RoSPA has unveiled plans for an “industry standard qualification” for road safety professionals in Scotland which it says is the “first of its kind in the UK”.
RoSPA says that the SQA Road Safety Course will “equip current and new road safety professionals with the specialist knowledge, delivery skills and analytical capabilities needed to reduce road deaths”. RoSPA has developed the course, which has been approved by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) at level 7 (advanced higher/A Level), on behalf of Transport Scotland.
Sandy Allan, RoSPA’s road safety manager in Scotland, said: “For a number of years the skills of road safety professionals have not been fully recognised, and after researching the core skills required of a road safety officer we have devised a unique and relevant programme.
“Approval through the SQA will make this qualification, which is unique in the United Kingdom at this level, the industry standard.
“Road safety today is far more than just teaching children to cross the road. The learning outcomes from this programme will equip all successful candidates with the skills necessary to reduce casualties on our roads.
“The introduction of this training programme is the ideal opportunity for those now assuming responsibility for road safety in Scotland to equip their staff with the necessary skills.”
Keith Brown, Scotland’s transport minister, said: “I welcome the launch of this new SQA-accredited road safety qualification, which will improve the professional standing of our road safety officers and help ensure consistent good practice in road safety education across Scotland.”
Thank you Jeff, I was waiting for a similar comment to yours “Young drivers are only trained to pass a driving test, not to learn how to drive comptetently”.
How many young drivers have you questioned about this and how many lessons have you sat in on? Things have changed a lot since you learnt, not as much as they should, but progress has been made. Most will have driven at high speed on rural roads (when they can find any with NSL) and high speed dual carriageways. There is always more to be learnt, but the newly qualified drivers have extremely bad role models to follow.
Andy, Warwick
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Obsessive adherence to rules and regulations will never produce a top notch driver or rider. Post-test skills development providers have long advocated the value of the thinking driver and rider. Training programmes are unlikely achieve this desirable outcome for their clients by just ‘ticking the boxes’ for organisations accrediting them.
Post-test skills development needs to be approached in new and innovative ways – not just the content but the marketing. You might be able to offer the most brilliant course ever devised but it isn’t going to be of any benefit if nobody wants it.
Mark – Wiltshire
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Thank you, Duncan, your response is interesting, although I didn’t actually say it was just the regulations that made the system safe. And I am tempted to say a lot of “yes, but”s, but I am keen on constructive dialogue.
Searching on the Staines Disaster a range of issues is mentioned as potentially having a bearing on why the pilot didn’t achieve the correct velocity. I think this is relevant because the focus of a lot of road safety management training is on identifying and mitigating a range of contributory factors in the belief that mitigating any factor or combination may prevent collisions.
Clearly for rules to be effective they have to be fit for the job, and I can’t comment on those you say were inadequate. I think however that adherence to rules may have saved a great many lives, but we can’t know for sure, because non-events provide no evidence.
Tim Philpot, Wolverhampton
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Well said Jeff – a good appraisal of the underlying problem and in an ideal world all motorists would want to develop and improve post-test, but sadly too many are not interested enough and bad habits quickly set in and are hard to undo. Try telling your average motorist who’s been driving for twenty years that they might benefit from further training or a refresher course and brace yourself for the response!
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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In my opinion more should be done with driver/rider training in the first instance so the likelihood of being involved in a collision is reduced, not placing the bulk of our resources into how to reduce the injuries sustained after collisions. Young drivers are only trained to pass a driving test, not to learn how to drive comptetently. I recall over 40 years ago having passed my test and realising I had so much to learn but there were no courses available, things haven’t changed that much other than the likes of Pass Plus. Here I was at 19 years old a fully fledged driver able to drive anywhere at any time and had no experiences of driving on national speed limit roads, in extreme weather conditions, during darkness on unlit roads, on narrow country roads, on motorways trying to overtake HGVs on a wet road surface and unable to see for spray. I had to learn in my own time and had nowhere to turn for training. Fortunately I survived to be where I am today but the reality is I can drive until I am 100 without any further training, testing of my ability to still drive or whether I am fit enough to drive at an older age without risks to myself and other road users.
