Parliamentary committee issues call for evidence as it launches road safety inquiry

Mandatory front and rear continuosly recording cameras and black box data recorders in all motor vehicles with effective penalties for tampering.

Proper loss of licence and extended retesting for all convictions of careless and dangerous driving offences or cumulative endorsements.

Massive crackdown on removing the unlicenced, uninsured and un roadworthy from the public highway.

Psychological evalution as part of acquiring a provisional driving licence.

Extended training and test regime for higher powered vehicles or anything above an arbitary insurance grouping. Something equivalent to IAM standards.

10 year or otherwise regular retesting.

For starters.

Why not speeding, it is easily and accurately measured, both increases the probability and seriousness of crashes and is an incredible indicator of aggressiveness, bad driving and lawlessness?

Now distracted driving, I think there should be more siezing of mobile divices from more incidents.  And greater enforcement, but that could require more traffic police. 

Personally I think there should be a return to the 3 E's approach - education, engineering and enforcement.

Unfortunately when someone worked out how to automate issuing speeding tickets (scameras) and thus remove the need for traffic police, the focus shifted mainly onto enforcement of speeding with dodgy statistics to back up their claims.

As it has emerged recently distracted driving (mobiles are only one of many forms of distraction) is a big factor in road accidents, but cameras cannot yet easily detect people on their phone, eating their lunch - bending round to argue with their kids etc. etc.

Education for all drivers (not just those who are caught),engineering to remove the threats (e.g seperation of vulnerable users, simplification of complex junctions etc.) and more traffic police looking for all types of offence (not just focussing on speeders) oh and more severe penalties and retesting for offenders.

To add to all the previous excellent suggestions, how about a review of road laws?  You know, just like the government forgot to do in 2014.  This would make dangerous driving much easier to prove and for juries to convict on.

A much simpler, quicker justice system, including immediate temporary banning of any driver involved in a fatal collision suspected of dangerous driving until the trial.

Much more realistic sentences for dangerous driving e.g. minimum ten year ban, no maximum time ban, and up to the driver to show what mitigating circumstances justify a reduction on a life ban.

There will never be enough traffic police, therefore here are a few more suggestions:
Force car manufacturers to limit the maximum speed of all vehicles in the UK to 70 mph. Just that to start with and a system to allow it to be unlocked when visiting other countries. (To be extended later to comply with all UK limits including variable speed limits.)
Install (fixed penalty) cameras at all pedestrian crossings, light controlled junctions, yellow boxes. (To be extended later to all road junctions and to enforce the "two second rule".)
Introduce a retest on the Highway Code, every three years, then extend it to include a full driving test, finally require it every year.
Reduce the 30 mph limit to 20 mph in all "built up" areas and enforce it for all traffic including HPVs.
Roll out free public transport, using low emission vehicles and service standards from the 1950s as a guide.
Introduce a progressive reduction in vehicle weights, aiming to get to less than 100kg of vehicle per passenger in the next ten years.
Mandate the elimination of "blind spots" using cameras and video screens on all obscuring surfaces, or provide VR headsets for drivers of enclosed vehicles.

Peter Hawkins has a very valid point I feel with the Traffic Police as to be honest I'm not sure why we got rid of them. I know we have the traffic wombles on the motorways but this is no where near the same thing. I bike to work everyday and see quite a lot of dumb stuff, mainly from drivers but you get the odd prat on a bike too.  I think the main thing is education though, enough of this them and us (we're all just trying to get somewhere or just enjoy our hobby), get everyone on the same page and things will get better (I think). Then make the punishment fit the crime and stop using sentences that dumb down what are potentially lethal actions.

Compulsory retests/pass plus/advanced driving tests. Would act as reminders on the rules and make sure people can actually drive properly whilst respecting the rules and other road users.

So, how to improve road safety and reduce the number of "accidents"? (hint - they're not accidental if you can predict that the behaviour will lead at some point to an incident)

How about increase the number of traffic police.

Have some traffic police go plain-clothes on bicycles/scooters/motorbikes and record motorists using mobile phones or eating cereal or otherwise not paying attention to their driving.

Similarly, have those same plain-clothes officers provide evidence for close-passes or other dangerous behaviour.

Make it easier for the public to submit camera footage of driving incidents and make it a higher priority for those police forces that aren't currently bothered about prosecuting drivers.

Allow some of the driving fines/penalties to be used to fund driving enforcement.

Most importantly - listen to Chris Boardman and do what he says.