22.03.13
Council road safety league table launched
A new road safety comparison site will allow residents to see how their local authority ranks against others, road safety minister Stephen Hammond has announced.
The DfT has launched the website under obligation from the Strategic Framework for Road Safety to produce tools to enhance the delivery of road safety.
The website will publish collision and casualty figures against population, traffic levels, road length and authority spending over the last seven years. A map will also be available to identify the risks of particular roads.
A road safety observatory is also launched today, to offer road safety professionals access to research and facts on safety issues. The observatory is run by a programme board of safety bodies, including RoSPA, the Parliamentary Advisory Committee for Transport Safety (PACTS), Road Safety GB, RoadSafe, the Association of Directors for the Environment, Planning and Transport (ADEPT), the RAC Foundation, the South West Public Health Observatory, The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), and the DfT.
Hammond said: “This new comparison website will give local residents a more accurate picture of their council’s performance in reducing road casualties and will allow councils to make more meaningful assessments of the work they are doing to improve road safety.
“If a council is performing particularly well then I want to see them sharing best practice with others so that they can improve and people across the country can benefit.
In addition, the road safety observatory will be a valuable resource for all those with an interest in road safety by providing a one-stop-shop for road safety research.”
Kevin Clinton, head of road safety at RoSPA, said: “The launch of The Road Safety Observatory marks an important step in making road safety evidence more accessible and summarises important research into plain English.
“It is the first time that research evidence for different road safety topics has been collected and summarised together in one place. It will help increase knowledge of road safety and the evidence behind road safety measures.”
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