#RSGB2016 | Round-up session – as it happened

12.00 | 16 November 2016 | | 7 comments

 

Session four – the roundup – includes presentations from the following speakers:

  • Jo Parry: THINK! ahead
  • James Luckhurst: Project EDWARD – a case study
  • Eddy Klynen: Active mobility – walking and cycling certificates in Flanders: a successful step in the lifelong learning curve
  • Simon Rewell: New drivers – the learning curve
  • Dr George Ursachi: ‘Safety in Numbers’
  • Honor Byford and Ian Edwards: North Yorkshire Walk-Wise Project



The session is being chaired by Nick Cowling, service manager for transporting programmes and road safety, Somerset County Council.


Jo Parry, head of marketing, Department for Transport
Presentation: THINK! ahead

This presentation outlines details about the future of the THINK! campaign: summarising progress to date and setting out key priorities.

Soundbites:

THINK! started in 2000 and no plans as yet to jettison the brand

THINK! is seen as ‘helpful’ and ‘thought provoking’

But there is a decline in awareness of road safety advertising

Big challenge to ensure road safety is not dropping off people’s radar
 
Nine principles:
  1. Really know our target audience (especially young males) – we need to think a lot more about what our audience is up to and how to fit in with their agenda
  2. Communicate continiously and not in campaign bursts (not dipping in and out
  3. Friends with likeminded people – how we reach out to a broader population
  4. Adopt a lighter tone (the nature of social media people will not engage with fear message – need new ways of conveying messages)
  5. Produce more engaging content (traditional topics (drink drive, mobile phones etc) and perhaps some new ones (driverless cars, eco driving etc)?
  6. Forge more meaningful messages (brand partnerships etc)
  7. Be nimble and communicate in real time
  8. Be more efficient
  9. Look further ahead (not just next year but 2020 at the least)

James Luckhurst, media adviser for TISPOL
Presentation: Project EDWARD – a case study

This presentation reviews the outcomes, successes and achievements of Project Edward. It also discusses any lessons learnt and outline any future plans for Project Edward and/or other TISPOL road safety initiatives.

Soundbites:

Project EDWARD – Sept 21

Absolutely no budget

European Day without a Road Death – a target, not an aspiration

Wanted to use it to break down barriers between the police and road safety officers (if any existed)

Social media reach – twitter 19.5million

Project EDWARD trended at no5 in the UK & 50th in the world on the day – a top twitter story on the day

Road safety pledge – 100,000 signed (well below aspiration of 1m)

On average 70 deaths on Europe’s roads every day – on 21 Sept there were 43

Talking to brand partners for next year

Thursday 21 September 2017 (date for next year)


Eddy Klynen, Flemish Foundation for Traffic Knowledge (FFT)
Presentation: Active mobility – walking and cycling certificates in Flanders: a successful step in the lifelong learning curve

In order to be able to become safe road users we all need to have the possibility to start learning at a young age. For many years the FFT has offered children of primary school age the possibility to earn walking and cycling permits. The permits are seen as a reward for children to do their best to be safe pedestrians and cyclists. FFT believes this kind of support is also a strong signal for parents that walking and cycling are the most environmentally friendly and sustainable modes of urban mobility.

Key points:

  • Road safety has to improve
  • Road safety and sustainable mobility go together
  • Traffic and mobility education
  • Lifelong learning line
  • Walking certificates
  • Cycling certificates

Soundbites:

Belgium is not one of the best performing European countries in terms of road safety

Every time someone picks up a new form of road use it becomes very dangerous (cyclists, mopeds, car drivers etc)

Established a Life Long Learning Line

Use certificates to encourage young people to do their best (just like swimming)

Step by step approach – very positive

Walking certificates

  • Start in kindergarten hand in hand with adults in real traffic
  • Up to gold certificate (independent walking in real traffic)

Cycling certificates

  • Start with balance bike
  • Up to last year of primary schools so they can cycle independently and safely to secondary school

Schools have to register pupils who participate and pass the tests

Summary

  • Road safety in Belgium has to improve
  • Road safety and sustainability can go hand in hand
     

Simon Rewell, road safety manager, Insure the Box
Presentation: New drivers – the learning curve

The key topics covered in the presentation are:

  • What are the core elements of early behaviours?
  • What do these indicate for long terms driving habits?
  • Does gender influence these behaviours?
  • How can this data be used to inform interventions developed by road safety practitioners to positively influence young driver behaviour, and ultimately reduce crashes and casualties?

Key points: 

  • Gathering quality data
  • Learning from data analysis
  • Focus on Behavioural Change Techniques
  • What the learning curve tells us

Soundbites: 

Monitors five key elements of driving

Speed
Time of day
Smooth driving
Types of road
Taking breaks

More than 600,000 policies sold
3 billion miles of data

What we know:
Begin to understand trends & behaviours
Young drivers are 70 less likely to have a crash after a year
Speeding – if people speed 10% of the time they are 42% more likely to have an accident

We want to:
Change behaviour
Reduce speed/accidents & casualties

BCTs employed
Giving information
Rewards & incentives
Think more positively about their driving
Getting people to live differently

Impact by gender
Greater number of males who speed
 


Dr George Ursachi, marketing analyst, Road Safety Analysis
Presentation: ‘Safety in Numbers’

This presentation first analyses international results before looking at the problems associated with measuring risk based on count-based data. It focusses on how RSA sourced robust data about the cyclist populations within local authority districts in England, and a presentation of the results.

