The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Priorities and targets have been set in a bid to drive down the human and financial cost of road accidents in Lincolnshire.
A report out this month includes figures for the numbers of people killed or seriously injured on the county’s roads in 2013 – and the almost £173million price tag of road traffic accidents.
South Holland has the third highest number of people killed or injured on the roads in the county, with a total of 61 in 2013.
But the figures for the county as a whole show a continued downward trend since 2011, with 415 in 2013 – down from 426 the previous year and 483 in 2011.
Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership’s strategic board has now set a target to reduce that level to 367 by the end of 2020.
It is hoped in that timeframe to also reduce the number of children killed or seriously injured on the roads to 22 – although 2013 was ahead of that target with just 21 children hurt and only one killed.
The report said: “Although there is not a specific performance target for the number of fatal casualties, the 36 fatal casualties that occurred during 2013 is the lowest ever recorded in the county.
“Not doing anything may mean we will see an increase in casualties resulting from road traffic collisions with resulting economic and human costs per casualty saved.
“Despite the progress made there is still much to be done.
“The 36 fatal casualties and 415 KSO casualties is still unacceptable in terms of both human and economic costs.
“The cost to the national economy of Lincolnshire collisions in 2013 alone equates to about £173million.”
One of the obstacles to driving down the number of accidents, according to the report, is the poor state of some of Lincolnshire’s roads.
It said: “The risk of road traffic collisions can increase on poor road surfaces and Lincolnshire’s carriageways are currently showing signs of significant distress.”
But is hoped that a review of capital funding allocations by the Department for Transport may mean an increase in the money available for repairs from 2015 to 2021.
It is also hoped that proposals currently being considered to place restrictions on newly qualified drivers, such as limiting the number of passengers they can carry in their car, may also help drive down casualty figures.
The road safety partnership, which is made up of specialists from the police, county council and fire and rescue, has committed itself to focus on the four ‘Es’ of evaluation, education, engineering and enforcement.
The priority groups it will focus its efforts on are young drivers between the ages of 17 and 24, car drivers, particularly business drivers, pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists.
To cut the number of casualties the partnership has vowed to provide driver training programmes and develop and implement a county wide programme of safety schemes as accident blackspots.
It has also said it will look at the location of all the county’s speed cameras to ensure they are deployed as the most effective locations to reduce speed related accidents.
