Summer 2010 Edition

New seatbelt campaign clicks into place

Behind the scenes with Ziggy

Driving occupational road risk forward

Tackling complacency on rural roads

Unprecedented success for festive drink-drive campaign

GET CAUGHT AGAIN AND WE CAN TAKE YOUR CAR.

GET CAUGHT DRINK DRIVING AND WE’LL TAKE YOUR LICENCE.

Summer 2010 02

WelcomeWelcome to another bumper edition of Direction which contains a number of interesting stories from Road Safety Scotland (RSS) and around Scotland. We’ve got quite a lot going on at the moment - new developments, redevelopments as well as routine business. The Road Safety Framework, I believe, is a breath of fresh air for the road safety community and has brought with it a renewed impetus which, hopefully, will help all of us focus on delivering the targets, challenging though they may be. Planning for the seminar is well underway, with a programme which will see not only new presentations but also a series of shorter updates. Professor Steve Stradling has agreed to act as summariser as well as take on a bit of a role as Mystic Steve and I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say about what he sees the future holding for us.

Finally, it would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to a member of the SG Road Safety Team who retired in April. Ann Whatcott was a great source of support to me during my time at Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), and has been an invaluable colleague since I took up my current post six years ago. On behalf of all at RSS, I wish Ann a long and happy retirement. Enjoy the read and, as always, if you have any comments about Direction, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Contact us Heriot-Watt Research Park (North), Riccarton, Currie, Edinburgh, EH14 4AP Telephone: 0131 472 9200 Fax: 0131 472 9201 Email: enquiries@roadsafetyscotland.org.uk Web: www.roadsafetyscotland.org.uk

Inside this Edition

Director

News from Road Safety Scotland 3-6

New seatbelt campaign clicks into place 7

Behind the scenes with Ziggy 8-9

Steve Stradling looks back 10-11

Driving occupational road risk forward 12-13

Safety talks for Glasgow Apprentices 14-15

Tackling complacency on rural roads 15

Question time with Leslie Harrold and Competition 16

Summer 2010 03

Success for festive drink-drive campaignEvaluation of our most recent festive drink-drive campaign shows an unprecedented level of press coverage, equating to a superb 86-fold return on investment. Central to the campaign was the new approach to repeat offenders. Anyone caught for the second time within five years risked having their vehicle forfeited. At the end of the campaign on 4 January, ACPOS and its partners agreed to continue this policy. It is now the case in Scotland that any recidivist drink-driver risks having his/her vehicle seized and forfeited. ACPOS is currently looking at ways to extend this campaign to include other offences such as drug-driving and driving while disqualified.

Good Egg campaignThe Good Egg campaign, which encourages better in-car safety practice for children, launches again this summer, not only in Scotland but further afield as well. The Dynamic Advertising Group is working with Road Safety Great Britain and a number of partners to try to extend what has been a very successful campaign in Scotland to other parts of the UK. As part of its involvement in this important area of work, RSS had a stand at the Scottish Baby Show in April.

Bike website winnerCongratulations to Alistair MacLean of Central Scotland.Alistair won a recent competition on the motorbike section of our ‘Don’t Risk It’ website. His prize is a RoSPA riding course for himself and several of his friends.

Our social marketing campaigns all run under the ‘Don’t Risk It’ banner. So far, we have covered motorbikes, drink-drive, seatbelts and country roads.

Motorcycling, of course, remains a safety issue in Scotland. As well as running the website and competition to drive traffic there, we have produced buffs with the ‘Don’t Risk It’, ‘Bikesafe’ and ‘Around the Corner’ web addresses. We are also currently investigating if there is some way we can tap into a recent Health and Safety Executive initiative which encouraged farmers to come home safely, as we are keen to do something similar for motorcyclists.

Book your Seminar placeThis year’s Road Safety Scotland Seminar takes place at Dunblane Hydro on 27 and 28 October.The event will be special for two particular reasons: first, we will be marking the 25th anniversary of the organisation and second, we are delighted that Professor Steve Stradling will be summing up the proceedings. Steve, who recently retired from his position at Edinburgh Napier University, has been a loyal supporter of RSS over the years, and a regular attendee at our events. Much of what we do and how we do it has been guided by Steve, and I’m sure we will all benefit from the wisdom and insight he will bring to this event too.

