The number of people visiting the Road Safety GB website exceeded 16,000 for the first time in March 2014.
Both the number of visits and visitors reached a new high last month – the fourth month in the past six when record levels have been achieved.
The number of visits to the site during March was 23,955 – an increase of 4% on the previous high achieved in January 2014.
The site received 16,292 unique visitors during the month, a significant increase of 8% more than the previous high, again in January 2014.
The most read news item published during the month related to Professor Danny Dorling’s online seminar about 20mph limits, which was viewed 867 times. The second and third most read stories related to the launch of the AA’s ‘think bikes’ campaign (857 views), and a story about the introduction of Biker Down training in Hertfordshire (767 views).
The Danny Dorling story produced a discussion thread comprising 31 reader posts, and, at 3’ 43”, the Biker Down story had the highest average length of time spent on the page.
Nick Rawlings, editor of Road Safety News, said: “It’s great that so many people are taking an interest in road safety.”
Hugh
I think this is an excellent suggestion. In fact, several years back we used to run very simple surveys on this site about topical road safety issues. We are going to take this idea forward.
Nick Rawlings, editor, Road Safety News
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Nick:
Has Road Safety GB ever considered an on-line poll via this forum, to get an idea of how much support (or not) there is for a particular initiative – a new THINK! campaign for instance – perhaps after a few days of comment from those who wish to? It would only be useful if a substantial number of readers took part mind you.
I know I have expressed sceptisnm about public opinion polls elsewhere, but would like to think that such a poll on this forum might draw more informed ‘pollsters’.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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Hugh and Rod echo my thoughts on the subject. My concern is that the longer we fail to truly understand the complex causes of road accidents, the more people will die on the roads. Having 16,000 brains working on the problem should make the problem much easier to solve, but the lack of contributions, thoughts and ideas is distinctly worrying.
Maybe these 16,000 visitors are really interested in finding a solution but for political reasons are keeping their heads down as their thoughts might run counter to those of their employers? To counter this problem I would be happy to see a far greater number of annonymised contributions from visitors as it is not the identity of the person that matters, but the usefulness of their ideas.
Duncan MacKillop, Stratford on Avon
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Yes, this forum is unique and a useful one for debate. But I echo Hugh’s concern about the number of people posting. One article which I was surprised didn’t get any comments was the one on the PACTS report suggesting a wider collaboration of road safety, public health and sustainable transport. Its just this sort of “big picture view” that seems to be so relevant, yet gets so little interest.
Rod King 20’s Plenty for Us
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Agree with the previous comments obviously, but still disappointed that, despite the 16,000 or so individuals who apparently view this site which covers such a diverse range of road safety stories in its news feed, more people are not motivated enough to comment or apparently even interested enough to agree or disagree with comments/opinions.
A forum like should be useful feedback for the powers that be (Dft, ACPO amongst others) to obtain views from those who are actively involved in this field at the sharp end.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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Once again, well done to Nick and the team. I completely agree with Dave.
Alan Kennedy
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Well done Nick. Under your guide as editor, visits to the website have grown and grown. It remains the largest road safety news based site in the UK. Thanks should also go to the sponsors and the road safety teams that continue to support Road Safety GB financially. This support allows the website to continue to grow and be free to access.
James Gibson, Leicestershire
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Road Safety GB is unique. It may be the only official body that allows the establishment view and independent views to be discussed and challenged in open debate, hopefully leading to better use of resources and subsequent saving of lives on our roads. This bringing together of RSPs, engineers and political campaigners may be a large part of Road Safety GB’s success and this, in no small part, might be attributed to the intelligent and constructive moderation by Nick and the team.
It’s good to see the hard work paying off, congratulations to everyone at Road Safety GB.
Dave Finney, Slough
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