Contact: Tim Cheesebrough, ext 7114 email: [email protected]

1. Summary

1.1 This report outlines progress on the Hampshire County Council and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Safety Camera Partnership casualty reduction programmes for 2005/06, together with road casualty reduction progress in Hampshire against the Government's targets.

2. Casualty Reduction (Engineering) Programme

2.1 As reported to the Panel in spring 2005 the County Council has budgeted a sum of some £3 million of the Local Transport Plan integrated transport settlement towards casualty reduction highway engineering measures in the current financial year.

2.2 With the submission of the County Council's provisional second Local Transport Plan (LTP2) for 2006-11 to Government in July 2005, it is intended (subject to confirmation of Government funding levels for LTP2) to continue this broad level of annual funding for the casualty reduction engineering programme, at least for the early years of that plan.

2.3 Of this year's programme, some £1 million is being made available to support the long established, broadly low cost/high yield casualty reduction engineering programme, which remains the core of the County Council's engineering led casualty reduction programmes. The current programme is expected to treat some 84 locations throughout the county with a higher than expected rate of casualties and/or with a predominant pattern of personal injury crashes thought likely to be treatable with engineering remedial measures. Appendix 1 shows the list of schemes for the Rushmoor area, together with the current implementation or study position for each scheme.

2.4 The overall programme is also providing £250,000 to support the implementation of measures to treat sites identified through the County Council's Casualty Reduction Partnership investigations with Hampshire Constabulary. Such investigations (which commenced in 2003) are directed towards locations where there have recently been high severity injury collisions, often involving fatalities. The treatments installed are often similar to the low cost engineering programme and include measures such as improved signing, carriageway markings, carriageway surface retexturing or resurfacing. To date, 29 investigations have been undertaken in this financial year, leading to the programmed installation of 12 schemes. The available funding will enable such investigations and the programming of resultant measures to continue throughout the year.

2.5 A further allocation of £200,000 within the 2005/06 programme will enable the County Council to continue auditing the ongoing effectiveness of previously installed casualty reduction engineering schemes, where there is the potential to either achieve further casualty savings or where there has been a recent increase in casualty occurrence. The remainder of the £3 million programme will enable more significant safety works to be implemented at two locations with stubborn crash histories: Water Lane, Totton (New Forest District) and Tukes Avenue, Gosport.

3. Casualty Reduction Progress

3.1 The County Council will continue to contribute to the Government's headline national casualty reduction targets to the year 2010, through the Hampshire Road Safety Strategy, as contained in the Hampshire Local Transport Plan (2001-06). The headline targets have now been reviewed for LTP2, and are as follows:

(i) a 40% reduction in all fatalities and serious injuries from the average baseline level for the years 1994-98, together with a further 30% reduction on the average levels for the years 2000-04. As provisionally reported at the spring Panel meeting the final figure for 2004 of 669 fatalities and serious injuries represented a 37% reduction on the 1994-98 baseline. This figure was considerably ahead of the milestone target to meet the 2010 figure, with the lowest recorded fatal and serious casualty toll on Hampshire's roads (including local motorway and trunk roads) to date; and

(ii) a 50% reduction in fatal and serious child casualties between the 1994-98 baseline and 2010, together with a further 35% reduction by 2010 from a new 2000-04 baseline. Again, as reported at the spring Panel meeting, the provisional figure for Hampshire for 2004 was 67 fatal and serious child casualties, only marginally higher than the 2003 result and the second lowest toll for Hampshire's roads to date. This reduction by 2004 represented a 39% reduction on the baseline and was also considerably ahead of the milestone target to 2010.

3.2 Additionally, the County Council, through its locally negotiated Public Service Agreement with Government, committed itself to achieving a more demanding local reduction in all fatal and serious casualties on Hampshire's roads, of 26% by the end of 2004 from the 1994-98 baseline position. This very challenging target was met by some margin and the County Council has recently made an application to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for an additional performance reward grant. This grant is expected to be received over the 2006/07 and 2007/08 financial years.

