WIREDGOV

Road safety experts will meet next month to find out how the reduction in public spending will impact on strategies to prevent accidents on the UK’s roads.

The seminar, hosted by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), a safety charity, and entitled “Road Safety in a Time of Reduced Public Spending”, will take a close look at the challenges faced by road safety professionals in the current economic climate. It will highlight the importance of evidence-based practice and evaluation in making the most of tight budgets.

In light of increasing financial pressures, especially on local authorities, and to enable as many delegates as possible to attend, the one-day seminar will take place instead of RoSPA’s annual three-day Road Safety Congress. It will take place at Maple House in Birmingham on Tuesday, February 15 and is sponsored by Britax.  

Among the speakers will be Robert Gifford, executive director of PACTS, the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety.

Kevin Clinton, RoSPA’s head of road safety, said: “Reductions in road safety budgets are already being experienced by police forces and local authorities and the likelihood is that there will be further cuts as budgets for the next financial year are set. The full extent to which this will affect the delivery of road safety is yet to be seen although we are already hearing about road safety partnerships, school crossing patrols and road maintenance being scaled back.

“The UK has been very successful in reducing road casualties over the last two decades, partly because our road safety policies and interventions have been based on comprehensive, evidence-led road safety strategies. This has helped secure and target road safety funding.

“However, road safety practitioners will now need to operate against a very different economic background, and will have to deliver their interventions within much smaller budgets. The phrase ‘more for less’ will echo through the next few years.

“Acting on road safety remains a statutory duty for police forces and local authorities and the challenge is therefore to identify new approaches and new thinking, and to improve and develop new partnership working, to ensure further casualty reductions are achieved.”

Road safety professionals wishing to book a place at the seminar should visit www.rospa.com/events/roadsafetyseminar/ or contact the events team by calling 0121 248 2089 or emailing events@rospa.com.