Agenda item

To receive a presentation on Road Safety Partnership and Vision Zero.

Members received a presentation from Simon Burgin, Road Safety Manager, joined by Alan Boughen and Dan Horn from Fenland District Council.

Members made comments, asked questions, and received responses as follows:

·         Councillor Sennitt Clough stated the presentation was very data lead after accidents have happened and asked how the Police get ahead of potential danger areas? She further asked when describing serious offenders how does this skew data in terms of accident hot spots as it might not be the road but an area with higher drug or crime rates. Simon Burgin responded that potential danger areas are looked at by the Local Highways Authority to assess white lines and skid risks, this is carried out by local highways engineers who make sure the road itself performs as it should do and everything is in place as a matter of routine, depending on the classification of the road, be it an A, B or C class road, will depend on how often that road gets visited. He added that when it is a skid risk issue that information will come from a screen test which tests the friction of the road and it is then down to the highways engineer to maintain that area and there is a change coming to the way white lines are monitored especially at night time as this is something that up to now has not been looked at and historically white lines are most effective at night time for drivers especially on dark country roads. Simon Burgin referred to the question about where collisions were occurring and stated that data is collected about where the people are from that were causing the accidents, looking at if there was a correlation between who was involved and what the causation factors were.

·         Councillor Roy stated presentation slide 17 states ‘a cluster site is identified as a junction or 100 metre length where there’s been six or more injury collisions of any severity or three or more serious or fatal collisions’ and asked why there has to be a time span to wait for these accidents to happen before prevention is put in place, with there being continued issues around school parking with no back up from the Police. He asked if there is a long term policy being introduced to stop people from parking around school areas at school times, there are already 20mph speed limits in place but could a hatch box junction be put in place to clear the ways for schools? Simon Burgin responded there is a two prong approach to this, firstly work is carried out with Junior Travel Ambassadors who are the children within the schools themselves that identify the problem then work on a solution, work is also carried out with School Streets to look at further measures to restrict people having access to the road at the time when schools are likely to be arriving and leaving but this does depends on the location and what that road effectively allows people to do because there has to be freedom of movement for traffic and not preventing people from going where they lawfully need to be going, this is something that is being trialled in Cambridge City. He referred to box junctions and stated, in accordance with the highways manual, these cannot be placed outside of a school area and the school keep clear lining has been found to be more effective.

·         Councillor Roy stated in the villages he represents there are narrow pathways with limited walking spaces and asked how can Parish Councillors get more support with making changes from the Road Safety Partnership? Simon Burgin recommended Parish Councillors invite the local highways office to look at the situation, if there are issues with the current infrastructure then this will get fed back to the various maintenance teams to be dealt with accordingly.

·         Councillor Booth stated the process that seems to be in place is reactive and not proactive, with the criteria for looking at accident hot spots being the same for years regarding fatalities and serious injuries which he feels needs to be changed. He also has some concerns around the data being used as this is based on accidents that have occurred involving ambulances and the Police, but the truth is that many more accidents happen at local hot spots areas that are not reported as drivers exchange details or chose not to report the incident which does not get registered on the database being used and, therefore, in his view, there needs to be a rethink around another category for collating numbers of non-accident incidents that occur in hot spot locations because if this is going to be data driven then this is data that should be recorded and used. Simon Burgin responded the injury classification used is non-injury, slight injury, serious injury and fatality which comes from the statistics that the Police provide to the Road Safety Partnership on a yearly basis and he agreed that if a collision is classified as a non-injury incident this does not get collated within the data, however, what does happen is where there are a spate of collisions the Police inform the Road Safety Partnership of potential problems or where there are issues or it may come through from the local highways office where the parish councillors have been in contact to highlight a potential issue then the Road Safety Partnership can step in and assess the road layout and look at potential changes to signage, speed limits and road markings. He added that there is evidence that the 20mph speed limits in other districts has had a positive affect but some of the responsibility does need to come back to the driver and there is evidence which has been taken from the local village speed watch surveys of some complacency with local drivers when driving the Fen roads. Councillor Booth agreed with the statement around local drivers which is a national problem and added that most local parish councils do not have the sufficient funding to pay for traffic calming measures within their villages as the investment is very limited from Central Government and he feels this is why the policies needs to be investigated and possibly changed.