New for this year will be a series of shorter updates on initiatives that were discussed at previous seminars. These will complement the more formal speaking slots.

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JRSO websiteAfter consulting last year with Junior Road Safety Officers (JRSOs) and other pupils from schools across Scotland, the new JRSO website went live in February of this year. The young people wanted a site that was more colourful, more interactive and easy to use… and we believe that is what we have given them.

Initial feedback is positive and we encourage JRSOs and Road Safety Officers (RSOs) to continue to supply us with their comments and ideas,

as this information will inform future development. There are already plans for a second development phase this year and a third one next year. Further details will be made available to Road Safety Officers to pass on to their schools and JRSOs.

Framework ConferenceA recent conference offered road safety practitioners across Scotland the opportunity to gather information and support to help them move forward at a local level to reach the ambitious targets set by the Road Safety Framework. The event, held in Glasgow, was entitled “Go Safe: Delivering the Framework - Moving Forward with Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2020.” As well as a Framework update, it offered presentations on the use of statistics, the importance of targets, the availability of research, the importance of evaluation and the use of intelligence by the police. There were also examples of best practice on Single Outcome Agreements and Community Planning and Partnership Working, as well as an update on work on the Strategic Network and Trunk Road Network. Lastly, there were details of pilot projects being undertaken in respect of two priority groups, with initiatives targeting Children and Young Drivers.

Training the cycle trainersFollowing the redesign of the Scottish Cycle Training Scheme (SCTS) resource in 2007, and subsequent updating of most of the materials, the final part of the resource to be redeveloped was the ‘Training of Trainers’ material. This is a key part of the resource as it enables those responsible for co-ordinating the SCTS at local level to undertake appropriate training with the many volunteer trainers who directly deliver cycle training to young cyclists.

RSS organised a series of CPD courses for Road Safety Officers and Active Schools Co-ordinators in February and March this year, and provided them with a draft training programme to trial with their trainers. From the feedback we receive from these local networks, we will finalise the ‘Training of Trainers’ pack so that it is available for next year’s cycle training programmes. To complement the pack, one of the sessions was filmed and DVDs produced.

We will continue to work with One O’Clock Gun, who have designed and developed the site to make sure that it meets the needs of the young people involved with the JRSO programmes in schools.

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Road Skills Mapping ExerciseA mapping exercise, recently undertaken by Stephen Meredith, has been published on Road Safety Scotland’s new-look corporate website. The exercise was part of a strategic review of road safety interventions targeted at young people in Scotland and undertaken by the Road Skills Working Group (RSWG), a collaborative body of road safety professionals and other community stakeholders, chaired by Road Safety Scotland.

Although the mapping exercise was primarily part of the RSWG’s strategic review of road safety interventions, by bringing together

information about the different types of initiatives taking place across Scotland, the map also has the potential to act as a knowledge transfer tool for road safety professionals and other partners.

The exercise formed part of an overall approach by partners to fulfil the commitment set out in Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2020 to develop a toolkit for organising pre-driver events and to explore innovative and effective ways of targeting young drivers on issues of speed, drink- and drug-driving, driver distraction and the wearing of seatbelts.

Introducing the Safe Road User AwardRepresentatives of the Safe Road User Design Board, SQA and DSA joined staff and students at Balwearie High School in Kirkcaldy for presentations and discussions relating to the implementation of the Safe Road User Award.

The mapping exercise was part of a strategic review of young

driver interventions

The Award is in its infancy and, whilst interest in it is great, it is available at only a limited number of education settings this year. It is certificated jointly by the Scottish Qualifications Authority and the Driving Standards Agency, and is designed to promote safe road use and enable people to better prepare their journeys and take responsibility as independent travellers. It aims to promote a life-long learning approach to all aspects of road use, including that of driving.

The assembled group were hugely encouraged by the enthusiasm of students and staff at the Balwearie High School which has become a lead school in delivering the Award. One student had already passed his driving test but was continuing on the course to expand his knowledge.

