Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:28 pm on 10 January 2018.
Well, no, that’s not demonstrated by the figures, because rural roads have 40 per cent of the traffic, but they have 62 per cent of the fatalities, and the lack of investment in our roads, I would argue, does have a direct impact on the level of fatalities.
We do have to grasp the opportunities that exist now in order to transform our road network, because we are looking to the future, at the driverless and carbon-free car, and in that context, the whole idea is that investment in roads is a bad thing is old-fashioned. Already, in December, the first driverless bus was trialled in Bavaria by Deutsche Bahn, and something similar happened last month in Japan. So, Wales should be in the vanguard in terms of that revolution, but, of course, without proper investment in the road network, Wales will lose that opportunity too.