2006-2011 Main LTP

Introduction

Improving the safety of the community is one of Warwickshire County Council's corporate strategic objectives. Improving road safety, which we define as reducing the number of people killed and injured on Warwickshire's roads, is a vital part of this objective. This strategy explains our approach to reducing road casualties.

The specific contribution of LTP strategies and policies to improving road safety is detailed within the mode and delivery strategies. Figure 2.6 highlights the links between the LTP mode and delivery strategies and this Road Safety Strategy.

Figure 6 Relationship between the Road Safety Strategy and the mode and delivery strategies

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The Challenge

The Government's casualty reduction targets are to achieve the following reductions by 2010 (compared with the average for 1994/98):

• A 40% reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured in road casualties;
• A 50% reduction in the number of children killed or seriously injured; and
• A 10% reduction in the slight casualty rate expressed as the number of' people slightly injured per 100 million vehicle kilometres.

In its 2005 Guidance on Local Transport Plans the Government has put forward two sets of standards for casualty reduction targets: 'satisfactory' and 'stretching'. The chart below shows the number of people killed or seriously injured on Warwickshire’s roads from 1994 to 2004 together with the satisfactory and stretching targets to 2010 based on a straight line trajectory.

Although the stretching targets are hugely challenging, they will save great human misery. We believe the people of Warwickshire are entitled to ask us to meet them. We have adapted and improved the strategy we set out in the Provisional Local Transport Plan to help us do so.

It will not be easy. We will need all the help we can get. We ask the Government, all our partners and the people of Warwickshire to work with us to help achieve the stretching targets.

We are seeking to include the stretching target for people killed or seriously injured in our local public service agreement ('LPSA2'). This will help us promote the targets to our partners and the community and will assist in achieving the resources needed to meet them.

In our Provisional LTP we explained that the Highways Agency and the Police would be crucial to achieving the stretching targets and in September 2005 we held a joint workshop with them to discuss the way forward before deciding whether to adopt them.

Figure 7 Number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads in Warwickshire

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An Intelligence Led Strategy

The first step towards reducing road casualties is to analyse the circumstances in which they occur.

An Integrated Approach

Safer Together – Working in Partnership

Our commitment to partnership working is demonstrated by our work with Warwickshire Casualty Reduction Partnership. The joined up approach to working adopted by the members of the Partnerships has been fundamental to its success. This formal approach to partnership working is mirrored elsewhere in our road safety strategy by a number of informal partnerships established to help us reduce casualties.

We are a founder member of Warwickshire's Action on  Accidents Alliance, which includes the County and District Councils, Health Trusts, Police, Early Years Forum, Age Concern and others. The Alliance members are pledged to fight accidents together. This is one of the four key priorities in the Government's health strategy 'Our Healthier Nation'. The Alliance has produced a strategy to reduce all types of accidents in Warwickshire, which we support.

As a partner in the joint effort to reduce road casualties our role will differ depending on the approach needed. Sometimes we will need to lead: sometimes our role will be to help and support our partners. Where an initiative is already supplied by another agency we will generally support it rather than duplicate it.

We have entered into the 'Safer Together' Partnership with the Police, Fire and Rescue, Ambulance, Health Trusts and the Highways Agency. One of the commitments in the 'Safer Together' Partnership is to meet regularly. We do this through the Road Safety Project Team which meets regularly to share information and opinions.

Working with Warwickshire Police

We acknowledge Warwickshire Police's help in producing this strategy and their statement in support of it:

'Warwickshire Police are committed to working in partnership with Warwickshire County Council to achieve a safer environment on the roads. We will work with Warwickshire County Council towards implementing the Association of Chief Police Officers Road Policing Strategy in line with Government targets for casualty reduction'

We will continue to meet regularly with the police to implement this strategy.

Picture 1 Speed check near Radford Semele

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Working with the Highways Agency

We share responsibility for reducing Warwickshire's road casualties with the Highways Agency, which looks after motorways and trunk roads. About  23% of Warwickshire's casualties occurred on motorways and trunk roads in 2004. They have produced their own strategic plan for safety. We acknowledge their help in producing this strategy.

