MOTORCYCLING |
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY AWARD
Blis (Blind Spot Informaton System)
Volvo.
This highly-effective device uses digital cameras
incorporated in the door mirrors to monitor the
"blind spot" and alert the driver of other road users by
a flashing light inside the car next to the appropriate
mirror. It is able to distinguish between moving and
immobile objects so that it does not give false alarms
from parked cars and street furniture. Especially
useful on crowded motorways. First demonstrated on
the Volvo Safety Concept Car in 2001, BLIS is now
available as a option on most of the Volvo range.
E-mail: jbright@volvocars.com
Website: www.volvocars.co.uk
AWARDS FOR DRIVING AT WORK
The Fleet Safety Award
Sponsored by Roxby Media
Pickfords. The company’s high-level Safe Driving
Committee meets every quarter to review accident
data. Safety is a fundamental cultural value in the
company. All staff are subject to stringent licence
and insurance checks. All commercial vehicles have
additional safety features including CCTV cameras
which are also a reversing aid, and all tachographs
are subject to independent analysis. Specialist
training is given to all drivers identified to be at
risk including all company car drivers. Throughout
the year information safety campaigns are run and
random alcohol and drug tests are carried out.
E-mail: Nick.purkis@sirva.co.uk
AWARDS FOR CHILDREN’S ROAD SAFETY
The Junior Road Safety Officer Scheme run by Transport
for London appoints children as road safety champions
for their school community. The London-wide scheme is
available to all boroughs. Two children aged between nine
and 11 in each school become Junior Road Safety Officers.
These pupils, with the support of their teachers, play an
active role in communicating key road safety messages
to their school communities – through activities such as
organising competitions, plays and talks. All JRSO’s were
invited to an annual road safety theatre show to celebrate
their work, where they reinforced road safety messages and
shared best practice.
E-mail: Lynne.upton@tfl-buses.co.uk
Website: www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl
THE EDUCATION AND TRAINING AWARD
Sponsored by Wincanton
The Children’s Traffic Club. Dbda has been running
in the UK since the early 1990s. It engages pre-school
children aged three to five, their parents/carers and a
range of associated professionals, giving valuable road
safety messages in fun and interactive ways. Lower socioeconomic
groups and areas of high social deprivation
have statistically higher road casualties and the CTC
helps address this by providing specific material for those
parents/carers with low literacy skills or where English is a
second language. These materials are more pictorial with a
simple, low reading level for parents. In addition, key road
safety messages are made available in the top 22 languages
spoken throughout the UK. More than one and half
million children have been members, at home, in their
nurseries or at Early Years Establishments.
E-mail: Lynda@dbda.co.uk
Website: www.trafficclub.co.uk
YOUNG DRIVERS AWARDS
‘Safe Drive Stay Alive’ is a show run by a number of
partnerships across the UK, supported and sponsored
by many concerned companies. The show, conceived in
Surrey, but now also running in other places, is based
around a specifically filmed reconstruction of a crash
scene. The powerful show traces the everyday lives of a
group of young people leading up to a serious collision
and follows the actions of the emergency services dealing
with the incident and those affected, in particular with
the parents of the young person killed. In excess of 30,000
young prospective drivers upwards from 15 years of age
have seen the show, which is made possible through
collaborative working and commercial sponsorship.
E-mail: barrywood@surreycc.gov.uk
PUBLIC EDUCATION AWARDS
The Scottish Good Egg Guide was designed with the
aim of reducing injuries and fatalities amongst children in
Scotland through the lack of, or incorrect use of, in- car
restraints. First research had showed that 80% of car seats
were incorrectly fitted. The Guide is a media-led campaign
on radio stations, bus hoardings, and includes an A5
booklet which is given out by midwives and antie-natal
clinics. The Scottish Good Egg Charter is a promise by
retailers to guarantee to provide a high level of service to
any customer purchasing a new seat from them. There is a
dedicated website which supports the campaign messages.
E-mail: jan@dynamicadgroup.com
Website: www.protectchild.co.uk
Precious Cargo. As a community and school-based initiative which promotes the safe use of seatbelts and child restraints, Precious Cargo is part of the City of Hull’s Focus on Safety, which is a partnership initiative which began in 2001. The project is run through publicity and enforcement campaigns. Education and awareness begins with the ante-natal education of parents, followed by pre-school and then road safety education for children in schools. Two-yearly publicity campaigns are run using advertising posters on buses and radio to support the campaigns.. The number of children injured in cars each year in Hull has fallen by 20% since 2001 and over 3,000 children have completed practical in-car safety training.
E-mail: Mark.jessop@hull.gov.gov.uk
Website: www.hullcc.gov.uk
The Mosque Marshalling Scheme is run by Blackburn with Darwen Road safety teams. The community scheme which, is a Neighbourhood Road Safety Initiative-supported scheme, arose out of local concern for its children crossing busy arterial routes on their way to the mosque. The marshals are trained by the road safety team and acted as chaperones for the children as they cross. They have since become a highly visible first point of contact for the community to address their concerns. The scheme is run in conjunction with a series of educational inputs at the local mosques. The children were also given high, visibility vests.
E-mail: Graham.campell@capita.co.uk
Website: www.blackburn.gov.uk
Volvo. Despite Volvo’s best efforts to improve car design, children are still hurt and killed because of lack of awareness of child safety in cars. Volvo has embarked on a number of initiatives to help reduce child casualties, and these include: specific child safety options for new cars, a new range of child seats, educational booklets, exhibiting at baby shows, direct mail focusing on young families and the creation of a virtual pregnant crash test-dummy.
