South Lanarkshire councillors have approved funding to investigate priority areas on roads which have been deemed as unsafe.
At the Road Safety Forum earlier this week, the Priority Road Safety Engineering Projects for 2022/2023 were discussed and key areas identified for review.
Through the council’s Local Transport Strategy 2013 to 2023, a number of road safety policies and actions are identified.
As a result, the council is seeking to reduce the number and severity of casualties within South Lanarkshire and to contribute towards the achievement of the 2030 national casualty reduction targets.
To achieve this, the council assesses road safety inquiries and will target resources and improvements where three or more injuries are occurring in the previous three years or on routes that have an injury rate greater than the national average.
The council delivers annual prioritised road safety improvements at the locations identified through monitoring.
Councillor Robert Brown (Rutherglen South) said: “I have some concerns with previous terminology and the approach to all of this but I think it’s quite useful to see some progress taking place.”
Chair of the Road Safety Forum, Councillor Julia Marrs (Clydesdale North) said: “I think it does highlight the rolling nature of monitoring and sites that we’ve previously seen and carried out works and improvements and they’re back on the list for further monitoring, sites are treated whether or not we have had improvement in the past, and the rolling nature is evidence.”
There are two assessments the council carries out to determine which areas need improvement – a route action assessment plan and a single site assessment.
The assessment for rural routes has been conducted recently and a number of locations have been identified for further detailed investigation.
A total of 32 sections currently have an accident greater than the national average but weightings have been applied where fatal or serious road traffic collisions have been identified.
The new weightings make some routes a higher priority within the action plan than they would be without these additions.
The total number of routes which have been identified for investigation has reached a small number due to the improvement works which have already been implemented or are currently scheduled for future alterations associated with new residential or commercial developments.
Two areas will be investigated with a further five sites subject to a review of existing signage, lining and verge marker posts with works progressing where required.
The annual single site assessment has recently been concluded and 22 locations have been found to have had three or more injury accidents occurring in the past three years.
Weighting factors have been applied with points allocated to each road traffic collision at each site as well as weighing applied sites within the most deprived areas.
The new weightings make some sites feature higher in priority within the single site priority table than they would have previously without these additions. This includes sites with under three road traffic collisions which feature within the priority table for monitoring purposes.
It has been proposed to investigate 10 sites and from the outcome implement a number of schemes.
*Don't miss the latest headlines from around Lanarkshire. Sign up to our newsletters here.
And did you know Lanarkshire Live is on Facebook? Head on over and give us a like and share!
