Safety Seven to save lives

WEST Sussex County Council has enlisted the Safety Seven to help save lives on the county's roads.

The Safety Seven are not fictional comic book heroes, but a new set of road safety principles drawn up by the council.

They underline the main theme of a new five-year strategy aimed at cutting speeds and making children safer.

The strategy was designed to halve the number of child deaths and injuries by the end of the decade, while reducing deaths and serious injuries for all road users by 40 per cent. Minor casualties should fall by 10 per cent.

The seven principles are:

• Improving safety for children
• Producing safer drivers
• Making motorcyclists safer
• Reducing dangers for pedestrians and cyclists
• Producing a safer road system
• Control of speed
• Promoting safer use of roads.

The strategy was proposed by the cabinet and agreed by the council's select committee for strategic environmental services, which was keen to try new measures. Members want to make vulnerable road users safer, especially elderly people and horse riders.

Plans include clamping down on village speed limits, and 20mph zones in residential areas where children are often injured.

Publicity campaigns would be launched to make drivers behave more responsibly, with training schemes and education aimed at youngsters, even while they are at school.

Research is to be carried out to improve the safety of journeys to and from school.

Harold Hall, cabinet member, said: "We have a good record for improving road safety for all users. But we cannot relax and I hope that this new strategy will reduce even further the number of accidents, especially with its emphasis on education."

Dozens of councils and other organisations have contributed their ideas to the strategy, which is due to be considered by the cabinet next month.