One of its key benefits is that it offers students who are successful in passing both of the course units an opportunity to sit an abridged theory test. It is hoped the Award will eventually be recognised by motor insurers.

One of the important things to stress is that this is a safe road user award is not necessarily about becoming a driver. It embraces a broader agenda about our travel choices.

Kate Wheaton said “We acknowledge the enormous potential of this project, and the great future it has of developing safe road users in the 17 to 25 year-old age group and beyond. The task now will be to motivate and accredit skilled and knowledgeable teachers to deliver the teaching that will lead to the Award.”

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We would like to take this opportunity to extend our best wishes to Ann Whatcott who retired from the road safety team within the Scottish Government on 30 March 2010.

We wish Ann and her husband Malcolm a long and happy retirement.

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Goodbye to Ann Whatcott

Ann has already made good use of her time having just returned from a trip to Japan and embarking next upon a trip to Germany before joining the cruise she has planned for later on this year!

All of us working in the road safety team know how valuable Ann was, and we thank her for her wealth

of knowledge, much of which was poured into Scotland’s Road Safety Framework, and of course all her efforts on our behalf ranging from explaining in simple terms the legal complexities in relation to speed limits to commenting on a range of EU proposals with often only very obscure links to road safety! Ann’s sage advice will be greatly missed.

Primary Resource scoops prestigious awardStreetsense2.com, Road Safety Scotland’s resource for Primary schools, has just won a Roses Advertising Award for best website design.

Marianne Dunphy and Kate Wheaton attended the awards ceremony in Manchester, accompanied by Mark Hosker and Julie Mackay from One o’clock Gun, the agency who designed the website, and Elaine Smith, Chair of the Education Sub-committee.

Kate Wheaton said, after the event how appreciative she was of the support of the working group and the design agency who developed the website resource. “ To have a road safety education resource recognised by an award like this is an exceptional achievement’

“The Roses Advertising Awards are amongst the most prestigious in the business. We were up against big players with huge budgets. In fact, only three websites including and that of Manchester City Football Club were awarded website prizes on the night.“

RSS’s Kate Wheaton (left) with Mark Hosker and Julie MacKay from One o’Clock Gun

Summer 2010 07

ACPOS Head of Roads Policing, Chief Constable Kevin Smith (second from left) with colleagues at the launch

The Scottish Government, Road Safety Scotland and Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland (ACPOS) launched an awareness-raising campaign aimed to encourage drivers and passengers to put their seatbelt on every time they get in any vehicle.

New seatbelt campaign clicks into placeThe campaign - ‘Have You Clicked?’ will be rolled out in collaboration with road safety partners, businesses and communities around the country.

Although seatbelt compliance rates are around 95%, about 14% of adults don’t wear their seatbelts every time. It is estimated that one in three people killed in vehicles is not wearing a seatbelt, and half of those people could have been saved had they worn a seatbelt.

More than 50 partners are backing the campaign to remind employees, consumers and the general public about the importance of wearing a seatbelt. Materials displaying the ‘Have You Clicked?’ branding such as stickers and posters will be in and on vehicles, and in workplaces, shops, buildings and other public spaces around the country.

On average, more than 27,000 people a year in Scotland are caught not wearing a seatbelt according to the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland. Director of Road Safety Scotland, Michael McDonnell, said: “We know that thousands of people are still risking their lives. It’s time for a renewed focus on seatbelt wearing and we think the best way to do this is to spread the word as widely as possible. This campaign follows on from Simon Christmas’s presentation at our Seminar in 2009. We believe we can save one life a fortnight in Scotland by improving seatbelt compliance rates further.

ACPOS Head of Road Policing, Chief Constable Kevin Smith, said: “The seatbelt is a vital safety tool, designed to protect drivers

and passengers in the event of a collision. Despite continual safety warnings, I am deeply concerned that we are still catching thousands of people every year who are not wearing a seatbelt. By simply putting on a seatbelt, the risk of being seriously injured or killed in a collision is dramatically reduced.

