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Road Safety Week
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| Winners of the Road Safety Week 2011 poster competition |
Road Safety Week poster competition winners - December 2011
80 year 7 and 8 La Mare de Carteret High art students took part in this year's poster
competition. The theme was pavements are for pedestrians (not vehicles) - so no pavement parking and no pavement
"surfing" (driving on the pavement at speed).
The students came up with some colourful and
interesting ideas and it was difficult to pick out the winners.
Chair of Living Streets Guernsey,
Deputy Tom Le Pelley, awarded cash prizes to six students at their morning assembly. The prize winners were:
1st prize: Kiarna Le Pavoux
2nd prize: Lucy Trebert
3rd prize: Alix Coldwell
Highly commended: Hannah
Simon, Finlay Aitken and Soreia Almeida
La Mare de Carteret Head teacher, Ken Wheeler, said that the road safety
message was an important one which affected all students and the students enjoyed taking part.
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| PC Russell Johnson & Deputy Tom Le Pelley |
Road Safety Week 2011 (21st
to 25th November)
BRAKE, the UK Road Safety Charity designated the theme of this year's
event "Too young to die". Guernsey, therefore, gave preference to highlighting the safety of children around
schools.
Living Streets' Road Safety Week display was set up at St. Sampson's High school for the whole
week. It comprises photographs of some Guernsey Road Traffic Collisions (RTCs) and gives information on Be Safe Be Seen
(brightening up at night preferably with high visibility items). In addition there is general road safety information
and statistics.
The Traffic section of the Guernsey Police concentrated on road safety issues around the island
schools. Living Streets worked with the Police during the week to highlight two specific issues - pavement parking and
pavement "surfing" (the bad habit of driving along the pavement at full speed in order to avoid a wide vehicle).
PC Russell Johnson of the Traffic section carried out some enforcement on pavement "surfing" outside Les Capelles
School, together with Chair of Living Streets, Deputy Tom Le Pelley, and Secretary, Pat Wisher. Several motorists were
stopped and warned and reminded of the correct way to avoid a wide vehicle - ie. to carefully mount the pavement and stop,
and then to carefully continue. If it is absolutely essential to drive along the pavement it should be no more than
walking pace. Pavement "surfing" is particularly dangerous around schools where parents and children are walking,
and in urban areas where many gateways open onto the pavement.
Living Streets ran a poster competition for students
also on the two pavement issues. La Mare de Carteret students took part. They were asked to design a poster aimed
at motorists to put over the message of either pavement parking or pavement "surfing". 80 year 7 and 8 students
took part. The competition was judged by Chair of Living Streets, Deputy Tom Le Pelley, PC Russell Johnson from the
Traffic Police and three graphic design students from the College of FE National Extended Diploma in Art and Design, Level
3 - Joel Lewis, Catherine Batiste and Renton Hayward. There were some very colourful and interesting posters and Living
Streets will be awarding a first, second and third prize and 3 highly commended prizes.
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| Judging the Road Safety Week poster competition |
Parking on the pavement affects the most vulnerable in our society
- the elderly, children, people with disabilities, mothers with buggies and pedestrians of any age. Blocking the pavement
means that pedestrians are forced to walk unsafely in the road.
Drivers often park with two wheels on the pavement
thinking that they are helping the traffic flow. However very often vehicles can't pass them anyway. Motorists
think that if they leave space for one person to pass that is OK. It is not. They fail to consider a parent with
a buggy and a child, a person with a doz on a lead, or a person with poor sight or in a wheelchair.
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| Road Safety Week 2005 - crash extrication exercise by the 3 emergency services |
Road Safety Week is held in November each year just after the clocks have gone
back. The darker evenings mean that all road users need to take more care and look out for each other. Road Safety
Week is an initiative run by the road safety charity BRAKE. www.brake.org.uk
For five years Living Streets chaired the Road Safety Week Committee which consisted of the three emergency services,
the Guernsey Bicycle Group, Child Accident Prevention group, the Environment Department, Island Coachways and the Guernsey
Motor Traders Association. A whole week of events were staged to highlight various issues and a display at Beau Sejour
showed photographs of some of Guernsey's road traffic collisions.