·         Councillor Barber asked if mobility scooters are allowed to travel on the roads? Simon Burgin responded that mobility scooters can travel on the road and the advice from the Highway Code is to travel on the road where there is a minimum amount of risk or harm and ideally to wear a high visibility jacket or clothing so they can be seen by other road users. He stated that this is an area which is being monitored along with E-scooters and E-bikes to access the accident risk as local hospitals have started to report traffic accidents involving E-scooters and E-bikes, but no mobility scooter related accidents have been recorded locally. Councillor Barber asked if there were any plans for mobility scooter, E-scooter or E-bike users to receive road safety training? Simon Burgin replied there are no plans at present but it is something he would take away from the meeting and investigate.

·         Councillor Sennitt Clough stated she could understand why local parish councils do not want to spend money on 20mph speed limits in their local village when the Police are unable to enforce the speed restrictions and she asked what advice can be given around this area? Simon Burgin responded that the impact of 20mph speed limits from the county perspective is that any reduction is a benefit to the community as it is a lot less harmful in a collision than undertaking 30mph and above and the data shows that in other areas where this speed limit is in place there has been a 40% drop in collision cases within 20mph zone areas. Councillor Sennitt Clough asked if any of the data presented has picked up an increase in speeding after the driver has come out of the 20mph speed zone? Simon Burgin responded as this is a new scheme there is not any data yet but there is data being gathered and this will be available within the next two years. He stated historically there is evidence that drivers do speed up and get frustrated in any restricted situation, be it traffic lights or speed cameras, the speed camera installed in this area are set for 30mph and not capable of being set any lower so when the 20mph limits are put in the old speed cameras will be taken out.

·         Councillor Mrs Davis asked what the next step is for the Stonea Boots Bridge road because changes have been made to the road and the local railway crossing but accidents are still happening. Simon Burgin stated this site has had significant road changes and the Road Safety Partnership are waiting for Network Rail to sign off permission for speed cameras to be placed on their poles near the railway line, once this is achieved the road can be monitored. Councillor Mrs Davis stated there was another accident at the weekend and she was aware of a further hazard with a layby close to Manea which frequently has farm machinery, and lorries parked there, this was agreed at a development meeting that this was not supposed to be happening as it can cause a distraction close to the corner where the layby is situated. Simon Burgin stated he will take this away with him and investigate it after the meeting.

·         Councillor Woollard asked if E-bikes will be banned from cycle routes and classified as an electric or petrol engine alongside motorbikes? Simon Burgin responded at the moment there is no provision but as far as the law is concerned, they are illegal and should not be used anywhere in a public space unless part of a legitimate scheme such as the one running in Cambridge. He stated that this is a policing issue, with currently E-scooters if caught being confiscated and destroyed, there will soon be an update from the Department of Transport as to whether they will be allowed and if so, what the speed limits and age restriction will be so until then the Police can only advise until further guidelines are introduced.

·         Councillor Nawaz asked for it to be confirmed that E-scooters are illegal unless part of a designated scheme? Simon Burgin confirmed this to be correct.

·         Councillor Nawaz stated parking on pavements can make it difficult for pedestrians and disabled people to pass when walking and asked where does the law stand in this situation? Simon Burgin responded parking on the pavement is an offence unless it is to do with a designated scheme where there will be signage showing the car parked at an angle with the pavement parking aligned and clearly marked.

·         Councillor Nawaz asked if anymore could be undertaken concerning drink driving and speeding? Simon Burgin stated the drink driving legislation has been around for a long time and this does come down to driver responsibility, if there are series of accidents happening at particular hot spot areas then the road will be assessed, and the speed limit took into consideration.

·         Councillor Gerstner expressed the view that the sheer number of E-scooters on the roads is out of control and the Police cannot manage the situation anymore. Simon Burgin agreed stating that until the Department of Transport have finished undertaking all of the reviews and a decision has been made to make them legal all the Police can do is educate or worst case scenario confiscate and destroy.

·         Councillor Roy stated that in the presentation it was touched on about speed cameras and the Speed Watch Scheme, and asked what the process is if a speeding driver gets caught on several cameras across different borders within the same day and is there any data sharing between the counties? Simon Burgin stated he was not aware of any data sharing between the Speed Watch Scheme, but this could be something that could be investigated by the Police as this is a national scheme.

Members noted the information reported to them and recommended that the definition of a ‘cluster site’ be amended such that the current definition of ‘a junction or 100 metre length where there has been 6 or more injury collisions of any severity, or 3 or more serious or fatal injury collisions” also includes non-injury incidents where a defined threshold of 12 incidents is met meaning that it is also an accident blackspot.