Previously, workshop fees were charged at £65.

For more information about the scheme, visit www.drivereducationleicester.com

 To address this problem, the Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland Safety Camera Scheme is now offering an educational workshop to motorists detected disobeying a red light at the lowest level. The workshop aims to raise awareness of the dangers and risks of disobeying traffic signals, encourage better driving practice and reduce offences. The 2½ hour workshop is delivered by Approved Driving Instructors and road safety professionals. The Traffic Light Workshop, alongside the Speed Awareness Workshop, is delivered by Leicestershire County Council and it is an alternative to the fixed penalty of a £60 fine and 3 points against your licence.

In the 3 years from 1st January 2006, there have been 34 injury collisions resulting in 65 casualties on this road.  This stretch of the A607 will be classified as an ‘enforcement route’ and will be targeted under the Force’s ‘Community Concern’ enforcement policy.

A spokesperson for the Safety Camera Scheme said:

‘Route enforcement has proved to be extremely successful at reducing casualties resulting from road traffic collisions. The combined reduction of fatal and serious injury collisions on our core route sites, the A47 and the A5, amounts to a massive 44% over the last 3 years. Our Community Concern policy allows us to address the very real collision problems along this route until a more permanent solution is put in place.’

Route:
The enforcement route is the stretch of the A607 between the start of the Rearsby Bypass at Queniborough and the roundabout at Edendale Road, Melton and is 12.47Km in length.

Collisions & Casualties
Collisions from 01 Jan 06 to 31 Dec 08 (3 calendar years)

Collisions

Slight

Serious

Fatal

Total

No. of Collisions by severity

23

9

2

34

Casualties

Slight

Serious

Fatal

Total

No. of Casualties by severity

47

11

7

65

‘Street lights, but no speed signs mean the limit is 30′

The message was displayed on billboards across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. It addresses the common reason given by drivers for exceeding speed limits in urban areas; that they didn’t know what the limit was because there were no speed limit signs.

The campaign reminded drivers of information provided in the Highway Code. The Highway Code states that the speed limit in built-up areas is 30mph. It continues by saying “The 30mph limit applies to all traffic on all roads in England and Wales with street lighting unless signs show otherwise.”

In this area, there are 88 camera sites – 53 of which enforce a 30mph limit. With 60% of our sites enforcing 30mph limits, the authorities expect that the majority of offences would be detected for this speed limit. However, our figures reveal that for the previous 3 years, an average 96% of all offences were detected at the 30mph limit.

The ‘Street lights’ campaign addresses these figures and aims to increase motorists’ ability of identifying 30mph zones so that they don’t get ‘caught out’ through lack of knowledge and awareness. Educational campaigns like this coupled with publicity of our camera locations and the mobile camera enforcement schedule all ties into the Safety Camera Scheme’s efforts to combat speeding through education, encouragement and enforcement.

A spokesperson for the Safety Camera Scheme said:

‘The good news is is that speeding offences have reduced dramatically over the last 3 years with 15,000 less offences in 2008 compared with 2006. This indicates that more and more motorists are choosing to obey speed limits.’

‘However, there is still a lot of work to be done to bring this figure down further. Publicity campaigns like this and other educational programmes like the Speed Awareness Workshop all aim to reduce speeding and ultimately facilitate the authorities’ targets for reducing collisions and casualties on our roads.’

From 1st January 2004 to the end of September 2008, there have been:
86 fatal, 361 serious injury and 3,917 injury collisions involving young drivers.

The ‘Wasted’ Road Show is a hard-hitting and thought-provoking event which will make young people think seriously about the responsibilities of driving and the terrible consequences that can result from inexperience combined with high spirits, peer pressure and recklessness.
 
The presentation mixes film with a live, interactive dramatic performance and is based on a real incident which occurred in Ratby, Leicestershire in 2006. The incident resulted in the tragic death of Hannah Barnsley, aged just 15 years old, two other passengers suffered severe injuries and the driver was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving.

To watch the video trailer for the event, visit www.wastedroadshow.com

To contact the team to find out more or book places, please call Hema on 0116 305 8201 or email hlad@leics.gov.uk

27 x 1hr presentations have been scheduled over a 2 week period from Tuesday 3rd February 2009 to Friday 13th February 2009 at the following venues:

Peepul Centre, Leicester
Loughborough Town Hall
Uppingham Theatre
Leicester College (Leicester College students only)
Wyggeston & Queen Elizabeth I College (WQEI College students only)

There are 3 modifications to the livery, which are:

• The word ‘Police’ on the sides of the vehicles have been replaced with ‘Safety Camera Team’
• The blue lights on the top of the vehicles are now amber
• A camera sign has been put on both sides of the van, to reinforce its purpose

In addition to this, a reflective strip has been added around the edge of the rear doors of all the vans to enhance the existing high visibility markings.