On the first day of the week the three
emergency services staged a crash extrication exercise, showing how the services work together to extricate the casualties
within one hour.
In 2006 we produced a document entitled "What Price Road Safety?" which we circulated
to all deputies. We called for a joined up approach to tackling Guernsey's road traffic collisions.
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| Capelles children wearing their high visibility gear after dark |
click here to download the What Price Road Safety? document
Be Safe Be Seen when when walking after dark
Too many pedestrians put their lives in danger by wearing black at night. Guernsey's narrow roads,
blind bends, lack of footpaths and limited street lighting are a challenge for all road users at the best of times, but they
can be lethal on a dark rainy night.
German road safety research has shown that while 75% of all driving
is done during daylight hours, more than 50% of all fatal accidents happen during the hours of darkness. 90% of a driver's
reaction depends on vision, and vision is severly limited at night. Even on well lit roads depth perception, colour
recognition and peripheral vision are compromised after sunset.
Research shows that a driver travelling at 40mph
with dipped headlights has as little as 1.5 seconds to react to a hazard on the road (like a pedesrian walking). This rises
to just 3 seconds on main beams.
So, please, everyone who walks after dark, at whatever time of the year, wear
a high visibility vest so that you can be seen. The reflective stripes on the vest can be seen by drivers using headlights
up to three times as far away as non-reflective materials. If you do not have a high visibility vest,
wear something light coloured or bright. Carry a torch or a light coloured carrier bag.
Finally, if you live
in an area where there are no footpaths, please ensure you walk on the right hand side of the road facing the traffic.
The only exception is if you come to a blind bend when it is safer to cross the road before the bend and then back
again afterwards.
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| Pavements are for pedestrians |
Pavements for Pedestrians
Pedestrians are the oldest form of road user and yet in many cases they are becoming an endangered species, driven
off the roads by the huge volume of traffic in the island.
With so many cars there has become a tendency for motorists
to use the last refuge for pedestrians - the footpath. Motorists not only park on the footpath but also drive on the
footpath - quite often maintaining their current speed and not realising that a pedestrian could be walking out of a gateway.
Living Streets (working in liaison with the Guernsey Police) has tried over the years to highlight these
road safety issues. If a vehicle parks on the footpath, then a parent with a buggy (and perhaps children in tow) has
to walk in the road in order to avoid the blockage. The same applies to any pedestrian and to a wheelchair user.
There is also a danger if you park on a pavement that you could be creating a blind spot or obstructing sight lines.
Footpaths (pavements) are for pedestrians. You can be fined for parking on one. So please be considerate
when you park.
Mounting the pavement when you are driving is sometimes necessary when you are faced with a wide
vehicle coming towards you in a narrow road. Driving on the pavement is an offence. The correct way to deal with
this situation is to slow down and carefully mount the pavement. Continuing to drive at your current speed is highly
dangerous.
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| Nic Le Poidevin with his winning poster |
Working with students to highlight road safety issues
Each
year we run a poster competition, working with College of FE graphic design students. The idea is to highlight
a particular road safety issue. Posters are used in the Schools Liaison work undertaken by the Police.
In
2010 the topic was "Ipod Oblivion" - the near trance like state that people apparently enter when using mobile phones,
MP3 players and other electronic gadgets while walking or cycling on our roads. Road Safety professionals are getting
concerned about this new trend.
Nic Le Poidevin was the winner with his striking poster "Hits don't
just happen in music".
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| Sam Falla with his winning poster |
In 2009 "Speed Kills" was the topic. The winner, Sam Falla, said
he was shocked at the survival rates of pedestrians hit by speeding cars and this is what inspired his poster.
A pedestrian hit by a car travelling at 20mph has a 9 out of 10 chance of surviving. Hit by a car travelling at 40mph
there is a 9 out of 10 chance of being killed. Sam's beautifully illustrated poster "Death machine" was
used in Schools Liaison work. The judges were a group of students and they thought his poster would really appeal to
the target audience of young newly qualified drivers.
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