We monitor progress towards the targets for Highways Agency roads and for County roads as well as those for Warwickshire as a whole.

We believe that there are some casualty hotspots and hot sections of routes on trunk roads where minor works could give a high return in terms of casualties saved per pound spent. We have proposed to the Highways Agency that we should jointly carry out a quick preliminary feasibility study to establish the likely return which might be obtained.

We will also work with the Highways Agency to improve current and future non motorised user crossings on trunk roads.

We will continue to meet regularly with the Highways Agency to implement this strategy.

Working with the Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service

We believe that the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 offers us the opportunity to work more effectively with the Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service and we  have agreed a protocol with them on the best way to do this.

Working with the Community

We believe that we will have greater success in reducing casualties if we can persuade the community to share ownership of the problem. As a first step we need to increase the community's understanding of the problem. 

Working in Areas of Disadvantage

The County Council's general aim is to achieve improvement for all although with the fastest improvement for the most deprived. We believe that in general there are more casualties, and hence more potential for reducing casualties, in disadvantaged areas.

Research shows that children in disadvantaged areas are more likely to be road casualties than other children.  We undertook and evaluated a pilot project and have used the experience we gained to modify our approach to ensure our interventions give priority to vulnerable areas.

Reducing Child Casualties

The number of children killed or seriously injured on Warwickshire's roads has reduced in recent years. However Britain has a poor child pedestrian casualty record compared to the rest of Europe. For this reason reducing child casualties is a key government target.

Of the 50 children killed or seriously injured in 2004,  27 were pedestrians, 9 were cyclists and  14 were riding in vehicles. If we are to reach our target we will need to achieve reductions in all three categories.

We will reduce child casualties:

• By measures specifically aimed at children, in particular by education and training and by giving them a safer route to school; and
• By measures which will reduce casualties generally.

Education and training aimed at children will mainly affect pedestrians and cyclists. However ensuring children wear seat belts will reduce the severity of injuries to casualties in vehicles.

Deliver Road Safety Education Both Directly and Through Others

We will:

• Encourage parents to teach their children about road safety;
• Develop and deliver road safety programmes ourselves and in conjunction with our partners;
• Provide practical pedestrian skills training programmes for infant schools;
• Develop a progressive educational programme;
• Offer training to teachers and trainers;
• Provide support materials to teachers and trainers; and
• Encourage teachers and trainers to give road safety training high priority and to provide additional road safety work following work by road safety officers.

Cycle Training

The Government estimates that a child cycling is almost 50 times more likely to be injured than a child travelling in a car. Cycle training will reduce casualties. This in turn will encourage cycling.

We aim to equip young cyclists to deal with traffic conditions and become safer all round road users. We will:

• Offer first skills training off the road to children in Year 3 and above and cycle awareness training on the road to children in year 5 and above; (Over 3,300 children undertook training in 2005);
• Offer bike safety checks to secondary schools;
• Train professional and volunteer trainers;
• Promote the wearing of cycle helmets; and
• Encourage schools to include a policy on wearing cycle helmets in their prospectuses and to insist that children wear helmets when cycling to school.

Educational Campaigns and Events

We will use publicity campaigns to reinforce educational initiatives. Our strategy aims to support any educational or training initiatives undertaken and will be researched and targeted at specific road user groups. We will:

• Support Government and Mercia Road Safety Officers Group publicity campaigns and give them a local dimension;
• Use casualty intelligence to develop specific local campaigns;
• Support 'Crucial Crew', Warwickshire's multi-agency safety event for 11 year olds; (1,700 pupils took part in 2005).
• Run the 'Live and Dangerous' road safety event for 11 year olds; (In 2004 Live and Dangerous received a commendation in the Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards. 2,500 pupils took part in 2005).
• Organise annual road safety quizzes for schools and for cubs and brownies; (17,000 pupils took part in 2005); and
• Promote events and campaigns by 'Action on Accidents', Warwickshire's multi agency partnership, in particular the School Safety Merit Award.

