Go Safe on Scotland's Roads: road safety framework to 2020
Go Safe on Scotland's Roads it's Everyone's Responsibility: Scotland's road safety framework to 2020.
Chapter Four
Evidence
Evidence has a major role to play in every stage of the policy making and delivery. This includes identifying and defining the key problems to be addressed, deciding how to tackle them in an effective and cost efficient way, and in evaluating the effectiveness of interventions.
It is this approach that has been adopted in the development of this Framework and will continue to be used in terms of its delivery. Future research and analysis, in the form of monitoring and evaluation, will tell us how effective we have been in meeting the challenges we have highlighted. There will often be substantial pieces of research undertaken at GB level which will be highly relevant to the circumstances in Scotland and, where practicable and relevant, we will collaborate with DfT in the commissioning of new research.
4.1 Consultation
Our Public Consultation Exercise attracted responses from members of the public and a wide variety of organisations including local authorities, road safety organisations and the police. The responses were analysed and summarised in a report published on the Scottish Government website. 3
A clear message from the exercise was the fact that many of the right things are already being done but they could potentially have greater impact if there was a more joined up approach to road safety across the various disciplines and organisations. Chapter Five picks up on this.
Although one main area of concern was young drivers, there were no responses to the public consultation from young people themselves. To address this, the Scottish Government commissioned focus groups of young people aged 16-25 to provide some insight into how they perceived road safety. 4 We have used their views and feedback at various points, but particularly in section 7.2 'Drivers aged 17-25'.
The Road Safety Expert Panel encouraged an ambitious road safety vision for Scotland; to set Scottish national targets; to work together to strengthen action; to have a strong focus on road safety education; to refuse to tolerate risk on the roads; to take a lifelong learning approach to driving; and to lead the way by testing and trialling new road safety measures. Membership of the Road Safety Expert Panel is at Annex B.
The Framework has also been influenced by leading road safety strategies from around the world including Sweden's 'Vision Zero'.
| 'Vision Zero' 5 - Sweden While it is accepted that it is not possible to prevent all accidents, the goal is to minimize the effects so that they do not cause serious health impairments. The Vision is that by 2020 there will be no road deaths or serious injuries.
Examples of initiatives include the introduction of a 30 km/h speed limit in built-up areas and the separation of opposing lanes of traffic on single carriageway rural roads. The Swedish Road Administration ( SRA) seeks to influence the purchasing strategies of companies that work with it, e.g. by encouraging staff to hire cars only from companies whose fleet have a good star rating on the EuroNCAP system. Similarly, taxi firms providing services under contract to SRA must be fitted with alco-locks. |
4.2 Research
We have drawn on a range of research to ensure that the issues discussed in this document are the main issues affecting road safety in Scotland. Primarily we have focused on research carried out by the Scottish Government, particularly regarding publicity and education.
However, we have also included research from the rest of the UK and abroad where we believe that it is relevant to the road safety issues in Scotland. In some instances we have concluded that more research is needed to further define the issues and to point to solutions. We have referenced the research used and included a bibliography at Annex G.
4.3 Statistics
The Scottish Government publishes statistical data every year detailing road accident statistics from the previous calendar year in the publication Road Casualties Scotland. 6 An interim report on figures is also issued around June of each year. These publications draw on data taken from the Stats 19 form completed by the police at the scene of injury road accidents.
| Stats 19 The Scottish Government collates information on injury road accidents from each police force in Scotland using the GB-wide 'Stats 19' data collection system. Statistical information is received around six to eight weeks after the end of a month and then undergoes a rigorous quality assurance process in conjunction with the relevant police force. These road accident statistics are essential for informing and monitoring road safety policy at local and national level. The Stats 19 collection is jointly managed and owned by the Standing Committee on Road Accident Statistics ( SCRAS) 7 comprised of DfT, police forces, local authorities and the devolved administrations. The Scottish Government supplies DfT with comparable Scotland figures which feed into their quarterly and annual UK published figures. The figures include all accidents in which a vehicle is involved that occur on public roads (including footways) and result in personal injury, if they become known to the police. The statistical returns include the following types of information about the accident, the vehicles involved and the resulting casualties:
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Statistics are also used by partners to target action by identifying accident trends and helping to prove whether action is effective. There is more detail on this in Chapter Five.
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