Public health physician, Professor David Stone, an expert on injury and accident prevention based at Glasgow University, said: “Seatbelts have saved countless lives since they were introduced on a wide scale in the 1970s. Large numbers of fatal or life-threatening head injuries and disfiguring facial lacerations are prevented or minimised by reducing the likelihood of car occupants colliding with the windscreen or being thrown from the vehicle in a crash.

“Not only are people who don’t wear seatbelts breaking the law, they are putting themselves and other car occupants at higher risk of death, serious injury and lifelong disability. Wearing a seatbelt is easy, sensible and could save your life.“

Summer 2010 08

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Behind the scenes with ZiggyLynda Kennedy, author of the new early years education resource, explains what motivated and inspired her.The brief from RSS was such an exciting challenge. After all, it’s not every day that you’re asked to do a piece of work with the objective of saving lives. As a mum to a five-year-old, the job was all the more poignant. To think that kids like my little boy are being killed on our roads every day sent a chill down my spine. As I read through the requirement, all I could think was that even if we succeeded in saving one child’s life it would be worth it. Hopefully, though, we’ll save a lot, lot more.

The idea of the Ziggy character came from working backwards from the brief. My background is in advertising and, in many respects, this was more like an ad job than a writing one: there were lots of facts to communicate in an engaging way and, as in advertising, the goal was to change behaviour.

The only way round this I could see was developing a character who was allowed to be clueless. And that’s in essence how Ziggy was born. Setting up the main character as a ‘child’ alien visiting earth to learn about road safety allowed us to teach without being patronising. He allowed us to go back to basics, to get across the

core messages of waiting and holding hands without any sense of hierarchy, where big people do the telling and little people are expected to follow instructions. It seemed that it would be a more powerful piece of communication if we could also encourage our young readers to help Ziggy to learn. So when Ziggy’s thinking

about what he should do before crossing, the children can whisper the ‘answer’ in Ziggy’s ear.

Placing Ziggy in a family with two children - Maggie, 3 and Andrew 5 and a bit (as they are in the first book) - created an interesting dynamic where Andrew’s character could take the lead (he is, after all, a big boy who knows the

So the challenge was this: How do you tell kids what to do (there’s no getting away from the fact that that’s what we’re doing) when as we all know they definitely, absolutely don’t like being told what to do? Ever.

Summer 2010 09

importance of holding hands and waiting) and Maggie who is still learning, but loves nothing better than to show off her new-found knowledge.

Ziggy also allowed us to inject a little light comedy into the stories. After all, being from another world, there are many things on our planet which confuse him, such as why anyone would want to throw their granny off a bus or why none of the sweets on this planet comes in good flavours like cabbage?

Like all bubbly characters, he has his own quirks, and one of these is his use of the phrase Zab-a-Ding-a-Doo which he uses when he’s happy. And of course, he’s always very happy when he crosses the road properly. Wouldn’t it be great if our young readers rewarded themselves a big Zab-a-Ding-a-Doo each time they crossed properly?

As the books follow our early years audience from nursery through to P1 (an absolute genius idea from RSS to provide continuity of messaging from pre to primary school) the characters develop in ‘real time’. Maggie and Ziggy both grow up before our eyes – Maggie starts nursery in book 1 and school in book 6 - and by the end of the book series, both she and Ziggy always cross safely.

Lynn Taylor, Mairi Blair, and Kate Wheaton from RSS, and the fabulous team from the Leith Agency (Toni, Yvonne, Alan, Lizzie and Grant to name but a few) and I have worked really closely from the outset. In fact, after our first meeting I felt I’d known the RSS gang for years. It’s not often you sit in a meeting where everyone shares the same passion. Lynn Taylor had been researching the project for months before I was involved and always had a very clear vision of what she wanted. Like Lynn, Kate and Mairi are both extraordinary ladies with enormous, infectious enthusiasm, energy and intelligence which made my job so much easier.

The RSS team has put so much thought into this project, far beyond even the road safety message. They stressed the need that the books should appeal to kids and parents across the demographic spectrum and have a real sense of Scottish identity. This allowed me the freedom to write dialogue for Maggie and Andrew the way kids their age talk and also led to the creation of Granny Walker, who lives in the countryside, allowing us to talk about road safety in a rural context too.