Making the Journey to School Safer

The Government hopes to increase the number of children walking or cycling to school for environmental reasons and has made substantial funds available to support this aim. The number of children killed or injured on their way to or from school is relatively small. However, if the number of children walking or cycling to school increases, it is likely that casualties will rise proportionally unless we make the journey to school safer.

It is also important that parents do not limit the development of children by unduly restricting their independence because they are concerned about their safety on the roads. We will:

• Work with head teachers, governors, parents and pupils to identify safety problems for pupils walking or cycling to school;
• Implement schemes which address these problems and encourage pupils to walk or cycle to school; and
• Work to improve the conditions of non-roadside paths used by children to get to and from school.

Schemes may be engineering measures (such as pedestrian crossings or cycle routes) or other initiatives (such as Walking Buses, where parent volunteers escort a group of children to and from school along a predetermined route).

We will promote our pedestrian training programme 'Kerbsafe' through infant schools. We will also give pupils the information to enable them to walk or cycle with confidence on the most appropriate and safest routes and encourage walking.

We will give priority to schools in urban areas, but will include rural schools in the Safer Routes to School initiative as appropriate.

Improvements to the infrastructure and implementing and enforcing speed limits can be particularly effective in areas used by children for their journey to school or for play. The wider community will also benefit, particularly from any physical safety measures implemented.

School Crossing Patrols

School crossing patrols play a key part in safety for children. We provide over 100 school crossing patrols for the children of Warwickshire.

We will:

• Provide regular training for new and existing patrols;
• Provide patrols with a uniform that can be easily identified by drivers and children;
• Check regularly that patrols are operating safely; and
• Check with the police that applicants for patrol work are suitable to work with children.

Reducing Adult Casualties

The number of people killed or seriously injured on Warwickshire's roads has reduced significantly over the last 20 years. Since 2002 when safety cameras were introduced on Warwickshire roads, there has been a significant fall in the number of casualties where excessive speed was identified as a factor and the trend is now downwards. Young people aged 16 to 21 are far more likely to be ‘in car’ casualties than other age groups. In contrast to other road users the number of motorcyclists killed or seriously injured has not reduced very much since the 1994/98 baseline.  

There is no single approach that will reduce deaths and serious injuries in isolation. The way forward is to work with our partners on a variety of fronts where intelligence suggests that progress can be made.

Young Car Drivers and Passengers

In 2004 about 37% of the driver and passenger casualties in cars were aged 16 to 29 though only about 19% of the population was in this age range.

We have developed Driving Ambitions, a pre-driver speed related attitudinal and practical programme that delivers in school training to Years 8 to 12 students. The programme is funded by Warwickshire Casualty Reduction Partnership and managed by the County Council. Research shows that children are forming attitudes that will influence their future driving behaviour by the age of 14. More than 90% of Warwickshire schools in the age group have taken up the programme. In 2005 the scheme received a commendation from the Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards. Over 7,500 pupils took part in 2004/05 and 15,000 are expected to take part in 2005/06).

ASTRA (Active Strategy to Reduce Accidents) is the schools programme for Years 11 and 12 originally developed by Warwickshire Police which aims to educate young people about the potential dangers of owning and driving a motor vehicle and to make them into responsible drivers. It won a Prince Michael International Road Safety Award in 2001. In partnership with the Police we have reorganised ASTRA so that it is managed by the County Council and compliments Driving Ambitions.

We will expand Driving Ambitions and ASTRA it so that every school and pupil in the age range participates in them. We have built a system to evaluate their effectiveness into the schemes.

We will use Theatre in Education as a message carrier on responsible driving attitudes.

Alcohol

Thirty years campaigning has changed public attitudes and the number of casualties has been halved since 1981. But we must not be complacent.

In line with Policy RS24 we will continue to organise twice yearly publicity campaigns in partnership with the Police.  We will campaign through the press, though advertising and through our own distribution networks to colleges, hospitals, police stations, clinics etc. We will utilise both DfT and our own specially produced publicity material.

