Cllr Iris Walker with Samantha Seeds of Scottish Fire & Rescue
Last week, I attended Road Safety Scotland’s annual seminar in Edinburgh. Transport Scotland released their road statistics on day 1 of the seminar. They can be viewed here:
Aberdeenshire is moving steadily towards Scottish Government targets on reducing the number of adults and children killed on our roads by 2020. In tandem with a general reduction in road accidents throughout the UK, the number of fatal accidents in Aberdeenshire has seen an appreciable drop. In 2006 there were 43 fatal accidents, but by 2012 this had fallen to 14.
The main theme of the seminar was “partnership”. Aberdeenshire Council work in partnership with Police Scotland, Scottish Fire & Rescue and many other organisations to promote initiatives focused on the 4 E’s approach of engineering, enforcement, education and encouragement.
Concerns were raised with Police Scotland’s Chief Constable, Sir Stephen House over the withdrawal of resources for road safety education. Sir House reassured delegates that any local initiatives, such as Safe Drive, Stay Alive, which are known to be effective, would still be supported by Police Scotland.
Other highlights from the conference can be found on Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cllr-Iris-Walker-Westhill-and-District/245153495579313