Collision Investigation and Studies

We use the accident data referred to elsewhere on this site to establish where the casualty problems exist on our network. This entails the study of accident patterns over time, locations of accidents, accident circumstances and the types of road users and vehicles involved.

We are also increasingly taking into account issues of deprivation as national research has suggested that children from deprived areas are much more likely to be injured in road accidents. Here in Lancashire 20% of our child casualties happen in the poorest 10% of wards and, whilst 82% of children killed or seriously injured are pedestrians or cyclists in Lancashire as a whole, in the poorest wards this rises to 95%.

We also recognise that engineering measures alone will often not be enough to remedy accident problems, there will often be a real need to use enforcement, education, training and publicity as well as (or, indeed instead of) low-cost engineering measures. The collision studies themselves can be:-

• single sites,
• traffic signals,
• urban & rural lengths,
• routes and
• residential areas.

Having prioritised sites/areas for further work site visits will be undertaken and schemes will be drawn up and costed; because of limited resources only the most cost effective schemes will make it into the local safety schemes programme; these low-cost measures are generally very effective in terms of the casualties saved for the money spent - this can be seen from the table here>.

The bigger picture

Whilst cost-benefit of proposed schemes is a major feature in scheme assessment we do recognise the wider impact of safety schemes. This wider assessment takes into account the Government's five objectives for transport:

• environment - to protect the built and natural environment
• safety
• economy - to support sustainable economic activity and obtain good value for money
• accessibility - to improve access to facilities for those without a car and to reduce severance
• integration -to ensure decisions taken which are consistent with the Government's integrated transport policy.