Working on this project has been an incredible experience. I’m now much more aware of how parents cross roads with their children and have been really shocked by the amount of mums who allow their wee ones - incredibly, P1 and even younger - to run ahead whilst crossing busy roads. It beggars belief. It’s also been an eye-opener seeing how many of them won’t walk a few yards (or is it metres? I’m showing my age now!) to cross with the lollipop person. How are children supposed to learn? We’ve always had parents as a secondary audience, so hopefully the messaging in the books will rub off on the big peeps too. I know from speaking to Elaine, the lollipop lady at my son’s school, that she’s keen for more parents to use her when taking their children to and from school so they get into safe crossing habits at an early age. Let’s hope our first book ‘Ziggy and the Lollipop’ prompts them to do just that!

Lynn and I can’t wait until the books go live. We want to see every child GOING SAFE very soon. That really would be Zab-a-Ding-a-Doo!

The Scottish Book Trust has agreed to include the baby buggy book for 0-3 year old children in

their Bookstart Baby Bag in 2011. This means that all babies in Scotland will receive the book next year, a very exciting prospect!It’s rare for Bookstart to agree to have extra publications in its bag, so we’re really pleased that the board members thought our book was of a high enough quality to be included.

Lynn Taylor

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Steve Stradling looks backThe acclaimed transport psychologist reflects on his career and looks at the fresh challenges retirement will bring.Road safety first became an interest to Steve when he moved to Manchester University in the late 1980s. He arrived in the Psychology Department just as Professor Jim Reason and Dr (later Professor) Tony Manstead received a grant to look at aberrant driver behaviour. “I asked if I could be involved, they agreed, and we took on Dianne Parker (later Dr, now Professor) as the researcher on the project. The rest, as they say, is history” he said.

“My own career developed from that fortunate coincidence. Jim Reason had a track record of research on human error in safety critical systems such as railways and Chernobyl. Incidentally, he was a pioneer of the move to treating crashes as system failures not operator failures, a view now represented in the road safety philosophy coming out of SWOV in the Netherlands and incorporated in the recent Scottish Road Safety Framework. “Tony Manstead and Dianne Parker were social psychologists, interested in applying the Theory of Planned Behaviour to driver behaviour, and I liked doing factor analyses. We developed the Manchester Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ), which has been used all around the world, that divided aberrant driver behaviours into Violations, Errors and Lapses. Along with other researchers, we subsequently have shown that it is a driver’s self-reported level of Violations (speeding, close following, running red lights, aggressive driving, etc.), not their level of commission of Errors or Lapses, which best predicts their level of collision-involvement.”

But do we understand drivers better than we used to and, if so, how has this been achieved?

Steve points out that the dominant view when he started in road safety was that a bad driver was one who lacked skill, and who could only be improved through driver skill training. “This came partly from a mis-reading of Barbara Sabey’s much-quoted early-80s finding that 95% of road traffic accidents were due to driver error,” Steve explained.

Summer 2010 11

“However, she was making contrast with the contribution of cars and roads / weather conditions. Crashes are largely down to drivers, especially as car and road engineering have become increasingly reliable, but more to their violations than their errors. ‘Bad driving’ has come to be seen as more to do with drivers having ‘bad attitudes’, and remedial measures now concentrate more on improving driver attitude and less on increasing driver vehicle handling skills. This is also reflected in the levels of the GADGET matrix from Mika Hatakka and colleagues at Turku University, Finland.

One good example is the work of Dr Neale Kinnear, a research student of mine now at TRL, who showed in his PhD that many young, novice drivers fail to ‘feel the fear’, not showing anticipatory somatic markers as hazardous situations unfold, even though they can describe the hazard, and rate how hazardous it is. Despite having cognitive knowledge of the hazardous situation, it seems to take perhaps 1,000 miles of post-test driving experience before they get these internal ‘gut feelings’ of danger which result in backing off the gas.”

Arriving in Scotland brought a need to know the main players on the road safety scene, so Steve began attending Road Safety Scotland’s annual Seminar. “These events have probably proved the best and most convivial road safety conferences I’ve attended, and I have fond memories of Coylumbridge, Crieff and Peebles,” he said.

