RoSPA Press Office : Press Release

April 13 , 2005
NEW ROAD SAFETY GUIDE FOR COUNCILLORS

A new guide to help local authority elected members to tackle road safety issues has been published by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

It aims to provide the answers councillors throughout the United Kingdom need to promote road safety and help their constituents.

Road Safety: An Elected Member’s Guide has been produced with funding from the Department for Transport and also draws on the knowledge of the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Institute of Road Safety Officers, the Institution of Highways and Transportation, the Local Authority Road Safety Officers’ Association and the Scottish Road Safety Campaign.

A RoSPA spokesperson, said: “Every elected member of a local authority in the UK is likely to have to deal with road safety issues. But understandably many will have little road safety expertise and may be unaware of the full scale of the problem and what can be done about it.

“The guide gives information to councillors about how they can improve road safety in their area and also about their council’s statutory duties. It should be useful to all local authority members, no matter how much involvement they have with road safety.”

It aims to ensure councillors are familiar with the value of road safety to their community when faced with making tough financial decisions. The guide stresses their important role in spreading the road safety message to constituents and also in making officers aware of their constituents’ needs.

Issues such as road safety education, training and publicity are considered as well as engineering measures, maintenance and the need for accurate accident data.

The guide is being circulated to all local authorities in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and copies can be obtained free of charge from RoSPA’s road safety department. It can also be downloaded from the Society’s website at http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/info/ElectedMembersGuide.pdf .