Agenda item

The Committee received a report of the Director of Legal and Democratic Services which provided background information in advance of a presentation (attached in Appendix 2) by the Road Safety Manager and Road Safety Team Leader, Regeneration, Economy and Growth’ that gave an updated on activity by the Council together with partners on road safety that was a specific work area within the Safe Durham Partnership Plan priority ‘Anti-social behaviour and crime that disrupts our communities’ (for copy see file of Minutes).

The Road Safety Manager gave a presentation that provided feedback from the County Durham and Darlington Road Safety Partnership and an update in relation to road casualty performance for 2022/23.  She gave an understanding of the partnership and the area of work from the Safter Durham Partnership around Anti-Social behaviour and crime that disrupted communities.  She noted that partnership working was vital to the joined-up work to raise public awareness to sustain transport.

The Road Safety Team Leader reviewed the dashboard data that showed the number of casualties, the different age groups, the severity of accidents, the road user groups and the locations of accidents.  This was available on the webpage and agreed to share the link.  Data was analysed over a five-year period and monitored to inform learning going forward to reduce casualties over time.   He discussed the causation factors and the fatal four.

·      Speeding

·      Alcohol/Drugs

·      Mobile phones

·      No seat belt worn

The Road Safety Team Leader advised that education was undertaken by the Council and partner agencies through direct delivery of a wide range of interventions to all road user groups and by effective use of media including, TV, radio and social media platforms. Members were informed that the highest casualty rates for fatal or serious collisions were between in the ages of 16-20 and that within the past year a partnership initiative focused on Young Driver and Passenger safety has been launched in Sixth forms, colleges and business organisations. The Road Safety Team Leader informed Members that these sessions included pre and post assessments to which had evidence of improved post session learning.

P Tate, Durham Constabulary explained that enforcement was used to try to reduce the number of casualties.  The police ran road safety events in relation to the national police council, some being mandatory and some were tailored to the area especially rural areas that had a high number of horse riders.  Close pass educated drivers on how to pass horses safely in these areas.  Drink/drive campaigns and speed cameras were used to reduce casualties.  Operation tramline was used to target HGV lorry drivers who could potentially caused accidents if they used their phones whilst driving. 

The Traffic Management Section Manager stated that as a local authority Durham County Council relied on the Road Traffic Act.   His team looked at person injury data following accidents to investigate the causes and trends as to engineer roads to prevent casualties.  He gave an example of where a pedestrian was hit on Cockton Hill Road in Bishop Auckland. In order to implement a safe crossing the team would look at the council’s policies, government legislation and information that related to how busy the road was, road markings, signs, how many bus stops were in the vicinity, visibility, how many junctions there were and if there was a need to remove resident parking. The main focus would highlight on the accident and solutions put in place to engineer out the risk of a similar accident happening again in that area. It would be years of analysis of that area to check to see if the engineering had been successful.

The Road Safety Manager noted that the main objective moving forward was to collect, monitor and analyse data to look at priority areas to focus on.  Young drivers who had passengers were targeted within the education programme to get the road safety message out.  Road safety education was carried out in primary and secondary schools and the team continued to work well with the fires service.  The main objective was to reduce casualties across all road user groups and target those road user groups that were of a high risk of having an accident.  Over all the main purpose was to improve road safety for all road users.

Councillor D Sutton-Lloyd stated that road safety was a subject close to his heart and that partnership working was a great idea.  He had major issues with Middridge Road which was a main road in his division due to what seemed to be a poorly engineered system as motorists raced along it at great speed.  There were speed cameras into the village but they did not act as a deterrent. 

P Tate, Durham Constabulary advised that there was a targeted area enforcement programme to try to reduce speed.  If speed was raised as an issue on certain road it would be investigated by voluntary speed watches so enforcement letters could be sent out to drivers.  Speed cameras were also a source to try to reduce speed.  Communities were encouraged to take part in these programmes to reduce speed and change the behaviour of drivers. 

Councillor D Sutton-Lloyd declared that there were also major issues with scrap yards in his division.  They were positioned at either end of the village that saw huge wagons coming from both directions.  He wanted the companies educated to encourage them to use more appropriate routes rather going through the village which was dangerous.

