newsletter sept09.pub (Read-Only)

SoRSA Newsletter
I S S U E
IN THIS
EDITION:
•
2009 SoRSA con-
SoRSA website
Libby’s experience will not be wasted though as she will be representing SoRSA on IHT Council where we now have a seat.
relaunch
•
2 0 0 9
As observant safety auditors you will have no doubt noticed the
new photo opposite. The first thing I must do as your new chairman
is to say a huge thank you to Libby for the tremendous amount of
hard work she has put in getting SoRSA up and running. After two
years we have a strong foundation to move forward from.
News from the
ference
•
O C T O B E R
News from the New Chair
New Chair
•
6
Road Safety Auditing in New Zealand
Congratulations as well to David George who takes up the post of Vice Chairman.
•
Spotlight on a
SoRSA member
•
And finally...
Thanks must also go to everyone that contributed to our AGM and conference. For
those that couldn’t make it we moved to The Crown Plaza Hotel in Birmingham
this year, and aside from some minor niggles which Aldercross have sorted, the
feedback was very positive. So much so that we have booked the venue for next
year, so put the 14th and 15th June 2010 in your diaries now. The early notice will
give us more time to plan and book the speakers we want so it should be even
better than this year.
Hopefully by then I will have learned to wear the chain of office without bouncing it
off the furniture!
For those of you I have yet to meet my background is local Government. 35 years
at Hampshire County Council in fact, in various roles but primarily road safety ,
safety engineering and of course safety audit. I also sit on the CSS Traffic and
Safety Working Group and IHT Road safety Panel. I seem to be representing both
on the DfT Standing Committee on Road Accident Statistics and currently the
STATS 19 review group. This is an area I feel strongly about, being the foundation
of so much that we do.
I am beginning to think I am an endangered species though. Of the 338 names on
the SoRSA mailing list only 57 are from local authorities. Is this a sign of the
times? Or do Local Authority auditors feel we have nothing to offer? If that is so it
is a great shame, one of the things that I find fascinating is the huge range of
works that our members encounter and talking shop is rarely boring and usually an
opportunity to learn. So many new concepts are coming to the fore that even the
most experienced among us are being faced with new challenges on a regular basis and I hope we can find more ways of sharing our knowledge for all members
wherever they work.
I look forward to serving you all to the best of my ability.
Ian Medd
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2
2009 SoRSA AGM and Conference
The second annual SoRSA conference took place in June and was attended by
120 delegates. All delegates received a SoRSA memory stick containing all the
presentations. The SoRSA AGM was held on the first evening and it included two
presentations for the Colas Young Persons Presentation competition.
At the start of the conference Chris Jackson (IHT President 2009/2010) presented
the 100th SoRSA member with his membership certificate—congratulations to Paul
Fenton. Chris also announced the SoRSA winner of the Colas award representative, congratulations to Steven Alexander who goes on to represent SoRSA at the
national final.
Date for your diary: The second SoRSA AGM and conference is due to be held
on the 14th and 15th June. The AGM will take place on the evening of the 14th.
Watch this space for more details.
Dates for your
diary—to help
you continue
with your two
days CPD
Improved SoRSA website goes live
At the beginning of 2009 the IHT have launched their new look website, in a few weeks
the new sleeker, smoother SoRSA website will be up and running.
An exclusive
Wednesday
3rd June sneak
saw the launch
the improved
SoRSA
website. Feapreview of what the website will look like is below… watch thisofspace
for launch
details.
tures include a register of SoRSA
members, details of forthcoming
events and details of the committee
members are readily available from
the site and we hope to have useful
guidance and factsheets up and running in the near future.
A link can be found from the IHT homepage, alternatively
visit www.iht.org/en/sorsa/ any constructive criticism gratefully received.
SORSA
NEWSLETTER
ISSUE
6
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Safety Auditing Practice in New Zealand – Some
Useful Tips for Travelers
Stage 3 Audit Recommendation:
“The Audit Team noted that all warning signs appeared to be placed upside down.”
