The new ‘Local Road Safety Index’ – could AXA’s commitment to road safety have been better channelled?
Friday 30th August 2013
A new interactive road safety tool, produced by AXA Car Insurance in partnership with Road Safety Analysis, shows that more than half-a-million collisions have taken place on local roads around UK schools in the past six years.
AXA says that Britain’s first Local Road Safety Index has been launched to “help parents better understand the risks associated with the roads around their local schools to keep their children safe”.
The data, relating to the 500-metre radius around UK schools, can be broken down by local authority, region and city.
It shows that during the five years 2006-2011, there has been a total of 557,200 vehicle collisions within 500m of a school which, on average, equates to seven collisions per school per year. It also shows that 37% of local school areas have had at least one child casualty each year, while 5,831 schools (20%) have reported no child casualties in the past six years. The collisions have resulted in 85,814 fatal, seriously injured and slightly injured child casualties, representing one child casualty in every six collisions.
James Barclay of AXA Car Insurance, said: “Child road safety is of paramount importance to everyone in Britain so the more that can be done to understand the facts, and therefore adapt infrastructure or education methods, the better. The Local Road Safety Index is a big step towards being able to truly understand how the infrastructure within local areas around schools needs to be developed to make roads safer for children.”
However, while welcoming AXA’s interest in road safety, Road Safety GB is questioning the value of the new tool – and points out that Road Safety GB is not part of the ‘coalition’ behind the project, as referred to in the media release produced by AXA’s PR agency.
Honor Byford, vice chair of Road Safety GB, said: “It’s great that AXA are taking an interest in road safety and we whole heartedly applaud their enthusiasm and commitment to this project. However, we wonder whether their efforts could have been better channelled?
“The data referred to in this road safety index is already available to local authority road safety teams and can be called up with a few clicks of a mouse.
“Also, the data relates to all collisions, most of which (83% in fact) will not have involved a child. For the tool to be really useful for schools and parents more detailed information about child casualties is required, such as the age of the child, time of the collision and whether it occurred during term time.
“For those interested in road safety around schools, there is an existing website,
http://www.schooltravelfacts.com, which has a downloadable road safety map showing school location, collisions and walking/cycling thresholds for every registered school in the country. There is also the DFT's Road Safety Comparison website where local data is provided and comparisons between local authorities can be made.
“As road safety officers working for local authorities we already have access to this information and should be using it in our work. Every Local Highway Authority already analyses crash and casualty data to identify the highest risk sites and routes, in order to prioritise engineering work to where the need or risk is greatest.?
“We strongly support and promote road safety education for children throughout their childhood, from pre-school to learning to cycle and then drive safely.
“We believe that providing children and young people with the information and skills they need to use the roads safely throughout their lives is the best investment we can make. This is the important task for which our profession, parents, teachers, other agencies and society at large share responsibility.”
And from AXA Insurance (where you can enter your PC and see that areas local accidents :
Local Road Safety Index
Understanding the road risks in your local area
After months of planning and development Road Safety Analysis – who independently collated and analysed more than 200,000 pieces of data from the Department for Transport* and AXA are pleased to launch the ‘Local Road Safety Index’.
Road Safety Analysis’ data relates specifically to roads that are within the 500 metre radius around British schools. It has been collated to help local authorities, parents, teachers and drivers have a better understanding of the road risks in specific local areas. The data looks at all road related incidents that are reported to the police.
Road safety incidents occur for a number of different reasons and schools play a pivotal role in mitigating these risks by investing time in road safety education programmes. The Index will help Road Safety Officers around the country develop road safety education programmes according to the specific needs of their local community.
The information provided will be used as a basis for discussion with children, parents, schools, residents, local authorities and local road safety officers to help further improve the safety of our local roads. For further information about the methodology of the work, please visit
http://www.roadsafetyanalysis.co.uk where you will find information. Alternatively, email them on
info@roadsafetyanalysis.co.uk* When considering the Index, statistics have been generated by analysing the roads that are located within the 500 metre radius around each British school. Figures take into account all incidents regardless of whether they were in school term times or not. They also incorporate both child and adult casualties. The child casualty numbers do not necessarily mean children who belong to that particular school, as they could be residents or children passing through the area. Road Safety Analysis used GIS mapping technology to analyse the roads that are situated within the 500 metre radius around each of the 29,142 UK schools. Official Government statistics from the Department for Transport for 2006-2011 were used to compile this road index.
Please enter your postcode below and search to see how safe your local roads are.
