Call to use 'hearts and minds' measures to cut KSIs

28 February 2007

Government inspectors this week urged a shift in funding away from engineering measures for casualty blackspots to ‘hearts and minds’ safety campaigns and courses.
The Audit Commission found that work by councils to change road-user behaviour could bring about big results, but there were ‘diminishing returns’ for engineering measures such as overhauling junctions and installing new pedestrian crossings.
In-depth case studies suggested that education, training and publicity had significant benefits – the York/North Yorkshire road safety partnership reduced its death toll by 20% – from 85 to 68 – in just one year.
Despite this, there appeared to be ‘little consistency’ in the comparative attention councils were giving to measures to change risky road-user behaviour, with some spending as little as 10p per resident and £2.50 at most, compared with between 50p and £10 for engineering.
The commission accepted that diverting money from engineering to education could be difficult. Most of the former needs revenue, the latter capital funding. There was also no accepted method for developing a business case for ‘hearts and minds’ projects. Nonetheless, there was ‘greater potential for budget sharing between agencies’, extending currently ‘isolated’ cases of a Primary Care Trust paying towards child pedestrian training, for instance. Also, some education initiatives would not require extra money. ‘Teachers can reinforce a local seat belt campaign as part of their normal work,’ it said.
Crucially, better education, training and publicity would require better data. While the standard police STATS 19 form for recording collisions data was useful for helping decide where engineering measures should be targeted, it did not provide enough information on the road-users involved.
Information obtained by special reporting arrangements in North Yorkshire and York on motorcyclists killed or seriously injured informed a local campaign, revealing that one-third of accidents occurred on Sundays, most coming from neighbouring areas such as the West Yorkshire conurbation.
‘Imaginative thinking’ was needed, such as that of road safety officers in Leeds who concluded following an analysis of accident locations that students were at high risk, prompting a campaign targeting university media.
Steve Bundred, chief executive of the Audit Commission, said: ‘Councils have shown that as well as targeting accident blackspots with safety cameras and better engineering, it is also possible to change the attitudes of the road-users causing accidents.’
Changing lanes. Evolving roles in road safety. : www.audit-commission.gov.uk/reports/index.asp

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Call to use 'hearts and minds' measures to cut KSIs

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