Jane Deeley, Road Safety Manager, to be in attendance to discuss her role and answer questions.
Sgt Simon Drewitt, Road Safety Unit, Wiltshire Police to discuss his role and answer questions.
Community Speedwatch will also be in attendance.
Minutes:
Jane Deeley, Wiltshire Councils Road Safety Education Manager gave a presentation on road safety.
Figures on Road Traffic Collisions could be difficult as some RTC’s were not recorded (if the police did not attend or the people involved did not go to hospital). Figures could also be skewed if for example, a mini bus with lots of people on board was involved. So, although figures were useful in giving an idea of trends and in securing funding, statistics were about people and the aim of Jane’s team was to help people.
In 2018 in Wiltshire, including the M4 and trunk roads, 228 people were killed or seriously injured. This was slightly up from 2017, but there was a general downward trend. 25 of the 228 were killed. There were 970 slight injury accidents, which was down about a third. Motor cycles were a particular concern as 4 of the deaths were motor cycle riders. This was mainly older people rediscovering or starting biking (rather than young people). Male car drivers featured highly (however there was context to be considered here – possibly male drivers drive more miles).
The team were hoping to pick up highways data (e.g. when they replace signs, fix lights, mend walls etc) as that sort of data indicated little accidents. It was hoped that they could merge all the data.
Jane and her team of 2 educations safety officers were responsible for education and training. Their aim was to drive behaviour changes, so they looked at why people behaved like this and how it could be changed. It was no good just reprimanding them – they must find something that works. The team had limited capacity due to its size. They undertook a lot of work on skills such as ‘Bikability’ (like cycling proficiency). They also ran walk safe courses which were free. Youngsters were trained on push scooters. This was a good way to reach young people to get them to think about how they use the roads.
There was a ‘Pass Plus’ scheme for new drivers (approx. 6 hours) which included night driving, motorway driving and other things that weren’t covered on training. There was a similar scheme for older drivers.
The National Driver Offender Scheme – which looked at safe and considerate driving (usually for those who have bene charged with driving without due care and attention etc) was run in partnership with the police and fire, IAM and Turning point.
Future plans – in 2019 the government launched a statement – a lifetime of road safety. The thoughts behind this were to get basic skills in early life and continuously develop those skills. Locally plans were to include; better analysis of data, stronger across department working, linking sustainable and safer travel, supporting schools and youth groups to provide education to pupils and parents; evaluation and increased publicity.
Roger Fooks of Community Speedwatch then gave a brief presentation to the meeting. Community Speedwatch had started 5 or 6 years ago, Wiltshire and Swindon had about 101 teams with around 1400/1500 volunteers.
Speedwatch teams could often be seen on the side of road with a speed-reading device, this was a laser device for detecting speed. If someone was driving more than 10% plus 2 mph over the speed limit, their vehicle details would be taken, and a letter sent to the motorist to education them. If an excessive speeder was caught then generally an officer would go to talk to them. Education was the aim of the teams. Speedwatch was recruiting new teams and volunteers all the time.