E-mail: jbright@volvocars.com
Website: www.volvocars.co.uk
Midland Safety Camera Partnership. “Speeding – Its not Impressiv”e, a campaign targeting 17-24 year olds, was produced by the eight Midland Camera Safety Partnerships. The Partnerships adopted an extensive joined-up approach to communications. Key to its success has been its detailed research programme which led the Partnership to provide the design agencies with quality creative briefs and to test design concepts with the target audience. Extensive post-campaign evaluation was done to measure the impact and effect of the campaign.
E-mail: stephenrumble@warwickshire.gov.uk
AWARDS FOR SAFER ROADS
A77 Safety Group The A77 links the central belt of
Scotland with Ayreshire and the west coast ports of
Stranraer and Cairnryan. The route is a mixture of
motorway, dual and single carriageways and had gained
the unenviable reputation as one of the most dangerous
roads in Scotland. The A77 Safety group of the
Strathclyde Police, Scottish Trunk Road Network, South
Ayrshire Council, Amey, Strathclyde Safety Camera
Partnership and West Sound Radio working together with
drivers and local industries have achieved a remarkable
reduction in collisions under the banner: “Reckless Driving
Wrecks Lives’’.
E-mail: hughmccafferty@transportscotland.gsi.goc.uk
Website: www.a77safetygroup.com
MOTORCYCLE AWARDS
The Motorcycle Industry Award
Sponsored by The Motor Cycle Industry Association.
Buckinghamshire County Council for its “Where
You Look Is Where You Go’’ programme, using marker
posts to take the rider’s eye to the vanishing point.
Similar marker posts are a familiar sight to highway
engineers and by extending the knowledge of advanced
motorcycle-riding techniques the careful placing of
these marker points has significantly reduced casualties.
This simple idea is highly replicable and most
cost effective.
E-mail: mhjames@buckscc.gov.uk
Website: www.ihie.org.uk
The ‘‘Take iTT Easy’’ campaign is from the Isle of Man. The TT festival attracts 40,000 spectators and more than 500 riders. ‘‘Take iTT Easy’’ was a media-led campaign which included local radio, including a dedicated TT radio station, billboards, leaflets and posters. Special mugs were also given to many campers. The campaign with its simple strapline hit home a powerful message to a wide audience of bikers and other road users too.
E-mail: Gordon.Edwards@gov.im
Website: www.gov.im/lib/news/highways
The Motor Cycle Industry Association has led the way with many safety-related initiatives which are now widely used throughout the UK. The association provided critical funding to BikeSafe to make it a self-sustainable scheme. The Street Track Open Road programme is a DVD provided free to every person who buys a new motorcycle in the UK. Other successful initiatives include Links, Act Your Age and the Voluntary Post Test Trainers Register. MCIA has been inspirational in committing its members to safety and in working with government to reduce casualties. worthy of special recognition is Karen Cooke, who heads up the association’s safety department.
E-mail: k.cooke@mcia.co.uk
Website: www.mcia.co.uk
COMMENDATIONS
The following were highly commended:
Drink Drive Educational Rescources from Northampton. The DVD None for the Road and CD Alcohol FREE the Road to Safe Driving dispel the myths, misconceptions and confusion surrounding alcohol and its effect on a person’s ability to drive. Nearly 10,000 copies have been distributed to local companies as part of their occupational road risk training for employees and to secondary schools for staff and sixth form licence holders.
E-mail: John.spencer@northants.pnn.police.uk
LARSOA Road Safety Newsfeed was launched in 2002 and is an electronic road safety newsfeed delivered as part of the association’s web link service. It is now used by roadsafety professionals and road safety officers to keep abreast of the latest developments.
E-mail: nrawlings@stennik.com
Website: www.larsoa.org.uk
Bosch –The ESPerience Programme. The Electronic Stability programme (ESP) was developed by Bosch a decade ago and designed to support the driver in nearly all critical driving situations. It comprises the functions of anti-lock braking systems and traction control systems but provides and integrates an additional and very important element in that it detects a vehicle skidding and almost instantly actively counteracts it. This considerably improves safety whilst driving. ESPerience is an educational programme which informs and demonstrates to industry, fleet operators, government and those whose job it is to inform customers by demonstrating the advantages of ESP.
Websites: www.bosch.co.uk
www.bosch-esperience.com
Rider Risk Reduction Course – Preliminary Evaluation by Cris Burgess This evaluation reports the findings of a small-scale evaluation of the Rider Risk Reduction (RRR) scheme, Devon County Council and Devon & Cornwall Police’s motorcycle offender diversionary scheme for motorcyclists facing potential prosecution for a Section 3 offence under the Road Traffic Act (1988), ‘‘driving without due care or consideration for other road users’’.
E-mail: c.n.w.burgess@exeter.ac.uk
Drive & Survive in Cheshire targets people aged 16 years to 25 years by alerting them to the dangers associated with their use of vehicles and ultimately ‘‘shape’’ their attitude to become responsible drivers. This is achieved through a one-day course which is delivered free of charge. Practitioner members of each of the partners deliver a presentation from their own work perspective. Partners include the fire service, the police and the mother of a deceased driver. The content is graphic, honest and ‘‘hard hitting’’ and effectively demonstrates the consequences of young and irresponsible drivers behind the wheel of a vehicle.
E-mail: Peter.madeley@cheshire.pnn.police.uk
Wolseley UK has 13,500 employees. Working with Interactive Driving Systems an analysis was done to identify fleet safety strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A quarterly steering group was established and Wolseley has now put a number of procedures in place. Wolseley works closely with risk management advisors, insurance brokers and insurers. It has set up the CrashCOUNT system to view and learn from collision data. It investigates the root cause of any collision to identify if retraining is required. It offers free eye testing to all drivers. independent audits were undertaken which showed that Wolseley UK’s crash analysis procedures have improved immeasurably over the past 18 months.
Website: www.wolseley.co.uk