“RSS was already on a sound footing, but Mike McDonnell and his estimable colleagues have taken it from strength to strength. I had the great good fortune to be involved with ‘Crash Magnets’ under the auspices of Kate Wheaton. I was filmed against a blue backdrop in an anonymous

lecture theatre and appeared in the final footage in a cartoon ‘mad professor’s’ lair!

“I’m currently involved in the Road Skills working group looking at the effects and effectiveness of road safety education initiatives with pre-drivers. It’s proving a fascinating area as the evaluation evidence is clear about immediate impact but equivocal about enduring change.”

There could be no finer endorsement of Steve’s insight and experience than by requesting that he take a place on the Minister’s Expert Road Safety Panel in Scotland. “I was particularly pleased that the final report from the expert group included, among its organising themes, driving for life,” he said. “RSS has a long-standing focus, through its education initiatives, on the lead-up to becoming a driver. The Driving Standards Agency (DSA) recently consulted on changes to ‘Initial Driver Training’, but there has been insufficient focus in the UK on ‘subsequent driver training’ across the driving career, and I was gratified that efforts will be made to introduce Speed Awareness Courses in Scotland - our research has shown that speed cameras spot crash magnets and believe every opportunity should be taken to get drivers, of all ages and stages, out from behind the wheel to reflect upon their current manner of driving.”

As for the future, Steve is planning to continue his involvement in road safety research. “I will continue pontificating at conferences, even if that involves (still) berating Marsham Street! I’m currently involved with a forthcoming trial of Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) devices in Scotland, so there will be no time for cruises,” he told us. “Besides, neither my wife nor I are cruise people, we couldn’t sit still for long enough, especially not on a moving boat, however many stabilisers it had! Some sunshine would be nice, though.”

Retired he may be, but I am sure we have not heard or seen the last of Steve Stradling.

Most recently, the focus has started to move again with considerable current research interest in the role of emotion in driving.

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Driving occupational road risk forwardWe take a look at the work of the Scottish Occupational Road Safety Alliance (ScORSA).

CampaignRoSPA has spearheaded the drive for occupational road risk to be taken seriously. Since 1996, when it initiated its Managing Occupational Road Risk campaign, the safety charity has called for the issue to be taken up by both regulators and employers, outlining the clear moral, legal and business reasons for doing so. It has also developed practical tools and resources to help organisations get to grips with the subject. Since these early days of the campaign, there have been significant developments at national level and within individual businesses and organisations. Partnership-working is the key to taking the issue forward, as demonstrated through the establishment of ScORSA.

Two more recent developments have come alongside road traffic law and HSE regulations to make companies more accountable in terms of work-related road risk. The Road Death Investigation Manual 2007 clearly states that the police will “Investigate all incidents as unlawful killings until the contrary is proved” and that “Criminal offences may be committed by companies”. The other for the procurator fiscal to pursue is the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.

In Scotland in 2005, the Partnership on Health and Safety in Scotland was formed and soon delivered the Scottish Action Plan for Health and Safety, part of which related to raising the profile of MORR as a significant risk to people driving for work in Scotland. Also, since 2008, RoSPA Scotland has been running a series of seminars to help businesses identify some of the key issues in terms of occupational road safety. These seminars have provided networking opportunities for managers to share good practice and discuss the business benefits of developing a systematic approach to managing occupational road risk. ScORSA itself was formed in 2008.

The Scottish Occupational Road Safety Alliance (ScORSA) was created to raise awareness of the management of occupational road risk (MORR) and to promote occupational road safety to companies within Scotland.

This unique initiative is centred around a website which provides an information hub for businesses, and signposts companies to information, resources and free practical support to help promote MORR within their organisations.

RoSPA Scotland’s Road Safety Officer, Kathleen Braidwood, puts road risk in its correct context by pointing out that the risk of death per hour while using the roads is 7½ times greater than the risk per hour in the rest of everyday life. “But perhaps less well-known is research which shows that, mile for mile, someone who is driving for work purposes is more at risk than someone who is driving for personal reasons,” she said.