Key points:

  • The research investigates the ‘Safety in Numbers’ (SIN) phenomenon in UK cycling from a risk-level relationship point of view.
  • The analysis is unique in utilising and merging different datasets to create and overview of SIN phenomenon in UK cycling.
  • Offers a different perspective in measuring success in road safety cycling related strategies.
  • Provides comparative and good practice examples from other countries.
  • Challenges count based cycling strategies.
  • Explores how different characteristics can influence results in cycling strategies.

Soundbites:

Safety in numbers – by being part of a large group of mass, an individual is less likely to be a victim of an accident

Why does SIN happen for cyclists?

  • Motorists adapt their behaviour
  • Drivers are more likely to be cyclists
  • Greater political will to improve cycling conditions

RSA study

  • Tried to find out if there is a link between risk and cycling levels in different parts of the country
  • Cities with low levels of cycling (Liverpool) have high levels of casualty risk

Conclusion:
There seems to be Safety in Numbers in England
 


Honor Byford, North Yorkshire County Council and Ian Edwards, eDriving Solutions
Presentation: North Yorkshire Walk-Wise Project

The presentation explains how the development of the project was based on psychological theory (social learning theory) and the systematic approach taken to evaluation. It will highlight that the approaches used in this project can easily be transferred to other road safety interventions.

Key points:

Walk-Wise Kids has been specifically designed to increase road safety knowledge of pre-school children. The presentation discusses how the intervention:

  • Is based on data analysis – addressing a specific identified need.
  • Designed to be appropriate for a mixed audience demographic.
  • Utilised partnership working – working with early years providers, public health and road safety partners.
  • Applies educational theory to a road safety intervention.
  • Applies good evaluation practice – demonstrated to work with control group comparison.
  • Uses a number of delivery methods including a mobile phone technology.

Soundbites:

Based on Social Learning Theory

  • Attention/observation
  • Retention
  • Reproduction
  • Motivation

Evaluation

  • Showed an 18% improvement in knowledge
  • Statistically significant improvement (but sample size was small)

Summary

  • An appropriate model can be used to develop a road safety intervention
  • A simple evaluation can be applied to road safety interventions
  • Walk Wise Kids works
     

 

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    Got to come in on ‘walk wise kids’. I think that they should be instructed from a very early age to first of all walk on the pavement holding their parents hand and not letting go and further that they should walk on the far side of the pavement, the part nearest the wall and not close to the kerb and oncoming traffic. Add to that that they should not pick a crossing place behind any parked HGV or other vehicle and using that vehicle as a safe haven by making the crossing distance less but the danger far greater. Add to that that they should walk a few meters more and use a pedestrian or other safe crossing, activating the light sequence and then staying there and not running across the road if all becomes clear. Perhaps these messages can be got through to parents as well.

    Some things that can easily be depicted on a piece of nicely coloured paper and given to the child for their parents to see just how they have got it terribly wrong.

    We need to teach adults just how to behave with kids out on the streets and under their direct control and responsibility.


    Bob Craven Lancs
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    postscript: I’ve just Googled this and at the beginning of the month, it appeared to have been released to the press, however I do not recall seeing it in the RSGB news feed – a revelation too important to igore surely?


    Hugh Jones,Cheshire
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    We have to remember that not everyone is an academic or road safety practitioner. Personally I like Mr Rewell’s style: 1. come to a RS conference with a new angle. 2. throw out a few headline facts. 3 cause people’s interest to be piqued. 4 DON’T provide all the answers. 5 invite people to come to him to discuss more.(which he did).
    That’s just a good business technique that I have also used years ago in a different industry – it works. There are loads of intriguing questions to be asked and answered. Perhaps he will be back again next year? I don’t think we’ve heard the last about “mining” this dataset by any means.


    Pat, Wales
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    If it is indeed a fairly robust conclusion based on evidence gathered by insurers, I think it should be given wider publicity. It seems to be the sound bit of evidence that road safety – and in particular the speed camera partnerships – have been waiting for (both the usefulness of black box data and collision risk) and I would be disappointed if it is just going to slip into the archives so soon.


    Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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    I wonder if Simon Rewell can add more to the picture and tell us, not only that “if people speed 10% of the time they are 42% more likely to have an accident”, but also what percentage of those ‘accidents’ occur whilst the person is speeding. Without that added context that statistic is meaningless and open to abuse. We cannot deduce, for example, whether there is a correlation between speeding and ‘accidents’ or whether the type of driver who breaks speed limits tends to have more ‘accidents’ regardless of whether they are speeding.


    Charles, England
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    Prior to this point in Mr Rewell’s presentation he informed us that his insurance company had black box data on 600,000 plus motor insurance policies and the policy holders had covered over 3 billion motoring miles between them. I had assumed the numbers came from crunching the telematic data against claims.


    Pat, Wales
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    From Simon Rewell’s presentation ‘New Drivers: the learning curve’ there is a reported soundbite: “If people speed 10% of the time, they are 42% more likely to have an accident”. I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, but I’m interested to know where this came from and how it was established as it seems very precise. Can the speaker or anyone else elaborate please?


    Hugh Jones
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