RoSPA Press Office : Press Release
June 3, 1998
GOVERNMENT URGED TO BACK SAFETY AGENDA
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents today revealed the key safety issues it wants the Government to back in the coming year to tackle a worrying toll of deaths and injury.
RoSPA’s agenda for accident prevention includes proposals to review consumer laws, reduce drownings, cut home and works accidents and improve the standards of novice drivers.
The Society also believes that if significant inroads are to be made into the UK’s nine million accidents each year, risk education needs to be a theme throughout the National Curriculum.
The action plan for 1998/99 was announced at a presentation of RoSPA’s key safety issues at Church House Conference Centre, Westminster, attended by safety experts from throughout the country as well as MPs and other decision makers.
The Society is urging the Government to:
- Review product safety law and bring in tougher rules on product recalls
- Make risk education a theme in the National Curriculum
- Back a strategy to reduce the number of accidental drownings
- Give greater priority to the fight to reduce accidents in the home
- Support a major public consultation exercise on workplace accident investigation by the Health and Safety Commission
- Bring in log books to record officially the progress of novice drivers and also to introduce post-test driver assessment
- Find funds for research matching children’s developmental needs with the risks presented by play equipment
RoSPA Product Safety Adviser, David Jenkins, said: "Poorly designed products are frequently appearing on the market.
"The current product recall system is voluntary and there are more and more recalls each year. Unfortunately many people still do not hear about recalls, and that is why we feel there is a need for a more effective system so that consumers can be protected at the first sign of problems. And an easily accessible database of goods that have been recalled is vital to ensure that the public are better informed."