Driving should be seen as what it is, a continued development and drivers should be given the opportunity to continue to develop their skills after passing the driving test. Surely in this age of computers we can devise a simulator to enable us to safely teach these skills without having to first learn them on the road and suffer the consequences if it goes wrong. Insurers could also help with premium reductions for those that improve their driving skills. By all means continue developing vehicle and highway safety measures but let’s get our drivers properly trained first to the highest possible standard.
Jeff Taylor, Cumbria
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Tim has succeeded in identifying the basic problem of how and why things go wrong on the roads – too low a standard of behaviour adopted by too many, but which sadly seems to be accepted as the norm and therefore tolerated.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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Not so Tim.
There is a common misconception that because an industry is heavily regulated that it is just the regulations that ensure that the industry is safe. What cannot be denied however is that in every industry it is the Human Beings, their actions and errors, that are the critical element in system safety.
Lessons learnt in the fields such as aviation are directly transferrable to the road transport system simply because humans are the common factor.
The Staines air disaster was ’caused’ by a pilot being a stickler for the rules which at that time and in that situation were woefully inadequate. By following the rules he killed a great many people, something that happens on the roads every day.
Contrary to popular belief I can clamber into a little areoplane, or a big one for that matter, and do pretty much what I please. There are places I’m not allowed to go without permission such as controlled airspace etc, but if I want to turn the thing upside down and do loops and rolls and generally make a nuisance of myself then I am perfectly at liberty to do so. I have got licences and ratings coming out of my ears, but that doesn’t really make me any safer, but what does make me safer is information and learning. Every crash is analysed to the Nth degree and all the lessons learnt are posted directly to my home address in the form of half a dozen publications from various agencies. Every accident and incident moves the whole industry forward because we can all learn from it. Last weekend a lady died in a road accident not 500 yards from my home and because I will never get to hear the how’s and why’s of the accident I will have absolutely no chance of learning from that unfortunate incident.
Duncan MacKillop, Stratford on Avon
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Duncan
I would genuinely be interested to read a more detailed argument along the lines you suggest. I confess my instinct is that what we could learn from those industries is that if you restrict who can be involved to only those who demonstrate and maintain the highest of standards, introduce and rigorously enforce regulation of activity, and subject all activity to constant scrutiny and analysis, you can achieve much greater safety.
The problem is, I don’t see any appetite for that kind of stringency on road use. The prevailing view is quite the opposite – that people should have as much access to road use as possible whether or not they can demonstrate anything more than a minimal capability. In most respects people are free to do what they please on the road. This is the complete opposite of the industries you mention.
Tim Philpot, Wolverhampton
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Tim:
There is plenty of ‘proof’ about accident causation, in fact we have got proof coming out of our ears. However this proof exists in domains outside of road safety such as aviation and nuclear safety and as such it is completely hidden from us.
For too long we have struggled to make sense of the world by relying on data from our own industry when data from other industries gives us a much greater level of insight. The simple fact is that we need to learn from other industries otherwise we will never get anywhere.
Duncan MacKillop, Stratford on Avon
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Courses for management of road safety. Is this not top down management? And where does the road safety management effect their qualified abilities – in producing more plans to effect greater road safety. This seems a long way away from the bottom line of road safety which is as always, driver/rider education. Qualifications do not get the job done, it’s what happens behind the wheel that gets the job done. Management courses can have their place, but how much is dependant on what happens in the mind of the driver/rider? Britain has a most enviable road safety record in the World, yet we are constantly bombarded with new measures, new plans, new systems to eradicate a minority of events through managing the wrong areas.
Derek Reynolds, Salop.
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I haven’t seen enough information to determine what I think the worth of this course is, but that does not give me a licence to assume it is worthless.
It seems to me that there are ideological differences in the way contributors to this forum view the occurrence of “accidents” and also, by implication, methods for their prevention. There is a huge amount of expertise around for which I have great respect, but I believe anyone who professes to have a monopoly on right thinking is probably wrong in that respect.
I think there is a difference between training someone to understand a specific situation on the road and training someone to engage in wide-reach casualty reduction, and both are important. As to scientific methodology I’m afraid I don’t think anything so strong as proof can be found and we simply have to rely on evidence, sometimes weak or contradictory, to make the best decisions we can.
People with specialist knowledge are cornerstones of the road safety profession and I’d like to think I’m always prepared to learn from them if they present it constructively.
