Road safety

Are you 17-25? Do you drive? Do you want to save money? ...This is the course for you!

Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service in partnership with the Institute of Advanced Motorists are offering young driver between 17 – 25, (who live, study or work in Shropshire) the chance to experience 4 advanced driving sessions, based on the police advanced driving course for FREE. More details here [2].

Introduction

Each year across the West Mercia area road traffic collisions result in the deaths of more than 40 people and very serious injury of a further 400. In contrast very few people are killed or seriously injured in fires. The Fire & Rescue National Framework places an obligation on the FRS to consider any foreseeable FRS related eventuality and to carry out prevention activities to reduce the likelihood and impacts of these.

Our strategy

We will work in partnership with appropriate agencies to educate and inform priority “at risk” groups on road safety matters. In particular, we will only deliver road safety initiatives that are approved by, and support the aims of, the Safer Roads Partnership (SRP) in West Mercia.

SRP Aims

SFRS will support SRP in three of their aims:

• To coordinate road safety publicity and marketing strategies…
• To provide data, research and intelligence services in support of joint and independent road safety activities …
• To support West Mercia Police in delivering their road safety strategy.

What we will do:

• We will support SRP by helping to deliver their “Green Light Programme” to Sixth Form Colleges throughout Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin. We will only deliver to the Green Light syllabus thus ensuring a consistent message, targeting the most at risk road users (16 – 25 year old drivers and passengers) across the whole partnership.
• We will support annual “Bikefest” events, providing personnel and Outreach Vehicle to actively engage motorcyclists. Shropshire has an abnormally high motorcycle collision rate.
• We will support two “Drink – Drive” campaigns each year (Christmas and Summer) providing personnel and the Outreach Vehicle to engage high street and supermarket shoppers.
• We will promote other campaigns through our website.

Roles and Responsibilities

The Head of Prevention and Protection will sit on the SRP Strategic Consultation Panel attending meetings as appropriate.

The Station Manager Risk Reduction will have day to day management responsibility for road safety matters and will report to Head of Prevention and Protection.

One of the Fire Safety Technical Officers will attend the SRP Education, Training and Publicity Group and will be the lead practitioner for the Service.

Any activity planned at station level will be coordinated by the Fire Safety Technical Officer to ensure consistency and delivery only of approved materials.

Targets

Specific targets have not been set for the partnership in terms of casualty and collision numbers. One road casualty is too many.

The partnership’s target is therefore to reduce casualties and make the roads safer for all users in West Mercia.

Review

This Strategy will be reviewed annually in January, or when significant related issues arise, by the Head of Prevention and Protection.