of harm and emerging risks. This could explore improving driver behaviour and drivers understanding of how new interventions on roads affect them is a critical task.

CIHT have long advocated for improvements in road safety and recognise the ongoing work the government have contributed in order to reduce road casualties. CIHT believe that road collision investigation needs to look deeper into the reason why collisions are happening and the proposed RCIB can assist with this. CIHT supports the use of the word collision within the consultation. Through the delivery of the RCIB, the government should set out and advocate for consistency with the terminology used for road safety, the word collisions should be used as opposed to accidents. In the instance of road safety there is still not defined metrics, standards and terminology causing inconsistency in approaches and uniform responses to road collision investigation.

CIHT calls for the government to develop a long-term road safety strategy to emphasise national targets required to provide focused priorities in road safety. It is important that road collision investigation findings are identified, root causes and recommendations are shared in line with a long-term road safety strategy.

Find the full consultation response here. 

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