In line with Policy RS13 we will continue to promote the drink drive message in our award winning programmes to foster correct attitudes to becoming a driver and the responsibilities of drivers and other road users.

Drugs

The intelligence about casualties caused by legal and illegal drugs is limited. We need more evidence to help us decide the best way to reduce road casualties caused by drugs and the Government is currently carrying out research in this area.

In the meantime we will promote awareness of the effect of drink, drugs and drowsiness on driving by:

• Educating present and future drivers through our mainstream educational programmes, pre-driver education, the driver improvement scheme, speed awareness workshops and professional driver development; and
• Continuing to develop partnerships with the police and health professionals to promote suitable messages.

Safety Management

This is a more structured approach to reducing casualties than has been used in the past. It will enable us to give more emphasis to child casualties and other vulnerable road users. We will work in tandem with other LTP strategies to encourage alternative modes of transport such as walking and cycling. We will:

• Manage safety and monitor the effects of our strategy;
• Monitor the impact of work across the whole network, not just at individual sites or areas treated; and
• Give particular emphasis to child casualties and the problems of other vulnerable road users.

We will take the opportunity to incorporate casualty reduction features into any other work we do where possible.

Casualty Reduction (Local Safety) Schemes

By casualty reduction schemes we mean engineering schemes whose purpose is to reduce casualties. In the past these schemes have often been referred to as local safety schemes. These schemes may be at a specific site or over a length of road or an area.

There will never be enough money to carry out all the casualty reduction schemes we would wish to. We will, therefore, prioritise schemes by their cost effectiveness; that is on the basis the casualties we expect them to save for each pound invested in them. By doing this we will achieve the greatest overall reduction in casualties for the total funds available. When we prioritise schemes, we will attach the greater weight to saving fatal and serious casualties.

Value for Money

As explained in our Delivery Strategy it is essential to make the best use of our resources to achieve the shared priorities. Whilst larger schemes cannot always be justified solely in terms of casualties saved per pound spent they often also help improve accessibility and tackle congestion.

When we prioritise schemes in terms of the benefits they bring against the shared priorities, their potential to reduce casualties will be a particularly important factor.

Engineering Measures

There are a wide variety of engineering measures that can be used  in casualty reduction schemes including:

• Signing and lining and coloured road surfaces;
• Altering speed limits and making traffic orders
• Alterations to the road layout;
• Traffic calming schemes (road humps,' village gateways,' road narrowing etc);
• Improved facilities for pedestrians and other vulnerable road users; and
• Vehicle Actuated Variable Message Signs.

We will:

• Study casualty hot spots and hot routes;
• Review Village Speed Limits across the County;
• Introduce casualty reduction (local safety) schemes where we find problems we can treat;
• Implement casualty reduction (local safety) schemes to reduce the number of casualties by engineering measures;
• Integrate safety and maintenance, including road skid resistance surface treatments at sites which involve a high number of casualties in wet weather conditions and provide safety enhancements as an integral part of maintenance schemes where these will reduce casualty rates;
• Improve facilities for vulnerable road users wherever possible as part of any casualty reduction (local safety) scheme measures; and
• Monitor the effectiveness of casualty reduction (local safety) schemes.

New Roads Constructed by Developers

Developments should not adversely affect road safety in the area. Our policy is to work with the Local Planning Authority and developers to achieve this. Developers should:

• Ensure that the access to their development is safe;
• Include a safe network of roads, pedestrian and cycle routes within their development;
• Construct new roads, pedestrian and cycle routes within their development to specified safety standards; and
• Contribute towards off site improvements to the existing local road, pedestrian and cycle networks (including all types of public rights of way) through planning agreements especially where the development will generate significant traffic.

Building Safety into New Schemes

The aim of an audit will be to recommend improvements to the overall safety of the scheme to the designer. We will base our audit procedures on the Department for Transport's recommendations.