3.3 This autumn the County Council will commence negotiations over a second Local Public Service Agreement with Government. Within a broad suite of stretch performance targets focused upon community safety, the County Council in partnership with Hampshire District Councils and the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Strategic Casualty Reduction Partnership (including Hampshire Constabulary, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Strategic Health Authority, Hampshire Ambulance and the Fire and Rescue Service, together with the Highways Agency) is again proposing a stretching target for road casualty reduction. Although subject to agreement at the time of writing, the initial proposal to Government is to locally achieve stability in the 2004 Hampshire casualty reduction results and to broadly maintain this performance throughout the period to 2008, when the Agreement would conclude. The value of stabilising these results to the Hampshire community is expected to exceed £40 million, as based upon the Government's own valuations of road casualties to the UK community.

3.4 The position on casualty figures in Rushmoor compared with other districts in the county is shown in Appendix 2. Caution is required in the interpretation of the data, since many factors are involved, but Rushmoor has a relatively good record in terms of total casualty numbers. This information has been used in local publicity which draws attention to the high proportion of child casualties who were car occupants and, as also included in Appendix 2, the advice given to parents on this subject.

4. Hampshire Safety Camera Partnership

4.1 To be distributed at the meeting will be copies of the Safety Camera Partnership's recent public information leaflet detailing its activities. This highlights the marked casualty reductions effected on safety camera routes and sites in the operational year 2003/04 across the Partnership area, including the cities of Portsmouth and Southampton, the Isle of Wight and the local trunk road network. On average, the number of fatal and serious collisions has decreased by 59 percent against benchmark levels prior to camera presence, representing a huge saving in both financial costs and personal loss to the communities of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. All injury accidents were also reduced by 35 percent against pre-enforcement levels.

4.2 This enforcement presence on high casualty routes and sites over this period has contributed substantially to the local highways authorities' recent casualty reduction performance results. For the Hampshire County Council operational area it has clearly made a marked contribution to the authority having met its local Public Service Agreement stretched target with Government. At the time of writing the Government has yet to approve the small number of additional fixed and mobile safety camera sites requested in the Partnership area for 2005/06. This is a similar position for all Partnerships across the country. It is expected this approval will be gained shortly however, when the Partnership will mobilise to ensure those new locations are operational by early 2006.

4.3 In 2003 temporary signs were erected on the dual carriageway section of the A325 Farnborough Road between Clock House Roundabout and the junction with Boundary Road to raise driver awareness of the speed limit and the number of casualties in the 30 mph speed limit. In August 2005 these were replaced with vehicle activated signs which display a speed limit sign to vehicles exceeding the limit and additionally a speed camera sign when a driver would be likely to receive a prosecution. As requested at the last Panel meeting an audit has been undertaken of the normal 30 mph signs. The correct terminal signs are in place as drivers enter the 30 mph limit, but where there is a system of street lighting by lamps not more than 183 metres apart, the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002 prohibit the placing of 30 mph repeater signs.

5. Impact Assessments

5.1 Assessment of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act has been considered in the development of this programme, which is not expected to compromise equalities in terms of race and gender, but to improve road user safety for all.

Recommendation

That this report be noted.

530/TLC

APPENDIX 1

Rushmoor

Low Cost Casualty Reduction Programme 2005/06

APPENDIX 2

Road Casualties in Rushmoor among lowest in Hampshire

Government Targets

By 2010, the Government wishes to achieve, compared with the average for 1994-98:

A 40% reduction in the numbers of people killed or seriously injured in road accidents;

A 50% reduction in the numbers 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.

Currently Hampshire is delivering a reduction in casualties and looks set to meet the Government requirements. The situation in Rushmoor is better still.

The following chart shows the number of driver casualties by district in Hampshire.

The next chart shows pedestrian casualties by age and by district in Hampshire:

The reduction of child casualties is an important target, again we have one of the best records in Hampshire however it is noted that the highest proportion of child casualties are for children in cars normally due to them not wearing a seatbelt or having adequate restraint in a car.

The following chart shows child casualties by district in Hampshire, noting that of the 35 casualties that occurred in 2003; 24 were children who were car occupants.

The Hampshire Road Safety team encourage parents to note the following points on child seats to make it safer for their children in their cars:

· Fit it properly every time.  It's no good if you don't.

· Take time to get the child comfortably strapped in.

· Make sure the adult seat belt passes through all the correct guides

· Never modify the seat or adult seat belt to make it fit.

· The child seat must be tight in the adult seat.

· The adult seat belt buckle should not be bent over or rest on the child seat frame.

· Never fit a rear- facing seat with an active airbag in front of it.

More information is available at www.hants.gov.uk/roadsafety