Suffolk Roadsafe Partnership Board

The Suffolk Roadsafe Board is a non-statutory Board which was created in May 2007 to bring together the main agencies involved in road safety in the county. It comprises representatives from Suffolk County Council, Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service, Suffolk Constabulary, Suffolk Safecam, the Highways Agency and the East of England Ambulance Service. The agencies work together to provide the best possible use of resources and road safety expertise from many different disciplines.

The Board is chaired by County Councillor Guy McGregor, the Portfolio Holder for Transport.

The aim of the partnership is to make the roads of Suffolk safer for all. Our objectives are:

To achieve the Government’s 2010 casualty reduction targets by focusing on engineering, education and enforcement:
• Reduce by 40% the number of fatal and serious road casualties
• Reduce by 50% the number of road casualties involving children
• A 10% reduction in slight casualty rates

www.suffolkroadsafe.net reflects the work of the partnership and provides road safety information and advice for road users, schools and the general public. For information about road casualties in Suffolk click here.

The Partners

Suffolk County Council
Suffolk County Council’s Environment & Transport Directorate has a road safety team of traffic engineers and road safety officers. The Directorate’s road safety work is guided by the analysis of accident data.

Engineers are responsible for a wide range of functions, including safety engineering, the deployment of “SID” equipment (Speed Indicator Display) and a variety of speed management measures.

Road safety officers are involved in traffic education for children, driver training, motorcycle safety, and the promotion of the Department for Transport’s publicity at a local level. The team also runs the School Crossing Patrol service, the School Travel Plan project and administers the National Driver Improvement scheme and the Speed Awareness scheme.

Suffolk SafeCam
Suffolk SafeCam is a partnership of organisations with one common objective: to reduce the number of crashes on Suffolk's roads. The partnership comprises; Suffolk County Council, Suffolk Constabulary, Ipswich NHS Hospital, Her Majesty’s Court Services, Highways Agency and the Crown Prosecution Service.

We aim to achieve safer roads for Suffolk by;
• Informing drivers of the dangers of excess and inappropriate speed through a variety of awareness campaigns.
• Undertaking targeted fixed and mobile camera enforcement at specific locations and along routes with a history of collisions involving killed or seriously injured casualties.

The results from cameras clearly demonstrate that they improve safety and are effective at reducing crashes. Suffolk SafeCam launched in 2003 and since enforcement began there has been there has been a massive 78% reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured at camera sites. (figures Sept 2007)

Suffolk Constabulary
Suffolk Constabulary polices an area of 1,470 square miles, and covers a population of 692,000.

In 2006, 47 people died on Suffolk’s roads and hundreds were seriously injured. Every year thousands of motorists receive fines for putting themselves and others in danger by ignoring the rules of the road.

Reducing these numbers is a top priority for Suffolk Constabulary. The Constabulary works closely with other agencies, including Suffolk County Council and Suffolk Safecam, as part of the Suffolk Roadsafe partnership, and aims to make the county’s roads safer through enforcement and education.

Highways Agency
Safe Roads, Reliable Journeys, Informed Travellers

The Highways Agency is an Executive Agency of the Department for Transport and is responsible for operating, maintaining and improving the strategic road network in England on behalf of the Secretary of State for Transport.

The Agency makes an important contribution to road safety in England. As operator of the motorway and major road network, everything we do has safety implications. We are committed to contributing to the Government's targets for reducing road casualties and to providing a safer road network for all our customers.

We build, maintain and operate safe roads, in partnership with the Department for Transport's Driver and Vehicle Operator agency groups. We play a key role in delivering the Department's target of improving road safety.

The Highways Agency has a strategic Safety Action Plan in place. This plan sets out how and what we intend to do and achieve meet the casualty reduction targets. By forming partnerships with others involved in, or affected by, road safety issues, we are able to tackle problems more comprehensively, efficiently and effectively. This requires better communication and working alongside others such as road operators, road users, Department for Transport, the police, local councils and other organisations to improve road safety through highway maintenance and engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement, operating practices management and monitoring.

We have already developed and are developing a number of safety campaigns aimed at several core customer groups with the specific intention of raising awareness of safe driving. We will be working with:
• Partners and stakeholders to target young drivers
• Drivers of company cars and commercial vehicles
• Motorcyclists to halt and reduce the growing number of fatal and serious accidents

The Agency’s road network and construction sites can be extremely hazardous places to work. We continually review our standards and introduce new measures and construction methods that help reduce accidents at major and temporary road work sites. We also work closely with our suppliers to ensure all road workers are fully trained in health and safety. The traffic management that we put out is not there for the sake of it, it’s there to serve a purpose - protecting our workers from danger and also keeping the public safe as they drive through the road works. Everyone has a role to play to ensure that our roads are safe for drivers and road workers alike.

The Highways Agency manages the following trunk roads in Suffolk:
• A11 between the M11 and A47
• A12(S) between M25 Junction 28 and Ipswich
• A12(N) between Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft
• A14 between its junction with the M1/M6 and Felixstowe

The area is managed by a dedicated Highways Agency team, who are supported by our managing agent, Atkins Highways and Transportation and term maintenance contractor, AmeyMouchel.

Suffolk Fire & Rescue
We are a member of the Suffolk Roadsafe Steering Group and Board and contribute to road safety at strategic level. This work is contributing to achieving corporate targets to seek a reduction in the number of people killed and seriously injured on Suffolk’s roads.

As well as responding to road traffic collisions and seeking improvements in this area, we also carry out proactive road safety work using our initiatives Roadkill, Learn and Live and Too Young to Die. Through these we have targeted young drivers and school children identified as being most at risk on our roads.

We also work with the Youth Offending Service and other partner organisations to target our activities to those young people who have been identified as being most likely to be involved in car crime.

We work with our partners to develop initiatives to target older, HGV and Foreign drivers to ensure that they understand the dangers of driving.

Spread over about 7,500 square miles, our diverse area encompasses tranquil rural retreats, busy seaside resorts and large urban conurbations.

But our varied and modern services are tailor-made for each community’s differing environmental and medical needs, from cycles to fast response cars, frontline ambulances, helicopters and emergency care practitioners.

We attend more than half a million emergency calls a year, and transport nearly three times that amount of patients to and from routine hospital appointments.