We will carry out the following safety audit process:

• Stage 1 safety audit of preliminary scheme design;
• Stage 2 safety audit of detailed scheme design; and
• Stage 3 safety audit of completed scheme.

Maintenance

We believe there is an important link between casualty reduction and maintenance. The way we maintain our roads can help reduce casualties.

Police reports show that slippery road surfaces contribute to about 20% of casualties. A key aim of our surfacing policy will be to reduce this figure.

The maintenance standards, which may influence casualties, are:

• Winter Maintenance;
• Maintaining road surface skid resistance;
• Filling potholes;
• Improving visibility by cutting grass and maintaining hedges and trees;
• Draining water from the carriageway whilst ensuring that drainage infrastructure itself is not a safety hazard;
• Kerbing to protect footways;
• Renewing road markings and signs; and
• In rural areas where paved footways are not justified, maintain verges, which are key corridors for non-motorised users.

We will produce guidance about how maintenance can improve or reduce the safety of vulnerable road users and establish a programme to review and rationalise road signs.

Safer Speeds

Our casualty data shows that excessive or inappropriate speed contributes to more than 150 road deaths and serious injuries a year in Warwickshire. Speeding is still regarded as acceptable by many drivers.

Higher speeds not only also increase the likelihood of casualties but also their severity when they occur.

Picture 2 Safety poster

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Educating drivers about speed

We introduced Speed Awareness Courses in 2002. Over 7,000 speeding offenders attended the half day theory course in 2004/05 and over 9,000 will attend in 2005/06. All participants are asked to evaluate the course on a scale from one (worst) to five (best). The average score is over four. Warwickshire were one of the first authorities to sign up to the National Speed Awareness Workshop Scheme.

Safety Cameras as part of an integrated casualty reduction strategy

Warwickshire has supported the Government's safety camera initiative. We took the lead in forming the Warwickshire Casualty Reduction (safety camera) Partnership in October 2001. The Partnership’s work has greatly reduced casualties at camera sites. It has also used cameras to address speeding issues raised by local communities where the Government’s rules permitted. In 2004 the number of collisions in which people were killed or seriously injured at camera sites was 47% lower than the 1994/98 baseline.

The Partnership has undertaken high profile intelligence led anti-speeding publicity campaigns with the other Midlands partnerships. The targeted campaigns were based on the findings of a detailed study of driver attitude and behavior that included looking at how advertising can be used to influence drivers choice of speed. The study was the largest of its kind conducted in the UK and involved canvassing the opinions of 2,500 drivers. The campaigns are subjected to pre-market testing and post-campaign evaluation to measure effectiveness. This approach won a commendation from the Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards in 2005.

In December 2005 the Government decided that safety camera activities and partnerships should be integrated into the wider road safety delivery process.

Integration will allow a more flexible approach to safety cameras based on the following principles which both the Council and the Partnership have supported:-

Cost effectiveness - The increased flexibility permitted by the new arrangements will help us to direct resources in the most cost effective manner. We will devote the additional resources to casualty reduction. The treatment at any particular site or route will be chosen to achieve the greatest reduction in casualties for the  investment made.

Partnership - We cannot reduce casualties on our own. We need all the help we can get. We already work closely with other agencies both within and outside the Partnership. The Government’s new arrangements offer the opportunity to work with a wider range of partners.

Evidence based approach - The Council’s policy is to collect and analyse casualty data and use this intelligence to help decide the most effective ways to reduce casualties in future. The Partnership will bring with it a rigorous methodology which will reinforce this approach.

Evaluation - The Council and the Partnership share the approach of regularly monitoring and evaluating their work and using the results to improve their effectiveness.

Best practice - The Council and the Partnership have shared the same aims but have used slightly different approaches. The integration offers the opportunity to adopt the best practice from each in the new integrated approach.

We will:

• Work with the our partners to target speed and red light abuse at locations with the worst records for speed related casualties;
• Promote a programme of education designed to influence driver behaviour towards speeds and to explain the reasons for enforcement; and
• Seek to support communities concerned by speeding traffic through a community based speed education initiative and, where justified by the evidence, engineering or enforcement.

