Archived decisions

Agenda Item: 7

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

Report for Information

1) Purpose of Report:

1.1. At the meeting of the Committee on 30 April 2008 it was resolved that a report on progress with plans for Road Safety improvements be presented to the Committee in October 2008. This report advises the Committee on casualty targets, the most recent trends in accident data in 2008 and the latest developments in the main programmes and initiatives for road safety education, training, publicity and engineering.

2) Progress towards Casualty Targets:

2.1. Casualty targets have been a driver for the activities of the County Council's Highway Safety Group since the publication of "Road Safety - The Next Steps" by the Department for Transport (DfT) in the 1980s. This set the target of a one third reduction in casualties by 2000 and there is no doubt that the County Council's road safety programmes helped to achieve this in Hampshire. Several other targets have followed in recent years and these are described below, and illustrated in the graph in Appendix 1.

2.2. Department for Transport: In 2000 the DfT set its casualty reduction targets for 2010. These require a 40% reduction in Killed and Seriously Injured (KSI) casualties from a baseline of the 1994 to 1998 average, a 50% reduction in child KSIs and a 10% reduction in the slight casualty rate, expressed as the number of people slightly injured per 100 million vehicle kilometres.

2.3. LTP2: This is a stretch target included in LTP2 of a similar design to the DfT. This was set in 2005 to take account of the previous good performance in Hampshire and requires a 30% reduction in KSIs and a 35% reduction in child KSIs by 2010, but based on the 2000 to 2004 average.

2.4. LPSA2: This target followed from the successful LPSA1 target which had been achieved in 2004, but was designed to take into account the annual fluctuations in KSI casualties that are inevitable. It was set in 2005 and requires an average of 684 KSI casualties or less over the four year LPSA2 period of 2005 to 2008.

2.5. LAA: This new target has the same final value as the LTP2 stretch target, but starting from the 2007 total for KSIs. However, because the totals are calculated as a rolling three year average the line is not straight between these two points.

2.6. Current Trends: In common with a number of other Local Authorities in the South East region, Hampshire saw an increase in KSI casualties in 2007 after a succession of three exceptionally good years. Month by month monitoring in 2008 has shown that these have returned to previous levels during the first eight months of 2008 (Appendix 2).

3) Driver Education:

3.1. Pass Plus is a training course designed by the Driving Standards Agency to raise driving standards and help new drivers deal with a wide range of road and traffic situations. A £75 subsidy towards the cost of the course is being offered and this has seen an increased take up of the training in Hampshire against the national figure.

3.2. Business Driving is tackling the issue of Work Related Road Safety. Nationally 200 people are killed or seriously injured every week while on company business. A programme of driver profiling, workshops and assessments or full day's training is offered to improve this area of road safety.

3.3. Older Driver Skills Scheme: With an increasing ageing population it is predicted that casualties could rise in the over 60s category. This programme delivers assessments to this vulnerable road user group and had seen a drop by 19% in the number of in-car casualties in this group across the county between 2003 and 2007.

4) Carriageway Surface Treatment Programme:

4.1. In addition to the traditional well established engineering programme to identify and treat high risk locations, the surface treatment programme commenced in 2003/04 as a result of studies which confirmed the correlation between road surface quality and the incidence of single vehicle loss of control type accidents in wet conditions. These identified that 49% of all serious and fatal crashes involved skidding.

4.2. Treatment to improve skidding resistance is carried out on lengths of road where analysis of accident records has shown a predominance of this type of accident. The treatment consists mainly of surface dressing and is carried out at the same time as the annual summer surface dressing programme which forms part of the County Council's general highway maintenance programmes.

4.3. Prior to the introduction of this programme 33% of all accidents on Hampshire roads occurred on wet roads. This has now fallen to 27% overall and further details are shown in Appendix 2. The monitoring figures for accidents on the lengths of road included in this programme often show a very marked reduction in KSIs after treatment.

5) The Village 30 Scheme

5.1. Good progress is being made with the implementation of the Village 30 programme to introduce a 30 mph speed limit in every village in Hampshire that wishes to have one, in accordance with the revised DfT guidelines. A first tranche of 43 villages was prioritised by HATs and 36 of these have completed the necessary legal procedures and have been implemented. The remaining seven are being processed and, subject to final approval, will be implemented as soon as possible.

5.2. The second tranche of a further 63 villages has been brought forward to 2008/09 and initial discussions have already largely been completed between Parish Councils and the County Council's consultant Mott Gifford on the extent of proposed 30 mph limits. This tranche is programmed for implementation in Spring 2009, subject to successful completion of the consultations and legal procedures.

5.3. An essential part of the project is to attempt to influence drivers' behaviour to comply with the new speed limits. A county-wide "Choose 30" campaign was launched at Corhampton on 17 September 2008. This is a high profile campaign using a variety of methods including a "Parish Pack" of materials to help Parish Councils conduct local campaigns to obtain support from communities and encourage the local and regular drivers to observe the speed limits.

5.4. Following the implementation of the Tranche 2 programme, Parish Packs will be made available for other parishes which wish to participate, where villages already have a 30 mph speed limit but it is felt that a local campaign could achieve better compliance. The Hampshire Association of Parish and Town Councils, as a partner in the LAA target to reduce speeds in villages, has agreed to assist with this process.

6) Safer Roads Partnership Driver Awareness Scheme:

6.1. In October 2007 Hampshire Constabulary introduced its first Driver Awareness Training Courses as an alternative to prosecution for drivers exceeding the speed limit, both from normal Police enforcement and from the camera enforcement operated by the Safer Roads Partnership. These courses have been received very positively by the general public, and are viewed as an excellent vehicle to educate drivers about the dangers of excessive and inappropriate speed.

6.2. Other courses are currently under development. As the courses are being run by Hampshire Constabulary the Police costs within the Partnership are reduced, and it is expected that lower levels of funding will be required from the funding partners as a result in future years.

7) Working with Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service

7.1. In May 2008 Hampshire was the first Highway Authority in the country to embark on a full-time secondment of a fire fighter into the road safety team. This is improving partnership working of the two agencies delivering against the 2010 targets.

8) Conclusions:

8.1. There have been a number of significant developments recently in the delivery of programmes and initiatives to improve road safety in Hampshire. These initiatives are delivering good results and it is encouraging to note that the trend so far in the records of injury accidents reported to the Police in 2008 has shown a significant reduction in KSIs compared to the equivalent period of 2007.

1836/IM