Scotland's road safety spending boosted by £17 million

A £17 million boost to spending on road safety will help Scotland become a world leader by the end of this decade, the transport minister Jenny Gilruth has said.

The Scottish Government has confirmed the additional spending for 2022-23 will help deliver commitments outlined in a blueprint published last month, which sets the goal of Scotland having the best performance on road safety anywhere in the world.

The aim is for improvements to be put in place to ensure that by 2050, no-one is killed or seriously injured on the country’s roads.

Official figures show that in 2020, 142 people were killed in road accidents in Scotland, with 1,539 people seriously injured and 3,311 slightly injured.

The additional money will help reduce scenes like this.

Ms Gilruth said: “Scotland can be proud of our longstanding commitment to improving road safety. I want that to continue, but also for us to continue to make improvements.

“Our aim is for Scotland to have the best road safety performance in the world and so I’m pleased to confirm that the Scottish Government will invest £17 million to improve road safety in the coming year.

“This significantly enhanced funding package will help us ensure that Scotland has the best road safety performance in the world by 2030 and help achieve our long-term goal of ‘Vision Zero’ where no-one is seriously injured or killed on our roads by 2050.

“Whether it’s providing grant funding to organisations through our forthcoming Road Safety Improvement Fund or supporting more award-winning marketing campaigns delivered through Road Safety Scotland – all of this money will support the ambitious commitments in Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2030.”

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