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Introduction
4.1 Road safety is a key priority for the Scottish Executive, both to motorways and trunk roads, which are the responsibility of the Executive itself, and to local authority roads. Very substantial progress has been made in reducing casualties on Scotland's roads but major challenges remain. This chapter reports on how the Scottish Executive plans to sustain the momentum.
Road safety targets
4.2 In 1987, a target was set to reduce road traffic casualties by a third by the year 2000 compared to the annual average for 1981-85. In 1998, fatal and serious casualties were 50% below, and the total number of casualties was 17% below, the average for the early 1980s. This welcome reduction on all roads has been mirrored on motorways and trunk roads with fatal and serious casualties down by 42% and all casualties by 12%.
4.3 There is, however, no room for complacency. Despite the reductions, 1998 still saw 385 people killed and 4066 seriously injured on our roads, including 115 killed and 769 seriously injured on motorways and trunk roads. We need to reduce further this tragic toll. The Scottish Executive is working in partnership with the UK Government and representatives from local government, the police and road safety organisations to set new targets for reducing the number of casualties in the period to 2010. The new targets, together with a strategy for achieving them, will be published later this year. In the interim, based on the work to date, a provisional target has been announced for a minimum of a one-third reduction in fatalities and serious injuries, compared with the average casualties between 1993-97.
The review of speed policy
4.4 Excessive or inappropriate speed is a factor in about one-third of fatal road accidents. This issue is being addressed in a review of speed policy in Great Britain in which the Scottish Executive is participating. The review is looking in detail at the relationships between traffic speeds and road safety, environmental and economic considerations. It is also examining how existing best practice in engineering, education and publicity, and enforcement can be developed and extended. The review is scheduled for completion later this year. The Executive will take its findings into account in promoting safety improvements on all roads in Scotland, including motorways and trunk roads. The scope for using advisory speed limits as a traffic management tool to increase the effective capacity of congested sections of the motorway and trunk road network has already been mentioned at paragraph 3.8 above.
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Table 4.1: Accident rates on major roads in Scotland by severity, 1996-98, annual average |
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Source: Road Accidents Scotland 1998, The Scottish Executive (1999) |
Safety on the motorway and trunk road network
4.5 The safety record of motorways and trunk roads is already relatively good. As Table 4.1 shows, their accident rate is considerably below that of local roads.While the focus of this report is on the trunk road network, the Executive is working with local authorities on local safety issues. The Executive, for example, will continue to convene groups such as the Traffic Calming Working Group and the Accident Investigation and Prevention Working Group which examine safety issues and promote best practice.
4.6 Turning to safety on trunk roads, the table shows that Motorways have significantly lower accident rates than other trunk roads, reflecting, at least in part, the design standards they incorporate. Other things being equal, replacing a section of road with a motorway will reduce accidents. Similarly other major trunk road improvements can generate very substantial safety benefits as they will often involve the replacement of an older stretch of road built to outdated, and less safe, design standards. Safety is, therefore, a particularly important component of the appraisal framework which has been developed for major trunk road improvement schemes during the course of this review (see Chapter 7).
4.7 However, very substantial road safety benefits can result from much lower-cost improvements targeted on those parts of the network with identifiable safety problems and this has been an important, and developing, area of work for the Scottish Office and, now, the Scottish Executive.
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Safety features on the A9 |
The Accident Investigation and Prevention Team
4.8 An Accident Investigation and Prevention (AIP) team was established as long ago as 1989. The AIP team, which is located within the Trunk Road Divisions of the Scottish Executive, is responsible for introducing local safety schemes involving road engineering measures which remove or reduce particular features on or adjacent to trunk roads which have been shown to encourage or exacerbate errors made by drivers. Schemes include traffic calming, signing, white lining and introducing skid resistant surfacing.
4.9 The Moving Cursor programme is run each year by the AIP team. This identifies accident cluster sites which meet or exceed the threshold criteria of 3 injury accidents within 3 years. This information is disseminated to the various local authorities for them to investigate and to draw out any common theme from the accident types involved for each site. Where appropriate, further investigations are carried out and proposals for remedial measures prepared for the AIP team's consideration.
4.10 Since 1989 the AIP team has been responsible for more than 550 accident remedial schemes on the trunk road network, costing over £16.9m. These schemes offer an estimated saving of 600 accidents per year, worth approximately £38.8m in accident reduction benefits and equivalent to a first year rate of return of well over 200%. A programme of schemes for the current year, costing approximately £2.5m, is being carried out. Examples of these schemes include:
Route Accident Reduction Plans
4.11 The need to look beyond local improvements has led to the introduction of Route Accident Reduction Plans (RARPs) consisting of packages of low cost measures developed as a result of road safety audits of the existing roads. Measures are implemented, normally along whole routes, to help reduce the incidence of random accidents and to improve driver comfort, by providing drivers with, amongst other things, consistent messages about the geometry of the road together with the location of junctions and accesses.
4.12 RARPs have been implemented on either the whole route or sections of the A7, A9, A75, A76, A77, A78, A701, A702, A82, A84, A85, A87, A92, A737, A835, A887 and A985; encouraging accident reductions appear to be being achieved. A similar approach was adopted on the A9 between Perth and Inverness during 1990 and the measures introduced have contributed to accident reductions in excess of 30% on the route since then.
4.13 Continuing accident reduction programmes will ensure that the high level of safety benefits achieved to date will be maintained.
Speed cameras
4.14 Speed cameras have also proved to be effective in reducing accidents on motorways and trunk roads. Cameras have already been installed on the M9, A1, A68, A9 and A90. Plans are in hand to increase the coverage on the A90 (in Angus) and the A9 (north of Perth), and to install cameras on the A96 (Anderson Drive in Aberdeen). Consideration is being given to the possibility of using fine income to fund additional speed cameras, and a system of using such funding is currently being developed on a GB-wide basis.
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Speed cameras - effective in reducing accidents |
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