Following the evaluation of our first commitment and considering that our action plan has had a positive effect on Road safety, we renew our commitment to the European Road Safety Charter with the same activities for the next 3 years.

 

1. The West of Scotland Road Safety Forum meets quarterly to review road casualty reports, approve work programmes and allocate funding for them. It assists member authorities by way of sharing knowledge and resources and achieves best value for money by carrying out area-wide initiatives. The Forum's Executive, Officer and Education, Training and Publicity groups will meet at least four times a year. These groups will develop road safety programmes that address needs in a prioritised manner, seek approval and funding to implement the programmes, and then deliver and evaluate them in line with targets for 2020.

 

2. The West of Scotland Road Safety Forum implements a programme of continual professional development that will disseminate good road safety practice and updated legislation to road safety practitioners within member authorities. Road safety practitioners meet at least four times a year, to be updated on current research funding, new legislation, standards and guidance on road safety engineering, education, training and publicity measures. This information will then be published online.

 

Previous Continual Professional Development events have included:

 

- Training for in-car safety (fitting of child seats in cars)

- Tyre safety

- Current trends and developments in education and engineering/enforcement

- Road safety and the media

- Exchange of ideas between authorities

- New legal issues surrounding road safety activities

- Seat belts

 

3. The West of Scotland Road Safety Forum will implement, annually, area-wide road safety publicity aimed at improved driver, pedestrian or rider behaviour. Publicity campaigns have included:

 

a. "Park Smart" (safe parking outside schools) campaign - radio coverage - four radio stations - whole Forum area

b. "Safe start" leaflets - aimed at parents of primary school children.

c. "Stepping off buses" campaign. Adverts on buses - 495 buses covering urban and rural areas.

d. "60 plus" campaign (elderly pedestrians) - radio coverage - saga radio coverage of the whole Forum area -105.2 FM

e. Guide to Road Safety. Publication and distribution throughout the Forum area of a booklet highlighting the work of the Forum, including the contact names and numbers of Forum members - 10,000 copies annually. The Guide to Road Safety will be also published online.

f. Typical radio campaigns within the Forum area reach around 138,000 households and approximately 339,000 listeners.

The Road Safety campaigns for 2010/11 concentrate on "20 mph areas" and "Rural Roads". Each year, new campaigns are developed with a view to concentrating on initiatives aimed at specifically targeting vulnerable groups.

 

4. The Forum also has a website which disseminates information to road safety practitioners. It is also being developed to include an online forum for members to discuss current problems and ideas.