Road Safety

The Wokingham Borough Local Development Framework Core Strategy sets out the long term 'spatial vision' for the Borough until 2026. The core strategy identified four Strategic Development Locations (SDLs) to accommodate the majority of new homes (approximately 10,000 dwellings). A further circa 3,000 homes will be delivered through the local plan. These new developments will have significant impacts on the levels of traffic on our roads and the number of residents and children travelling around the network to access work, education, recreation and recreational facilities. This will increase the risks associated with road safety.

Road safety is a priority for the Government and for Wokingham Borough Council. The Department for Transport note that Great Britain has one of the leading road safety records in the world and the Council want to help maintain this record and build upon it. Even with some of the safest roads in the world Great Britain are still seeing a significant toll of avoidable fatalities and serious injury. This has a high economic cost to society and is a tragedy to all those directly affected.
 

Wokingham Borough Council has been very strong in reducing road casualty numbers over the previous ten years, achieving a 63% reduction in Killed or Seriously Injured (Department for Transport).
 

Wokingham Borough Councils Road Safety Plan aims to describe all the steps being taken by Wokingham Borough Council to improve road safety, demonstrates how successful the Borough has been in bettering the Government Road Safety Targets and details the current casualty statistics. It also provides details of interventions and activities available to assist Wokingham Borough Council in its aim to have an improving road safety record.
 

Within the Councils Local Transport Plan, safety plays a vital role. The Council is committed towards achieving further positive reductions in the number of people killed or seriously injured on the Boroughs roads.

Further to this Road Safety Plan a yearly investigation into accident patterns and trends is undertaken to enable the Council to target its activities and will include an action plan for the years Road Safety related activities. This is included as an appendix to the Road Safety Plan and will be updated annually.

Wokingham Borough Councils Road Safety objectives are:

• To reduce the risk of collisions and severity of collisions on Wokingham's roads
  
• To improve road safety awareness for all road users in Wokingham
  
• To continue to show a reduction in casualties
  

Wokingham Borough Council will achieve these objectives by working with road safety Stakeholders and Partners to maximise the effectiveness of resources in 7 themed areas associated with road safety, these are listed as:

1.promoting safer road use

2.providing skills and training

3. designing and maintaining safer roads

4.provide safer crossing facilities

5.influencing drivers

6.reducing vehicle speeds

7.providing for vulnerable road users

Wokingham Borough has one of the highest car ownership rates of any English Authorities. The 2011 Census showed that car ownership rates were 1.6 per household compared to 1.1 in England, with 53.2% of households owning two or more cars.

Traffic congestion is perceived as a problem within the Borough with 49% of our Local Transport Plan consultation respondents identifying it as one of their top three transport priorities. Road safety and the need to reduce the number and severity of road accidents were ranked tenth in the consultation.
 

The two tables below show the overall trend in the number of people Killed and Seriously injured (KSi) in Wokingham Borough since 2006. The trend in KSi is broadly flat, however the underlying figure for the number of people killed on the Boroughs roads is a positive trend down from 11 in 2005 to 3 in 2014. The trend in the numbers of people being killed has been extremely low since 2009.

Table 1 Trend of KSI in Wokingham Borough

Table 2 : Trend in KSi and Total people killed

Car Seats

• From work in schools bordering Reading more education appears  to be needed for parents over the importance of child car seats, particular booster use    

Cycle Training

• In school located in more affluent areas e.g. Hawthorns, Oaklands junior, Finchampstead Primary, St Nicolas Hurst, Robert Piggott Junior there is a 100& take up with Bikeability cycle training. For less affluent areas the take up drops, the worst being 40%.
  

Driver Training

• Without Celebrating Age running this year, a road safety event for older driver’s has not been possible this year    

Cycle training in schools

• In schools where Bikeability take up is low, children may not have bicycles and or Helmets at home, e.g. Shinfield, St Marys Primary, all Saints, Hillside Primary, but access to bikes and special offers on helmets can be made available where there are issues
  
• Despite having provided a limited amount of adult cycle training, there is demand for more, particularly from ladies    

Reference's

For this section we have used data from the Department for Transport (DfT STATS19) data for road casualties reported in the Wokingham Highway Authority area, please follow the link to further information on the DfT website http://www.travelindependent.org.uk/area_130.html

DfT STATS19 provides trend information on the following in Wokingham Borough:

• Children killed or seriously injured
  
• Numbers (all ages) killed or seriously injured
  
• Numbers (all ages) killed