I went to a road safety conference the other day, and two things stood out. One, I was the only journalist there, reflecting the media’s disinterest in such a ‘worthy’ topic.Two, the conference was titled ‘Are We Still Failing?’, the point being that after several years of falling, road deaths have plateau’d at around 3,500 per year.

Not only that, but we seem as far away as ever (if not further) from a sustainable integrated transport policy. Despite the traffic calming, speed cameras and a high profile public debate, drivers still speed, congestion gets worse and Britain is more car dependent than it’s ever been.Among the assorted road safety officers, police and transport campaigner at that conference, the prognosis was one of almost unremitting gloom.

Lyn Sloman, determinedly cheerful Deputy of Transport 2000, spelt out what’s happened in the last few years. ‘A lot of the ideas which in the mid ‘90s were seen as barmy have now been accepted by councils and police authorities,’ she said. ‘But despite that shift, there’s very little sign that our roads are becoming less dangerous, largely because of the motoring backlash.’ How has this happened?

…this was serious… the Government was executing more U-turns than a London cabby…

In the ‘80s, we had Mrs Thatcher’s ‘Great Car Economy’, and the ‘greatest road building programme since the Romans.’ Traffic calming schemes caused a terrible furore, with a generally hostile media doing its best to rubbish the whole idea.The public mindset always seemed to put cars first. In a previous life as a motoring journalist, I wrote an article about traffic calming, and asked one pedestrian with a pram what she thought of some newly installed road humps. ‘Hmm, well, they could damage the cars, couldn’t they?’ Her first thought wasn’t for her own safety, but that of the cars! How things have changed. Since then, traffic calming has become part of the scenery, and in the way of these things, most people seem to have accepted that it’s here to stay.

Oddly enough, it was under the Tories that transport policy really began to change. Having a medical doctor as Transport Minister was a good start, and sure enough, Brian Mawhinny was the man who introduced smoke testing for diesel cars and vans. A Conservative Chancellor introduced the fuel tax escalator, which increased tax by a minimum of 6% every year. Public attitudes were changing too. In 1993, the RAC’s annual Report on Motoring put the following statement to drivers: ‘I would use my car less if public transport were better’ – 37% agreed, and by 1997 that was 45%.

In this climate, Labour swept into power promising an integrated transport policy. The following year, a transport White Paper admitted for the first time that traffic growth had to be curbed. Even the Department of Transport had apparently accepted the notion that more roads generate more traffic – the Whitehall equivalent of perestroika.The times really were a-changing, or so it seemed.

But then it all began to go pear shaped. Lorry go-slows on the M25 protested at fuel tax; the media (in particular the tabloids and car magazines) became vociferously anti- integration.We were seeing a full scale motoring backlash. No matter that motoring was as cheap in real terms as it had ever been, or that in European terms, UK motoring taxes were about average – the facts didn’t enter into it. It all culminated in the nationwide fuel protest of August 2000 – queues at the pumps and a full blown crisis.

Now this was serious. Faster than you could say ‘the beleaguered British motorist has finally had enough,’ the Government was executing more U-turns than a London cabbie. The fuel duty escalator got the chop. As a sop to the road hauliers, 44 tonne lorries were allowed into Britain. And the roads programme was reinstated, at least partially. All this against a background of railway disasters, and bus deregulation that wasn’t delivering. It’s not over yet either.The Government has now backpedalled on speed cameras. By the end of June, all had to be coloured bright yellow, and new cameras could only be installed where there had been at least four deaths or serious injuries – the words ‘bolted’, ‘stable’ and ‘door’ spring to mind.

And it looks like public opinion and practice really has swung back the other way – in 2001, only 36% agreed with the RAC’s transport statement. In other words, drivers are less receptive to public transport than they were in ’93. Meanwhile, traffic has continued to grow and cycle trips are actually falling, which makes the official aim of trebling cycle use by 2010 look like a sick joke.

So, after a brief window of opportunity in the late 1990s, it’s now back to doom and gloom. Or is it? ‘There is public support for congestion charging,’ says Lyn Sloman, ‘but only if the money goes straight into public transport.’ No one is better placed to do just that than Ken Livingstone, and he’s made it clear that this will happen with his £5 congestion charge. If it works, other cities across Europe are poised to follow suit.

Even if it doesn’t, some changes from the ‘90s really have stuck. After a decade of use, traffic calming now has widespread acceptance – I think the same will happen with speed cameras, eventually. Remember, Barbara Castle became a motorists’ hate figure when she introduced drink-driving laws, but who argues against those now?