The safety camera vehicles are operated by Police civilian staff enforcing the speed limit as part of the Partnership’s aim to reduce death and injury on our roads. The changes made to the vans’ appearance aim to set them apart from other Police vehicles as they are sometimes confused with CCTV or other Police vehicles.

In the last 5 years, there have been nearly 300 collisions in the area because of motorists disobeying traffic signals. These crashes resulted in nearly 450 casualties; 3 of these were fatal. The problem is much bigger than this as there is no accounting for the number of ‘near misses’ or, to put it another way, ‘near hits’.

What is just as worrying is that there doesn’t seem to be a significant drop in the number of motorists being caught running red lights. Although people are being caught breaking the law, there doesn’t seem to be positive trend in the reduction of red light running.

To address the issue, an educational publicity campaign has been launched in September 2008 to highlight the risks involved. The outdoor element of the campaign shows an incident picked up by a red light camera when a car narrowly escaped a major collision with another car when it ran a red light. The supporting radio campaign re-enacts the thoughts going through the mind of a motorist in a hurry or impatient to get to his destination as he approaches changing traffic signals.

A spokesperson for the Safety Camera Scheme said:

“We are disappointed that red light running offences have not reduced significantly over the years. We all observe the problem on our roads everyday; cars trying to ‘sneak through’ or accelerating as the traffic lights are turning red. This campaign aims to make people think carefully about the dangers of taking risks at traffic signals and bring about a positive change in behaviour.”

The Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland Safety Camera Scheme, which operates all the fixed speed, red-light and mobile safety cameras in the area, recently invested in some new equipment to tackle the problem of identifying speeding bikers. The equipment is the first of its kind to be used in the East Midlands and will help the Authorities combat speeding and lower the number of biker fatalities and injuries sustained on our roads. Speeding bikers are a major concern for the Road Safety Partnership in this area with just over 300 casualties in 2007 and 79 in the first half of 2008.

The new cameras are fitted to work in tandem with the existing mobile safety camera which operate from the rear of the vans. Mobile camera vans are usually operated by targeting oncoming speeding traffic as this allows the operator to get a good image of both the registration plate and the driver of the offending vehicle. However, identifying bikes is difficult because their registration plates are located at the rear of the bike and the mobile camera doesn’t pick this up. The new cameras are positioned so they record vehicles in an arc around the van,  enabling the operator to record a biker from both front and rear perspectives.

A spokesperson for the Safety Camera Scheme said:

“Bikers are one of the most vulnerable groups of road user and the risk of them getting hurt is increased greatly when they choose to ride at inappropriate speeds. We want to urge any bikers out there taking a chance because they think they won’t get caught that they shouldn’t risk it anymore, they have just as much chance being caught speeding as any other motorist.”

Further information:

Biker Casualty Statistics for Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland

Around 25% of motorcycle fatalities were crashes that did not involve another vehicle. (source: Department for Transport)

Motorcyclists are just 1 per cent of total road traffic, but account for 19 per cent of all Great Britain’s road user deaths. (source: Department for Transport)

The campaign includes a series of thought-provoking posters and a website with video clips, facts and figures and advice for new drivers. Visit www.nomoreliveswasted.com for more info.

FACTFILE:

• Young drivers are more likely to kill or injure themselves or their passengers in a road crash.  Young people under 25 represent just one in ten of all car drivers, but about one in four of all car drivers killed or seriously injured.
• Young people are far more likely to be killed on the road than older people, meaning road deaths are often a tragic waste of young life.
• Driving too fast for the road and weather conditions and driving too close to the vehicle in front are just two examples of dangerous actions. Risk taking is most common among young men and results in many females dieing as passengers.
• Many young drivers and passengers fail to belt up. If everybody belted up and ensured that their passengers did too, many lives could be saved.
• Drivers aged between 17 and 25 make up a disproportionate number of offenders and casualties in drink-driving incidents.

Speeding – It’s not impressive brings home the consequences of speeding to teenagers and young adult drivers. The campaign plays on these drivers’ concerns that their fast driving could result in someone close to them being killed or injured. The strap lines of ‘Out with your mates?’ and ‘First date?’ were used alongside hard-hitting visuals of the aftermath of a collision.

Order this resource.