Tim Philpot, Wolverhampton
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Last night I gave a presentation to a ROSPA motorcycle group which covered the human and environmental factors responsible for rural bends and SMIDSY’s which account for nearly two thirds of motorcyclist fatalities. After my little presentation the people in this group now have a greater insight into the mental and environmental process failures that they need to identify and overcome. What was most intriguing however was that pretty much all of the subject matter I delivered came as a complete surprise to them.
My question is then that if a road safety oriented group such as the ROSPA group I was speaking to don’t know this stuff, why don’t they know it? If ROSPA truly can reduce fatalities via their courses then I would have been speaking to a group that should have known a lot more about the subject than I did.
Duncan MacKillop, Stratford on Avon
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All:
We are in danger of straying of the subject in this story – can I ask that comments from here onwards focus on the story itself. Thanks for your cooperation.
Nick Rawlings, editor, Road Safety News
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“a group of middle aged drivers caught doing 35 in a 30 ” don’t need to be told how “dangerous” it is. Its danger is actually irrelevant to the crime committed. Speeding is a case of “strict liability” applying regardless of whether there were any consequences to the driver or registered keeper of the motor vehicles.
Road danger is, however, reduced by people using roads within the laws that prevail. Those that advocate personal interpretation of what laws to obey compromise the whole “system” of road usage and its inherent safety.
Rod King, 20’s Plenty for Us
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Nick:
I would repectfully disagree with your view of the three ‘E’s. The behaviour of drivers is obviously at the core of road safety and the examples Eric gave which need to be addressed are surely the fundamental concern of road safety officers and others involved with collision reduction. They may not be at the front-line as the Police are, but it is inconceivable that they would not at some time be in contact with such drivers and therefore be in a position to educate them, if not directly enforce, otherwise what’s the point?
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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Eric:
The example you provide centres around enforcement which by and large is carried out by police. This course is primarily intended for road safety officers and other road safety professionals who are primarily involved in road safety education, training and publicity (ETP), not enforcement.
Nick Rawlings, editor, Road Safety News
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Matt
The value/benefit of “behaviour change” is determined by the target audience and the behaviours concerned. As an example, a group of middle aged drivers caught doing 35 in a 30 being told how dangerous their driving is will be of limited value compared to, say, a patrol car delivering a warning or prosecution to a 20-something driving aggressively within the speed limit.
Eric Bridgstock, Independent Road Safety Research, St Albans
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Eric,
Yes, I agree you need to understand the cause to prevent something from happening. However in terms of measurement, what about those people who choose not to drink and drive, or choose not to use their mobile phone as a result of education, training or publicity initiatives? Both these are well researched causes of collisions, but behaviour change (or steps towards behaviour change) is the key outcome to measure from an education perspective, not necessarily KSI reduction.
To use one of Duncan’s examples, how do you measure the number of collisions a motorcyclist has avoided by taking a more defensive position on approach to junctions? The more reasonable method of evaluation is, assuming that defensive riding improves the chance of detection, to look at whether the motorcyclist is more likely to take a defensive position on approach to junctions as a result of the training they have undertaken.
A good understanding of the research is required to make the assumption and knowledge of the appropriate outcomes to measure is required to effectively evaluate – I believe these are both covered by the courses?
Matt Staton, Cambridgeshire
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Matt
The road safety world is constantly measuring somnething that hasn’t happened (as in, for example, KSI reduced by x%). The issue is the degree to which action/intervention taken (engineering, education, etc) can be credibly linked to that improvement in casualties. We know that many factors, well outside the scope of RSOs, contribute to KSI – vehicle design, emergency medical response, weather, traffic volume, to name but a few.
You can prevent something only if you know what causes it, which is one of the many points that Duncan is making.
Eric Bridgstock, Independent Road Safety Research, St Albans
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Road Safety GB Academy has already established a Road Safety Practitioners Foundation Course. To date 9 courses have been run with some amazing feedback. But it is based on more realistic and measurable aims. Initial evaluation can be found here:
http://www.roadsafetygb.org.uk/pages/foundation-course/foundation-course-evaluation.html
I hope those who have attended the course will take the time to put their comments forward – proof in the delivery!
I gave RoSPA Scotland a copy of our course – it seems a shame best practise has not been taken forward but instead we end up delivering competing courses. Not sure it is in the best interest for the road safety profession or on our ever decreasing training budgets.
