Making roads safer

Casualty reduction and traffic management schemes

Hampshire County Council has introduced a new policy for traffic management measures.

The new policy focuses the County Council’s limited traffic management resources on measures and projects where there is evidence they will benefit casualty reduction by responding to issues at locations with the greatest scope to reduce casualties.

Where schemes are not prioritised by the County Council on safety grounds the local community, including town and parish Councils and residents groups, may wish to consider funding some of the more straightforward traffic management enhancements themselves. Where appropriate, the County Council will be able to facilitate the development and implementation of these on a full cost recovery basis. All proposals will be subject to assessment in order that any new measures are consistent with those implemented by Hampshire County Council across Hampshire.

Traffic management enhancements town and parish, district and borough councils may wish to consider in their local communities include:

  • village gateways
  • enhanced village place name signs
  • traditional finger post signing
  • sign de-clutter works
  • electronic Speed Limit Reminder signs
  • minor signs and carriageway lining alterations
  • bollards to prevent footway overrun
  • informal crossing points for pedestrians

Local councils or community groups interested in this initiative are asked to contact the County Council’s Traffic Management Group for further details.

Investigation of accident locations and road safety concerns

The County Council's road safety engineering team proactively examines the database of injury accidents as supplied by Hampshire Police to identify locations that may benefit from engineering measures to reduce the likelihood of more accidents occurring there. They will examine the database for evidence of accidents when concerns are reported to us. In this way we are able to develop a programme of sites for priority treatment and monitor those locations where there may be an emerging issue.

Investigations will also be undertaken when significant accident patterns are identified over longer lengths of road.

When casualty reduction engineering measures are installed at an accident location, the team monitors it to see whether the measures have made a difference. Sometimes this leads to new issues being identified and further works may be undertaken.

We often receive requests for measures to address hazards with a potential to jeopardise road safety, but where injury accidents are not occurring. The absence of collisions in such locations reflects in part that a hazard may exist and not give rise to problems if road users identify the hazard and adjust their behaviour appropriately. In these circumstances, engineering measures or traffic regulations are unlikely to improve on the current safety record, and the resources will be more effective in improving road safety directed to locations where road users are failing to identify and respond to hazards.

Road safety education and training is also provided by the Council to reduce the likelihood of people being involved in road traffic accidents by improving awareness of road safety issues from an early age. These complement both National and local road safety campaigns which are run in conjunction with a number of partnership organisations such as the Police. These programmes aim to improve road safety across the county and will over time support the County Council’s aim of reducing the number of people killed and injured on its roads.

Traffic management policy

The Traffic Management Policy explains how traffic and safety issues are investigated and when traffic management measures may be appropriate.

At a higher level our new policy endorses that casualty reduction is our highest priority.

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