Transport Safety Policy - Worcestershire County Council

2.4.1 National research has demonstrated a strong link between risk of being involved in a road trafficaccident and areas of disadvantage, particularly for the young pedestrian. Analysis of accidentdata in Worcestershire reflects this national research. Many of these identified areas withinWorcestershire have already benefited from safety schemes such as traffic calming and there arenow comparatively few clusters of accidents within disadvantaged areas. The WorcestershireHighway Safety Team will continue to monitor the situation and input to the Road SafetyPartnership in the development of targeted education, training and publicity measures.Worcestershire County Council will investigate and address road safety issues in disadvantagedareas working with the partners in the development of targeted education, training andpublicity measures.2.4.2 Worcestershire's child injury rate is comparatively low. Work is currently well advanced onformulating a programme of works to address speed related problems outside all Worcestershireschools, the county council has also invested in using practical skills based training programmesfor child pedestrians and cyclists, as well as promoting the correct fitting and use of childrestraints in cars.2.4.3 It is a fact that the majority of school children injured in road traffic collisions occur at times andlocations away from the schools they attend. In Worcestershire for the period January 2005 toDecember 2007 inclusive there were in total 463 child casualties, 1 of which was killed and 60 wereseriously injured. 135 of these casualties were on a journey to or from school at the time of theincident (10 seriously injured). 42 of these (2 seriously injured) were passengers in a vehicle. Afurther 63 (6 seriously injured) were pedestrian casualties. Just 29 of these casualties resulted froma collision within 200 metres of a school (5 seriously injured). These casualties account for just sixper cent of the overall numbers of school children injured.2.4.4 Following analysis of all schools in the county (in terms of location, current speed limit etc), childaccident statistics (see below) and anticipated costs of engineering treatment to ensure selfenforcing20mph zones, the following Policy SR2 is the recommended way forward.