Alarmingly, too, we know that up to one-third of all road crashes involve someone who is driving in the course of their work. That means in Scotland in 2008, of the 15,563 road casualties reported to the police, more than 5,000 involved someone driving for work. These statistics highlight occupational road risk and that is why organisations are being encouraged to manage the risk.

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EmbeddedMany large organisations may already have the management of occupational road risk embedded within their policies. It is also true to say that many do not, according to Kathleen Braidwood. “When we consider small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), some may not have considered occupational road risk – and it is even less likely that they will know what to do about it,” she said. “That is where ScORSA comes in. The resource is designed to help managers gain the necessary information they need to tackle the issue.

“Although the target audience for the website is small businesses, the information is relevant for any size of organisation seeking to help increase the safety of staff driving for work. There are no costs involved in being a member.”

But there are many additional benefits for companies who take a pro-active approach to work-related road risk such as reducing the costs of vehicle repair and downtime, and improving staff morale by making them safer drivers, which will in turn contribute to reducing the sickness record. These may help avoid spiralling insurance costs and go towards enhancing the company’s reputation.

ImpactCompanies have been joining ScORSA since the website was launched in September 2009. As businesses and drivers become more aware of their responsibilities, this should have a tremendous impact in reducing road casualty figures in Scotland. There is even an example of good practice available, where one of the larger companies is mentoring a smaller business. ScORSA membership will enable organisations to be part of our endeavour to “Drive Forward Road Safety in Scotland”.

Kathleen Braidwood believes that the development of the ScORSA website is a milestone in working towards tackling occupational road risk in Scotland. “The strengths brought by each member of the working group have been crucial to the development and success of ScORSA, and the working group will continue to meet to determine new goals. Road Safety Scotland has been actively involved in promoting the benefits of ScORSA to small firms and the Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives is currently producing a DVD for the website. All this will contribute to the Scottish Government road casualty reduction targets outlined in Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2020,” she said.

www.scorsa.org.uk

Driver assessment is one of the

practical ways for organisations and

their employees to get to grips with

road risk

ScORSA’s aim is to assist companies in meeting their legal obligations as employers of people who drive in the course of their work.

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Safety talks for Glasgow Apprentices Glasgow’s Road Safety Development Section and Land and Environmental Services Training Department recently joined forces with Strathclyde Police Roads Policing to deliver a number of young driver safety talks to some of Glasgow’s Modern Apprentices.

Land and Environmental Services Training Officer, Tony McGrory, said: “The initiative was well received by the young audience who all agreed it would make them think twice about their actions whilst driving or as a passenger in a motor vehicle with friends”.

Tony and GCC Road Safety Development Assistant, Claire Mackay, are seen here with some of the apprentices and one of the hi-tech police bikes brought along for event.

Constable David Nicol, who delivered the talks, said: “I am delighted to be involved in this new initiative. The response and enthusiasm shown by the youngsters has been excellent. I hope we have passed on a valuable road safety message to ensure they drive safely on our roads.

“Young drivers are a hard audience to reach, but hopefully through the ‘Go Safe Glasgow’ Road Safety Partnership, we can continue to assist Glasgow City Council in reducing road casualties throughout the city.”

Reducing school travel risksSchool travel and the problem of vehicles parking at or near the School-Keep-Clear markings continues to be an issue that requires attention throughout Glasgow. Glasgow was the first local authority in Scotland to introduce a Traffic Regulation Order to make it illegal to park on these markings. This initiative has proved effective in tackling the small minority who break the law, but it does not appear to have encouraged a decrease in the number of children travelling to and from school by car or the number of complaints received by LES about vehicles causing problems in the vicinity of schools.

Glasgow’s Road Safety Development Section has researched best practice throughout the UK in relation to this issue and, as a result, proposes the introduction of the School Travel And Road Safety (STARS) project. The aim of the STARS project is to provide viable alternatives for those parents or carers who insist on using the car for school travel and, where possible, to remove the car altogether from the immediate vicinity

On average 13 drivers aged 17 to 25 are involved in injury road accidents every day in Scotland. Furthermore for the same age group, on average 1 person is killed and 12 are seriously injured every week.

