The road safety platform Project EDWARD has issued a new video promoting the value of targeted speed enforcement reducing casualties across Devon and Cornwall.
Project EDWARD, which stands for Every Day Without A Road Death, promotes an evidence-led, ‘safe system’ approach to deliver a road traffic system free from death and serious injury.
In the video, Devon and Cornwall Police’s Head of Road Safety, Adrian Leisk, says enforcement is vital to eradicate road deaths because it, “Encourages drivers to reflect, and holds them to account for their behaviours to create that posture, which creates that, what they call the ‘dreaded detection’ – that fear of being caught that comes into play with our wider behavioural change strategy.”
Jenoptik’s Account Manager, Timo Thornton is featured on the video explaining the importance of a collaborative approach, working with the customer to design schemes on a case-by-case basis. “The main thing to do is to find out what they’re trying to achieve from the scheme because sometimes what they think they’re looking for, might not be what they actually need in order to deliver the road safety benefits that they’re looking for,” he explains. “It can be a mixture of technologies… or it can be an average speed or a pair of static sites.”
The video details the enforcement of a 20mph scheme in the Old Laira Road area of Plymouth which used a mixture of Jenoptik average and spot speed camera technology to deliver speed limit compliance without inconveniencing residents by adding in speed bumps and other engineering solutions.
“Average speed systems have advantages over engineering works in that they don’t inconvenience the community,” Mr Leisk explains. “They don’t damage the environment, and they achieve almost overnight 99% compliance with the speed limits, and in most schemes we bring in, the change in behaviour is immediate.”
The Project EDWARD video also features a retired clergyman explaining the value of speed awareness courses in understanding the reasons for limits and how they change behaviour, and why authorities in Devon and Cornwall are so committed to Vision Zero.
(Picture – Jenoptik)
