20mph scheme picks up national road safety award

Scottish Borders Council picked up the 2022 CIHT Road Safety Award at a ceremony in London yesterday evening (7 Sept).

The Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT) Road Safety Award was created in memory of John Smart, the CIHT’s former director of technical affairs, who passed away suddenly in 2012.

The award recognises ‘outstanding achievements which improve road user safety through excellent practice, design and technical application’.

The 2022 Award was presented to Scottish Borders Council for the creation of a 20mph default limit across the Scottish Borders region.

In December 2021, the council confirmed plans to make 20mph the default speed limit across towns and villages in the region, following evaluation of a year-long trial.

The 20mph limit was initially introduced to more than 90 settlements in October 2020 in a bid to encourage more walking and cycling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The trial was run in conjunction with Transport Scotland and Sustrans and with input from academics from Edinburgh Napier University, who carried out an independent evaluation from 125 survey sites over 97 towns and villages.

They found vehicle speeds had reduced in almost all locations, in some instances by 6mph, with an average reduction closer to 3mph.

PdTWER project highly commended
A research project, part-funded by Road Safety GB, which sets out to establish the best way to use pre-driver theatre and workshop education to enhance young and novice driver safety, was highly commended by the awards’ judges.

The Pre-driver Theatre & Workshop Education Research (PdTWER) project is headed up by Elizabeth Box, research director at the RAC Foundation and doctoral researcher at Cranfield University.

The aim of the study is to evaluate whether the content and format of theatre and workshop interventions can help pre-drivers develop effective strategies for coping with road related risk and have an impact on future collision involvement.

‘Best in class solutions’
The 2022 CIHT Awards Ceremony was held at the London Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor House on 7 September.

Speaking after the ceremony, Neil Johnstone, CIHT president, said: “The CIHT Awards demonstrate real evidence of how through hard work our sector is delivering professional standards and best in class solutions.

“The last few years have seen transportation professionals react positively to the challenges of the pandemic and we have taken the opportunity to embrace change and innovation to continue to look to solve the challenges we all face today.”