Since the 1980s, Britain’s roads have become significantly safer. People are alive today because academics such as my friend and colleague Richard Allsop, who has died aged 84, believed that thorough and rigorous research should support changes in public policy.
In his first post, as a scientific officer at the government’s Road Research Laboratory in West Drayton, west London, in 1964, he looked at the effectiveness of motorcycle helmets in casualty reduction and injury mitigation. This led to the law that made their wearing compulsory.
