I note that this week’s TMAP (Traffic Management Advisory Panel) meeting will receive a report on the current Road Safety Awareness Campaign. The campaign consists of erecting signs (including a Smiley Sid flashing speed warning sign) along known traffic speeding hotspots for two weeks at a time, then moving on to the next hotspot. The theory is that you make an impact in the first two weeks but that beyond that time, the impact falls away dramatically as drivers get used to the signs.

The good news is that the Smiley Sid signs also detect average  vehicle speeds from each site where they are installed so RBC now have useful data on average traffic speeds. The not so good news is that they have no action plan on how to deal with the speeding hotspots now that they know definitely where they are. They have spent a year on a campaign that has told them where the hotspots are, something that local councillors already knew pretty well, and their only plan of action is to ask the local neighbourhood police to enforce speed limits at these hotspots.

You may remember that it was me that came up with the idea of providing local neighbourhood police with speed guns (see my post from March this year) and that I got them inserted into the budget for 2009-10 months after the Speed Awareness Campaign had kicked off. Well my information is that council officers have only ordered 2 out of 4 speed guns and we are still some weeks off seeing them in action. None of which says very much about the effectiveness of our coyuncil when it comes to tackling speeding even though it is a major issue for many residents, especially those living in the outer suburbs where traffic flows freely and motorists speed by default.

I did not realise what a struggle it would be to get speed guns into the hands of neighbourhood police teams. It seemed like such a straightforward solution to the problem of speeding which required some form of enforcement.  Anyway, some of them will be available for use soon and I look forward to seeing them in action, especially on the Tilehurst Roads where residents regularly complain to me about speeding cars.

The issue about speeding is not that is just dangerous (which it patently is) but that it also creates the perception in residents minds that there is nothing that can be done about it and that  their own streets are no longer safe places to walk in or to let children walk in. This is not good enough. The council and police, between them, need to re-assure our residents that speeding is taken seriously. We have never really tackled this issue before as it has been too difficult and we did not have the technology.

Speeding is a bit like crime, every time you hear about or see  an incident, it creates more fear that you or your children will be the next victims. It takes a long period with very few incidents to re-assure the public and change their perception.

In the meantime I look forward to some explanation of why it has taken the council so long as I intend to ask questions at this week’s TMAP meeting.