Cheryl Evans, West Berkshire (Head of Training, RSGB Academy)
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Duncan,
While I agree in some respects with what you are saying about understanding the processes behind system failures in a transport environment, road safety education is primarily about prevention and it is very diffcult to accurately measure something that hasn’t happened.
My understanding of this course and other similar qualifications such as the RSGB Academy Foundation Course, is that they equip practitioners to use research more effectively and understand what they can and can’t measure in order to develop, deliver and evaluate appropriate interventions and programmes.
Matt Staton, Cambridgeshire
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Nick
If the people in the road safety industry knew how to reduce road deaths then it would be a cast iron certainty that they would already be doing it.
What we currently have is a situation where a great many well-intentioned people are offering their thoughts and ideas on what they ‘think’ will work, not what actually will work. This is because there is no scientifically based structure or framework which people can use to measure whether or not their interventions will have any effect on the accident rate. Without such a structure interventions can quickly become received wisdom even though there might be no evidence that the interventions have any worth.
You can’t offer a course on reducing road deaths unless you know the process failures that actually cause the deaths in the first place. A course on “Discovering Process Failures in the Road Transport System” on the other hand would be a course that I would certainly attend as that would be of significant value.
Duncan MacKillop, Stratford on Avon
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I am probably a little cynical, but I do not hold a lot of faith in some of these courses and qualifications as I have had to deal with a lot of so called “qualified” people in the last few years. It is all very well having a qualification on paper because an exam has been passed, but it also takes experience and common sense to become qualified or “expert”. A recent issue on road safety that I had to deal with was with some so called “very experienced” assessors and they truly didn’t seem to know much about the task that they had. It took me several months to have their decision overturned, which really was a matter of pure common sense. One of their arguments was that they were following Road Safety GB Guidelines. I’m not saying that the guidelines were not correct, but they did not take into account the whole situation. As far as I was concerned they hadn’t completed the task as it should have been done, thereby missing some important information and essential points.
Robin Pegg
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Perhaps the wording is slightly wrong and should read “should equip current and new road safety professionals……. and not the word ‘will’. Then it’s less open to argument as to whether it should or indeed will improve things. Not so much an ‘absolute’.
bob craven Lancs
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Increased education in road safety can only be a benefit. Being a younger member though, it seems a shame (unless I’ve misunderstood the website’s information) that this A-level grade course will only be offered as part of open learning – and not as part of a college education. It is inefficient to keep requiring people to retrospectively learn education relevant to their career, rather than just offering it to them in the first place. I certainly would have chosen this over a English A level had it been offered.
Tom – Exeter
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Duncan:
The article says that the course will “equip current and new road safety professionals with the specialist knowledge, delivery skills and analytical capabilities needed to reduce road deaths”.
Perhaps you could explain to the readers why you believe this is not the case.
Nick Rawlings, editor, Road Safety News
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The claim that by going on this course you can reduce road deaths is patently false.
Duncan MacKillop, Stratford on Avon
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Construction industry Council May 2003.
An important development in the field of qualifications for professionals working in transportation infrastructure in the UK is about to enter its consultation phase. The first NVQs/SVQs relating to the transportation sector were accredited during the mid 1990s. They included levels 3, 4 and 5, and covered transport planning, traffic management & systems engineering, highway maintenance, technical support and road safety. The revision of these awards is now due, and the Construction Industry Council (CIC) has been overseeing the development work. The occupational standards – the building blocks of NVQs/SVQs – have been modernised and simplified. The key improvement has been to replace the original suites of separate awards with a single “core and options” matrix at each of the levels 3, 4 and 5. This covers the roles in the public and private sectors from technician and supervisor to senior management and professional practice. The new structure allows candidates to build NVQs/SVQs around areas of common competence, to suit their own individual personal development.
Mike Kendrick, Chairman of the Transportation Vocational Group responsible for these awards, said: “The transportation community recognises the importance of an integrated approach to qualifications which will embrace the different disciplines within the sector. Subsequently updated in all levels.
These were initiated by the Institute of Road Safety Officers education officer. So Scotland not the first in the UK.
Peter Wilson Westminster
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From 2nd para: “….. delivery skills and analytical capabilities needed to reduce road deaths” Just road deaths? Have we given up on injuries? Shouldn’t the declared aim of any such course be to reducing the collisions in the first place?
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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