Road safety plan approved by councillors

17 September 2019

A road safety plan which outlines reductions in serious injuries and deaths from road incidents along with measures to continue the downward trend was approved by councillors on the operational delivery committee today.

A report to committee outlined that in Aberdeen in 2013, four people were killed and 101 people were seriously injured. The numbers have been reducing steadily and in 2017, two people were killed and 31 were seriously injured.

The road safety plan is specific to the city’s circumstances and needs and is part of the North East Scotland Road Casualty Reduction Strategy (NESRCRS) which promotes road safety and road casualty reduction across Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray.

The vision of NESCRS is ‘a future where no one is killed on North-east roads and the injury rate is much reduced, and it’s outcome is ‘a steady reduction in the number of those killed and seriously injured on North-east roads’.

Membership of NESCRS is drawn from the three North-east local authorities, Police Scotland, Fire and Rescue Service, NHS Grampian, BEAR Scotland, Transport Scotland, Nestrans and Road Safety Scotland.

In 2017, the partners refreshed the NESRCRS to ensure previous momentum in this area continued. The local authorities produce individual road safety plans which detail the current statistical information in relation to road traffic collisions on the road network, make comparisons to national road safety targets, and detail current road safety practices in line with the 5 E’s - education, engineering, enforcement, encouragement, and evaluation.

Ongoing programmes of work such as the Local Transport Strategy, City Centre Masterplan’s Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan, Roads Hierarchy, Roads Maintenance and the Active Travel Plan will all work towards the five E’s.

The Road Safety Plan data review will assist in identifying conflict points and can seek to address localised matters more quickly. Flexibility and responsiveness are key when data analysis identifies new casualty trends, or specific geographical or route-based collision concerns, the report to committee said.

These works will build on the significant areas of work such as engagement with communities and vulnerable road user groups, encouragement of individual responsibility, community ownership for changing attitudes and practices, working with public and private sector partners, consideration of funding streams, support of enhanced driver training, media and promotional activities, route action schemes, data collection, data analysis and monitoring and the work of the North of Scotland Safety Camera Unit, delivered through the NESRCS.

The city’s road safety plan has identified the vulnerable roads user groups are pedestrians under 16 years old, pedal cyclists, drivers 17-25 years old, and motor cyclists and drivers over 60 years old.