A group of apprentices with the

team from Srathclyde Police and Glasgow

City Council who delivered the talks

surrounding our schools and to encourage more walking and cycling.

Every Primary School in Glasgow will soon receive a STARS pack which will enable them to kick-start and deliver a full school travel and road safety project with support from LES Road Safety and its local Community Action Team (CAT). The school will create its own STARS Team to help deliver the project and suitable funding and resources will be provided by the Road Safety Development Section.

Four schools, Our Lady of Annunciation, Merylee, Broomhill and Anderston, will be invited to take part in the initial pilot and will be provided with the new resources, and support will also be available to carry out a Zig-Zag event.

Your Call Teachers from secondary and additional support needs schools in North Lanarkshire recently attended an in-service training course on the ‘Your Call’ resource.

Pamela Ferrie and Barbara Ramage of North Lanarkshire Council are holding the teacher packs.

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Tackling complacency on rural roadsFollowing our successful distraction-based rural roads cinema ad, we turned our attention to a new campaign that would focus on inappropriate speed and be relevant to a wider age range. We wanted to put across the point that there is a danger in the complacency that comes with driving the same roads regularly.

Our agency, The Union, came up with the concept of creating four separate 20-second movies, each shot from the driver’s point of view and each with the same opening; a driver going into a left-hand bend. The four movies have different outcomes. The first shows the driver skidding and regaining control. The second shows the driver swerving to avoid a deer and crashing into a tree. In the third, the driver runs into a tractor emerging from a field. In the fourth, the driver loses control and skids head-on into a vehicle coming the other way.

Once again, cinema advertising was chosen as the most appropriate medium. Audiences would always see the first of the four scenarios, plus one other, neatly illustrating the need for concentration, however familiar a driver may be with the road.

The ads ran for two months in cinemas and were also shown on STV during the month of February.

Summer 2010 16

Here’s your opportunity to collect a £50 Marks & Spencer voucher, courtesy of Road Safety Scotland. All you have to do is correctly answer the following two questions, based on material you can find elsewhere in this edition. Then, please send your answers in an email, to james@jamesluckhurst.co.uk, by Friday 30 July 2010. We will keep the correct entries in a safe place and draw the winner by the middle of August.

The two questions:1 Who is the author of the new Ziggy early years resource?

2 Of the 15,563 road casualties reported to the police in Scotland in 2008, how many were believed to be driving for work?

Competition

Next editionThe Winter 2010/11 edition comes out in November. If you would like to contribute an article, interview or news report for it, please email james@jamesluckhurst.co.uk

Question timeWe meet Leslie Harrold, new Chair of Institute of Road Safety Officers (IRSO) Scottish Group.

What are your priorities and goals as Chair of the Group? I want to maintain the Scottish IRSO Group’s involvement in national road safety issues, by working with local road safety units, Road Safety Scotland,

RoSPA, the SAPC and the Scottish Government. I want to continue to promote CPD training for road safety professionals, to keep them abreast of all new developments in road safety. I would also like to stop the decline in membership of IRSO in Scotland and hopefully reverse it.

What legacy has Jane Greer left?Jane Greer provided valuable input to the Scottish Government’s Panel of Road Safety Experts, which was instrumental in the development of Scotland’s Road Safety Framework document. She co-ordinated the organising committee that delivered a successful national IRSO Conference in Edinburgh, in 2008. She has also helped to steer the Scottish IRSO Group through a difficult period for Scottish road safety units, many of whom have faced reviews, changes and cut-backs. Furthermore, she has represented IRSO on the RSS Publicity Sub-Group through her tenure as Chair.

What are the priorities of the Group? The main priority is to keep the topic of road safety high on the agenda of the Scottish Government, Police Forces and local Councils. Also, to try and support local road safety units, by working with RoSPA to provide CPD opportunities for their staff. I hope that IRSO members will continue to promote the Institute to their colleagues.

Is there room for IRSO to expand its activities in Scotland? As we continue to work more closely with the Fire and Rescue Service throughout Scotland, there is a place for IRSO to offer advice to Road Safety Units looking to strengthen their partnerships with their Fire and Rescue Service. I am always open to suggestions from members and non-members on how IRSO can assist them in their own area.