P Tate, Durham Constabulary commented that there was little that could be done about the wagons on the roads.  However if there were concerns raised regarding the weight of the vehicles this could be investigated and vehicles stopped and weighed as it was an offence to drive vehicle through restricted areas where the vehicle exceeds the weight limit of the road.

Councillor R Crute suggested that within the enforcement section work should be carried out to protect horse riders.  He mentioned that every September there was a pass wide and slow campaign in his area but he was not aware if this was a high-profile event to raise awareness of the terrifying issues that horse riders encountered whilst using the roads.  There were concerns regarding buses when they passed horse riders in parts of the County.

The Road Safety Manager responded that partnership working with the horse society was part of their remit.  Information was shared on social media to for driver education and how to pass safely.  She agreed to speak to her colleagues to see how they could support the weekend in September.

Councillor J Miller thanked officers for the presentation.  He commented that community speed watch numbers were a problem in some areas as they could not get volunteers for fear of repercussions.  He queried how many collisions/knock downs happened outside schools due to the parking issues and whether there was a point to aiming road safety education at young people as primary school children could not drive.

The Road Safety Manager explained that collisions and injuries outside schools were infrequent.  She added that a lot more happened to children and teenagers during their out of education times, at weekends, and in October/November time with the onset of darker nights.  Not all education was attributed to just schools as primary school children were accompanied by adult/carers who were residents so they educated the family and communities.  There was a tool kit that had been made that was used in talks in schools that were free for school to have that contained prepared lesson plans to use in school on how travel to school in sustainable and safe ways.  She added that social media was important to get the message out whether it was to schools or the wider community.  It was also important to share information with partners and police to enforce and regulate work regarding civil enforcement from parking services to get to the grassroot of the parking problems outside schools.

Councillor L Fenwick questioned what was being done regarding young people who rode off road bikes without any helmets or any plates who ride on pavements.

P Tate, Durham Constabulary noted that it was a big county wide problem.  The police had launched Operation Endurance that looked at young people not wearing helmets and the risk associated with this along with trying to find the location as to where off road bikes were stored.  He remarked that young people goaded police to give pursuit but as they were vulnerable police did not give chase.  It could be that bikes were unfit for purpose and if pursued they could fall off and hurt themselves.  The police relied heavily on information from the public or Councillors on sightings of offroad bikes.  There were various ways that information could be reported into the police that included the 101 number or via an online chat.  There was a need to locate where bikes were stored as by time incidents were reported to the police the bikes had moved on and more often than not there were different people on different bikes as wanted to conceal their identity.

Councillor R Potts thanked officers for the presentation.  He proposed that young people in 6^th form should be educated on road safety as they needed to know how to be safe on roads.  He mentioned that more was needed to be done to engineer information on partnership working as he was aware that there had been 33 abandoned calls to 101 that meant that lot of information was missing and not recorded.   He added that the way in which things were recorded should be addressed to gather information on non-injury accidents that just went through insurance companies to be resolved but as this was not recorded did reflect areas/roads that had issues. 

The Road Safety Manager was aware that there was an under reporting on non-injury collisions as Officers relied upon local intelligence from councillors or social media for information.   Intelligence gathered on clusters of non-injury collisions formed part of the bigger picture on accident analyses.  She advised that 6^th form students were educated but a different format was followed to that what was given to young people in schools. 

The Road Safety Team Leader confirmed that presentations had been given to several 6^th form students across county Durham and this work would be followed up next year with contact being made with all schools.

Councillor E Mavin mentioned that there was an unsuitable crossing in the High Grange Estate, Belmont that caused a lot of anxiety.  He had suggested that a roundabout should be installed near Belmont Community Centre to help with the traffic and people crossing.

The Traffic Management Section Manager agreed that there was a history with this area and the issues were being investigated.

Councillor D Sutton-Lloyd stated that there was a national issue with off road bikes. He added that an operation was to be launched for drones to be bought and training given to help find out where the bikes were stored.

Resolved:

That the information contained within the report and presentation be noted.