National Highways fall short on road safety commitments made to MPs

The transport secretary told National Highways to remove a casualty reduction measure from its 2025-26 Safety Action Plan, after it was presented to MPs, it has been revealed. It was said to be representing “a series of safety improvements” that her department had required the company to deliver.

The Department for Transport (DfT) has declined to explain why subsequently Heidi Alexander apparently vetoed an HGV safety campaign, and NH itself has declined to explain why it reduced the duration of two other measures.

According to the plan, all three actions had the “expected impact” of reducing killed and seriously injured (KSI) casualties at a time when National Highways was expected to miss its official casualty reduction target.

Although Alexander presented the plan to as complete when appearing before the Transport Committee last April, a ruling by the Information Commissioner (ICO) discloses that it was then in draft form, despite the year that it covered having already begun.

Regulator the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) refused to disclose the plan on the grounds that it was due to be published as part of National Highways’ 2025-26 Interim Period Delivery Plan. 

But an ICO decision notice makes clear that the version of the safety plan that ORR held at the time of the request was part of the draft delivery plan that National Highways would submit to Alexander for sign off.  

It states: “However, ORR says that in its approval, the Secretary of State removed from the Safety Action Plan 2025-2026 one action that NH had previously proposed.”

The significance of this is that Alexander had suggested to MPs that the plan resulted from her department’s efforts to increase its road safety activities.

Liberal Democrat MP Steff Aquarone noted that National Highways was expected to miss its December 2025 target to cut killed and seriously injured (KSI) reduction target. He asked Alexander: “Are you minded to make a specific direction to it in the meantime so that it can course-correct by the end of this year?”

She replied: “We have been clear with National Highways that it must deliver a series of safety improvements. It has set that out in its safety action plan for 202526.”

The final version of the safety plan was published in July as Annex 7 to the delivery plan. Comparing this to the earlier draft, it can be seen that one action – a “Know your HGV zones” campaign – was removed altogether, while two – the “Safe T.R.I.P. Checks” campaign and the “Motorcycle (BikerTek)” campaign – had their end dates brought forward from the end of March 2026 to the end of September 2025.

The DfT has stated that National Highways did deliver the “Know your HGV zones campaign”, a longstanding campaign to warn drivers of sitting in a lorry driver’s blindspot, but it is unclear whether the company did anything beyond telling road safety agencies in January that it was running the campaign.

That was later than the original December deadline for the campaign and too late to make any impact on road safety during the year on which the company’s casualty reduction target was based.

The ICO found the ORR was at fault in its handling of the request for the safety plan as it did not realise that the document that it believed to be the final version was subsequently amended.

Is regulator running scared of National Highways?

Chris Ames considers what the information release reveals

The revelations arising from  the ICO’s ruling look like an embarrassment for both the transport secretary and the ORR, which was found to have dealt with the FOI request incorrectly suggesting an inadequate grasp of National Highways’ road safety plans.

It is unclear why one action was removed from the safety action plan and two others curtailed, but the fact that all three were predicted to reduce KSIs means that, by the same logic, watering the plan down would lead to a higher level of serious casualties than if it were implemented in full.

National Highways’ RIS2 safety target was to reduce KSIs on its network by 50% by the end of 2025, compared to a 2005-2009 average baseline but the latest data shows casualties increasing year on year. 

During 2024, there were 1,931 KSIs on the strategic road network, which was 23 higher than 2023. The 2024 data represents a cut of 38%, compared to a cut of 39% a year earlier.

In a blog post last October, the ORR stated: “The latest figures confirm that it is now almost certain the target will not be met.” It added: “But even if National Highways does not meet its target for the end of 2025, it is important that the company continues to do all it reasonably can to reduce casualties by as much as possible.

“Therefore, in ORR we continue to hold National Highways to account for delivering its plans to improve safety for road users.”

However, the statement in the ICO ruling “the version of the Safety Action Plan 2025-2026 that ORR held at the time of the request and that it describes as the ‘final’ version, wasn’t in fact the final version” suggests that the regulator was not clear about what it should be holding National Highways to account for. It seemingly had not noticed that the company was not doing all it reasonably could to reduce casualties after the changes made.

Although not part of the ICO decision, the regulator’s reasons for not releasing the safety plan itself may also raise concerns over its willingness to hold National Highways to account.

It claimed that releasing the plan “may be prejudicial to the willingness of National Highways to provide ORR with information in future [which] would undermine the effectiveness of our monitoring of National Highways”.

This claim suggests that, rather than acting robustly to regulate the company, it fears a lack of co-operation. In 2024 it found it in breach of obligations under its licence to provide information, but chose not to take enforcement action.