The Road Safety Trust has awarded approximately £300k of funding to eight UK organisations to explore changing road use and emerging road safety issues as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Road Safety Trust is the largest independent road safety grant giver in the UK. Its Small Grants Plus Programme was opened in September.
Grantees of the funding are charities, local authorities, and a community group, and have been awarded between £20k and £50k, respectively.
The British Horse Society and Cycling UK have teamed up together to address the 20,000 road casualties involving a horse or cyclist and will provide an educational video that aims to humanise individuals rather than their mode of transport.
The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) will be looking at safety issues around private e-scooter use. The project has an important synergy with the evaluation of the e-scooter rental scheme trials which started in 2020 and will help inform legislative decisions.
The Road Safety Foundation will assess the safety of the active travel schemes that were implemented by local councils during the COVID-19 pandemic and explore the risks to vulnerable road users.
Brunel University, in partnership with London Borough of Hillingdon and The Bikeability Trust, aims to pilot the use of digital technology to improve primary school children’s ability to safely navigate junctions on a bicycle.
An additional four organisations also received funding and will be announced in due course.
Sally Lines, chief executive of the Road Safety Trust said: “We were really pleased to be able to open for applications in September 2020 following the cancellation of our Major Grants Theme.
“The Small Grants Plus Programme allowed us to provide funding to help offer road safety solutions that were a result of the pandemic.
“We had 52 applications for this round of funding. Today we are announcing four of the eight organisations that have received funding and will be announcing the additional four in advance of them beginning their projects.
“We have carefully assessed that all eight projects will help us achieve our vision of zero deaths and serious injuries on UK roads.”
Since it was established in 2014, the Road Safety Trust has awarded grants worth £3.7m to 49 different projects.
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