Speed Limits

The actions proposed above rely on having a speed management strategy that ensures suitable speed limits are in place on our roads. We believe there should be close collaboration with the Police in setting speed limits. Our present speed management strategy is based on Department of Transport Roads Circular 1/93. The Government intends to publish revised guidance on setting local speed limits shortly. When it does we will use it in developing a revised speed management strategy, to help reduce casualties and encourage greater respect for speed limits.

Motorcycling

In this strategy 'motorcycle' means any powered two-wheel vehicle.

In contrast to other road users, the number of motorcyclists killed and seriously injured is now greater than the 1994/98 baseline. In 2003 almost 10% of casualties and almost 20% of fatal and serious casualties were motorcyclists.

We will produce and regularly update a plan aimed at reducing motorcycle casualties in partnership with Warwickshire Police, Warwickshire Casualty Reduction Partnership and the Highways Agency. The current version is reproduced below.

We will:

• Identify routes that have a higher proportion of motorcycle casualties;
• Develop and implement a comprehensive action plan with the police that addresses the issues around motorcycle casualties;
• Compile a register of approved motorcycling training schemes and ensure that local training schemes are well publicised and suitable information is available for motorcyclists;
• Work with the police to support and publicise their BikeSafe and ScooterSafe schemes;
• Promote and provide education on safe riding practices;
• Educate drivers to be aware of motorcycles; and
• Consider engineering measures in the context of the wider casualty reduction strategy.

Safety for Pedestrians, Cyclists and Horse riders

Fatal and serious pedestrian and cyclist casualties in Warwickshire have reduced in recent years. The promotion of walking and cycling as alternatives to travelling by car will not only reduce congestion and pollution, but will also improve health as do recreational walking, cycling and horse riding.

Enforcement

In partnership with the Police, we will continue to:

• Support Warwickshire Casualty Reduction Partnership in enforcing speed limits at collision hot spots where excessive speed is an issue;
• Offer the Driver Improvement Scheme to less serious traffic offenders;
• Offer Speed Awareness Workshops to less serious speed offenders; and
• Support the police's Bike Safe initiative.

Promoting Safer Road Use

We will support government campaigns and apply and adapt them to local circumstances. We will analyse local data and establish whether there are any specific local casualty problems that need to be addressed and with our partners initiate local campaigns. We will establish a local publicity campaign network for the distribution of promotional and information leaflets.

We will ensure that with any campaign interested partners are consulted and involved.

How do we evaluate what we have done?

One of the challenges we face is to evaluate how well our strategy and each individual activity has contributed to reducing casualties. We do this in a number of ways. Each has its strengths and limitations:

• We look at our progress towards achieving our casualty reduction targets. Our aim is to reduce the number of people killed and injured on Warwickshire’s roads so this is the ultimate criteria against which our work must be measured. However it does not distinguish the success of different activities or between the effects of our activities and other unrelated factors;
• Where we have implemented improvements at a particular location we monitor the number of casualties at that location before and after the improvement. This gives a good idea of the success of a particular improvement. However this is only applicable to the type of scheme which is implemented at a specific site or route. It cannot entirely eliminate the effects of unrelated factors nor can it consider the possibility that a scheme might cause traffic to divert and hence perhaps increase casualties elsewhere;
• For educational services we monitor the number of people (usually children) who have taken up the service. The more people who receive education and training the greater the reduction in casualties is likely to be. However this method does not give any idea as to the saving in casualties achieved. It does not monitor the quality of training though this limitation can be partly overcome by also asking clients for their opinions (see below);
• Wherever possible we ask our clients (including children) for their opinions of the education and training we have given them. Clients generally have a good idea as to the quality of the education and training they have received. However this method does not give any idea as to the number of casualties saved; and
• We invite the community’s views on our performance overall. The community is generally a good judge (and in a democracy the ultimate judge) of the overall quality of our service. However this method does not give any idea as to the number of casualties saved.