As we can see they ARE clearly interpreting this as a local road risk ! It is NOT, they have done nothing like enough work to establish this!
And the original PR from "Rd Safety Analysis"
Road Safety Analysis wrote:
AXA Insurance PR
Here’s the report:
More than half-a-million (557,200) collisions have taken place on local roads within a 500 metre radius of British schools in the past six years, resulting in 85,814 child casualties (fatal, seriously injured and slightly injured).
As the new school year approaches, AXA Car Insurance and Road Safety Analysis - a leading provider of road safety research and evaluation services - have launched Britain's first Local Road Safety Index. It will help parents better understand the risks associated with the roads around their local schools to keep their children safe.
The Local Road Safety Index has been developed by analysing a total of 200,000 pieces of data relating to the immediate areas surrounding Britain's 29,142 schools. This data reveals the total number of collisions and casualties in these areas, including children and adults, and if they were pedestrians, cyclists or vehicle occupants.
A recent report by AXA Car Insurance revealed that almost nine out of ten (86 per cent)* parents want the ability to access road safety information relating to their local school area, yet there was previously nothing to enable them to do so. Today's Local Road Safety Index provides parents, schools and local authorities with the information they need to understand how safe - or not - their local roads are. It will also help to develop and tailor road safety education while determining the specific road infrastructure required - such as speed bumps, crossings or other road calming measures - to further reduce collisions and casualties.
The data, relating to the 500 metre radius around British schools and covering the last six years, revealed some concerning statistics, which can be broken down by local authority, region, and city:
· Overall, there have been 557,200 vehicle collisions
· There are, on average, seven collisions per school per year
· 37 per cent of local school areas have had at least one child casualty each year
· 85,814 children have been casualties on local roads around British schools - equating to as many as 1,190 every month
· Fortunately, 5,831 schools (20 per cent) have reported no child casualties in the past six years
Having spoken to Dan Campsall directly, (and I was pleased to speak to him as it cleared up several points), who tried to say that they have not suggested that these roads should receive 'treatment', he then on to explain alterations ought to be looked at.
He felt that they had 'allowed' for the Regression effect by using a wider than originally size area (said that AXA wanted a smaller than 500m area), and over 6 years!
I agreed that the 6yrs was better but to be absolutely sure then every accident would need to be studied if it had anything specific to do with any education establishment and nothing else. This has NOT been done and he scoffed at the idea, saying that this wasn't what it was intended for but those who were using their current 'crashmap.co.uk' were Councils, developers, architects, and various road safety individual and organisations. Rarely do individuals use it so no mis-interuptations would occur !!! This report is only the first and little to compare it to, i.e. what else is in the area (like trees) to see if they have an effect on road safety or not.
All they are doing is helping parents and schools (and those who are not otherwise aware), and any others who use this collection of figures, think that there is a link with accidents and education establishments. This link is no more than 'dense areas of traffic', of which there is NO causal link, but some WILL believe and assume that somehow there is now a 'safe zone' outside some schools, and not others!!!! Implying some schools are 'safer than others' when NO LINK exists ! As they day 'fortunately' at those where there is less, yes it IS FORTUNE not management but if those Ed Est are rural and so far less busy it will have SOME effect as they are less dense! It could be other factors like road routes around those establishments with large carparks, etc etc !
They have done NOTHING to find out if every EdEst has off street parking or facilities for car whatsoever. It is MERELY a list of accidents in those locations, that's IT. Nothing more nothing less.
It is utterly disgraceful because they are implying it is 'something' helpful yet it is MEANINGLESS.
Dan could not see that people will use this whatsoever and of course if individuals try to request cameras or ever more (very) potentially un-necesssary road furnishings it gets the public 'on their belief' side ... implying that a problem exists and they have solutions to solve it.
I DO agree that they have a database of figures of road incidents IF it can be trusted IF it is honest. Whilst I assume that it IS honest I have not checked.
IF this is the case then they do have a list which simply shows where some KSI have happened.
UNLESS we are focusing on potential black spots which may start to show up then ONLY proper sound science & engineering solutions WILL resolve it.
If they looked at ALL areas and found a significant link between those areas without education establishments and those with then they might have some indicator if it were consistent over those 6 yrs but they HAVE NOT done this nor even tried to.
He claimed that he will send me the report. I await it and will put it up here or a link to it.
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being a main school route . .Enforcement is usually seen when little Tarqin should be safely tucked up inside locked /controled school gates .