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Backing for
Lancashire’s Seatbelts Save Lives campaign
 THE
Highways Agency and the North West Motorway Police Group are
backing a campaign in Lancashire to encourage drivers and passengers
to belt up when taking to the county's roads.
Safer Lancashire's 'Seatbelts Save Lives' advertising
campaign was launched last month with a hard-hitting message that
wearing a seat belt can be the difference between life and death in
a road accident.
The campaign, which is running until the middle of this month, has
won the backing of the Highways Agency's engineering teams in
Manchester and the North West Traffic Officer Service, which is
based at the Regional Control Centre just off the M6 at
Newton-le-Willows.
Combining adverts and posters on buses, billboards and football
match programmes with social media; including a YouTube video; the
campaign is targeted at all drivers and passengers but especially
men between the ages of 25 to 34 as well as dads in danger of
passing their bad habits onto their children.
Safer Lancashire, a coalition of local councils, the police and NHS
partners, says almost a quarter of all the people who died on
Lancashire's roads in the last two years were not wearing their
seatbelts.
Backing the campaign, the Highways Agency says the risks of failing
to belt up on the motorway network are especially high and the
consequences often devastating given the high speed environment
drivers and their passengers find themselves in.
Indeed, Seatbelts Save Lives features the saved-by-the-belt story of
local driver Rick Pilkington of Samlesbury near the Highways Agency
Traffic Officer Service’s own Lancashire outstation just off
Junction 31 of the M6.
Rick was fined for not wearing his seatbelt just 4 weeks before a
horrible accident on the M6 when, following a collision with a
lorry, his van flipped, jumped the hard shoulder and rolled onto its
side. Rick believes only wearing his seatbelt prevented him from
being thrown from the vehicle and killed.
John McTaggart, Highways Agency Head of On Road Operations for the
North and in charge of the region's on road traffic officers, said
that:- "Our patrols have been at the scene of some awful
tragedies over the last 6 years. The conclusion our Traffic Officers
come to when they find out someone has been thrown from a vehicle is
that wearing a seatbelt can really make a difference between life
and death."
The launch of Safer Lancashire's Seatbelts Save Lives campaign
brought a stern message from Cheshire Police's Inspector Andrew
Chandler who is in charge of the North West Motorway Police Group,
also based at the Highways Agency's Regional Control Centre.
Inspector Chandler said:- "The NWMPG runs frequent operations
to target illegal behaviour and that includes drivers who fail to
wear their seat belts. Drivers and passengers who use the motorway
network across the North West can expect to be stopped and
prosecuted for failing to wear or maintain their seatbelt. Drivers
and passengers who fail to wear seatbelt in the front and back of
vehicles are breaking the law and face on-the-spot fines of £60. If
prosecuted, the maximum fine is £500. Our key message though is that
in a crash you're you’re twice as likely to die if you don’t wear a
seatbelt. In 2009, of the 1,059 car occupants killed in crashes, 21%
were not wearing a seatbelt. You should always wear a seatbelt no
matter how short your journey is."
All of the materials used in Safer Lancashire’s campaign, including
the YouTube video interview with Rick Pilkington, can be viewed at:-
saferlancashire.co.uk.
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Bus Passenger
Satisfaction Survey
BUS passengers across Merseyside are happier
with their services than the national average after the independent
watchdog Passenger Focus revealed the results of their latest
survey.
86% of those surveyed were happy with their service and
significantly, passengers using Merseytravel’s Quality Bus
Partnership routes are happier still, with 90% satisfaction levels.
Merseytravel introduced Quality Partnership’s on certain routes from
Liverpool to Croxteth, St Helens, Speke and Crosby. They were
introduced in partnership with the bus operators and district
authorities and provide passengers with integrated timetabling and
shared ticketing.
Further routes are set to be added in the next few months on two
Wirral corridors, specifically improving services along the A41 and
Woodchurch Road to Heswall corridors.
Chair of Merseytravel, Councillor Mark Dowd, who was recently
recognised as the most influential regional politician in public
transport, commented:- "To score higher than the national
average in terms of satisfaction is pleasing, but we are always
striving to improve the experience for passengers. We co-ordinate
the entire transport needs of millions of people making hundreds of
millions of journeys, so it is vital that we continue to work
closely with our operator partners, and build on our successes
including introducing integrated ticketing and delivering brilliant
hubs."
Merseytravel’s population involves 1.4m people taking 182.1m
journeys a year on 678.6m passenger miles of public transport which
includes bus, rail and river.
Jim Barclay, interim Chief Executive of Merseytravel said:-
"We welcome the recognition of our quality bus partnership project,
and will continue to work towards delivering similar schemes on the
routes we have identified with our partners as being suitable."
TramForward looks to rapid
progress on Wirral Tramway
TRAMFORWARD welcomes the Wirral Tramway
proposals made by Merseytravel. The mix of a modern tramway and a
tourist operation as proposed for Wirral has already been pioneered
to great success in San Francisco and there are now over 50 similar
schemes across the US. The Wirral Waters developer, Peel
Holdings, has demonstrated its support; funding part of the
development work, offering half the cost of the current financial
consultants’ review and making very generous offers of land and
other assistance to facilitate tramway works. The up to date section
of the tramway will speed development of Wirral Waters, bringing
jobs, customers and increasing local rates income as well as having
a huge range of environmental benefits. When the government
held its "Tram Summit" in November of 2011 the
challenge was to find schemes that gave large benefits and could be
implemented at an affordable cost in a time of austerity. The Wirral
Tramway is just such a scheme. Success on Merseyside can demonstrate
to other councils innovative ways to pull their areas out of
recession. Merseytravel, Peel and their advisors are to be praised
for the imagination shown by this scheme. TramForward hopes
that all the parties to this scheme can now move ahead towards a
rapid implementation of the project.
Witness appeal to a serious RTC in
Old Roan
MERSEYSIDE Police are appealing for witnesses
after 2 elderly pedestrians were involved in a serious RTC in Old
Road, Aintree, on Wednesday, 29 February 2012. Officers are
investigating after a man in his 80s and a woman in her 70s collided
with a car at around 3.25pm as they crossed at the junction of
Molyneux Way and Altway. The man suffered a broken ankle and facial
injuries and was taken to hospital in a serious, but stable
condition. The woman suffered cuts and bruises and was taken to
hospital for treatment before later being released. The driver of
the car, a Freelander Landrover, stopped at the scene and is helping
police with their enquiries. Anyone who witnessed the incident, or
has any information, is asked to call Merseyside Police on:- 0151
777 5444, or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on:- 0800 555 111. |
