Community Speed Watch

The earliest known CSW scheme was established in 1982 in the State of Virginia as a means of assisting residential neighbourhoods to deter speeding in their communities. Schemes then spread across North America. It is generally believed that the first scheme in Britain was developed in South-West England.

All CSW schemes have the same basic elements of trained volunteers monitoring vehicle speeds in their neighbourhood and reporting transgressors to the local police. Schemes vary according to whether the vehicle’s speed is displayed to the drivers as they pass the site, or merely recorded by volunteers using speed measuring equipment. Generally the police will send letters to transgressors requesting that they adhere to the speed limit in future

We worked with Leicestershire County Council to review the operation of their Scheme, determine the views of relevant stakeholders and suggest how the Scheme might be improved.

Older drivers

Many areas of Britain have a high proportion of older drivers.

Having identified a potential Casualty Reduction issue involving older residents in Norfolk, the County Council are instigating a pilot project to intervene in the issues surrounding driving ability. To be successful this intervention will need to be delivered by a host of different agencies, but coordinated and driven by a lead authority. The main focus of the project is education, leading to attitudinal change and ownership of related issues surrounding risk assessment and quality of life.

We are working with them to identify specific issues of importance to older drivers in the County and monitoring the reactions of key stakeholders as the project develops.

RSE school resource

The Scottish Road Safety Campaign, forerunner of Road Safety Scotland (RSS), launched the S1/S2 Personal and Social Development (PSD) Road Safety Education Resource in 2002. The drama is aimed at pupils in transition from primary to secondary school and aims to increase awareness of the consequences of risk-taking behaviour common to this age group.

Five years on, a nationwide review was required to determine the use of the resource in quantitative and qualitative terms to allow RSS to develop a new resource under the Roadskill banner.

Working jointly with Colin Buchanan and Partners, we surveyed the views of teachers using both postal questionnaires and telephone interviews and made recommendations for the revisions of the resource. The work was funded by the Scottish Government.

Community Wheels

The Community Wheels Project will provide properly resourced, mobile, neighbourhood targeted, high quality Road Safety education and training in Essex. It will consist of a core of a full time, experienced, multi-agency team consisting of Fire, Police and Road Safety Specialists plus at least 100 trained volunteers recruited from selected at risk groups and local communities. Its unique Hot Strike function, will enable the team to target the scenes of accidents and collisions particularly in residential areas to provide information and closure to Communities.

The team will operate from a purpose built, properly resourced, high quality Road Safety vehicle, which will act as a multi-agency / multi-media resource, education and demonstration unit.

The core team will resource and work with trained neighbourhood volunteers in urban, rural and deprived communities particularly with groups living in poverty and social exclusion and those who are traditionally hard to reach through more conventional methods to reduce casualties and targeted traffic offences, by raising road safety awareness and promoting Community ownership of these issues.

Using a variety of both quantitative and qualitative techniques, we are assisting the County Council to evaluate the impact of the initiative upon seatbelt and mobile phone use as well as upon knowledge and awareness of road safety issues.