Safety Auditing Practice in New Zealand –
Some Useful Tips for Travelers
We’ll, no that’s not a typical safety audit recommendation in
fact for those who haven’t yet visited the southern Antipodes,
as most things seem quite normal and familiar - unless you
spend a lot of your life watching water drain down plugholes
the wrong way that is. However, despite the obvious similarities in approach (the Kiwi’s do sensibly drive on the correct
side of the road for instance), there are some subtle but important differences of approach in many areas of highway
(“roading”) practice in New Zealand, that any newcomer UK
safety auditor or engineer needs to understand.
So, here based upon my vast (ie two years’) experience are
some key tips and extracts from a new Safety Auditing
Phrase Book I’m working on. Hopefully the following will be
of help for anyone wishing to apply their safety engineering
and / or auditing practice experience here in the Land of the
Long White Cloud.
Signing
Not a great deal of scope for recommending yellow backing
boards here, as warning signs to MOTSAM (the Manual of
Traffic Signs and Markings, and a close equivalent of
TSRGD) has adopted the yellow diamond shaped warning
sign. Kiwi’s however will be often be much more familiar with
our UK signing practice, as many will have undertaken their
“OE” (Overseas Experience) in the UK. If not, they will recognise many of the fundamentals of UK traffic practice from a
regular diet of Midsomer Murders, Inspector Morse or Lewis
(hence Oxfordshire County Council, Oxford City Council and
Thames Valley Police traffic engineering and enforcement
procedures will be very familiar to most).
Teach Yourself Audit Terminology
Junction is a term that takes a long
time to kick the habit of weaving into
reports after arriving in New Zealand.
You will think you have removed it
(the correct terminology is of course
“intersection”), only to find it has
crept back in. It’s a difficult habit to
break and so use “intersection” in
conversational language as much as
possible.
Cats eyes will mean little, whereas RRPM or RPM
(Reflective Raised Pavement Markers or Raised Pavement
Markers), as in the phrase “The Audit Team recommend the
more consistent application of RRPM’s” would be more likely
to achieve a favourable response.
EMP’s are a favoured acronym to denote “Edge Marker
Posts”, which are much more widely and consistently applied
on rural routes here, and form a very good delineation feature (as in the Audit Recommendation” The Audit Team recommend the more consistent application and closer spacing
of EMP’s”). Given the high proportion of single vehicle loss of
control incidents on New Zealand rural roads, the edge
marker post is a valuable and cost effective means of achieving a good standard of edge delineation. For those interested
in details however, they are reflective white to the nearside
and yellow to an offside curve (bend), except on a straight,
when... Anyway, MOTSAM is helpfully on line if you think this
sort of detail might come up at a quiz night sometime soon.
Driving Practices
Give Way to the Right. Most UK expats (Poms, see also
Australian term “Whingeing”) will struggle with the “Give Way
to the Right” rule here. It goes like this - if turning left at a
junction (see also intersection), the driver is required to give
way to an oncoming vehicle that might wish to turn right into
the same intersection. It is generally the surest way to spot a
fellow Brit on your travels, as someone will be honking a
horn (or worse) at them for forgetting.₁
Young Drivers. Yes you did hear or read it somewhere correctly – young people are permitted to drive on a restricted
license from 15 years in New Zealand. There is also no compulsory third party insurance and many drive quite high performance (if old) vehicles. There are some problems with
young driver behaviour and high casualty rates. There is
considerable national debate and much research into
whether there are any possible linkages between these issues₂
Footnote: My eldest son is 15 and I wouldn’t trust him to
cook me beans on toast.
There are still significant issues to be dealt with in prioritising crash protection
systems for major structures adjacent to busy routes. Passive safety techniques are being examined closely at present for cost effectiveness.
The use of mobile (cell) phones and texting while on the
move has also not been outlawed as yet, and so it would
seem a high proportion of road users prefer to travel in large
four wheel drive vehicles for their own safety, when (unlike in
Kensington or Chelsea) there is really no need to waste
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4
money on spray on mud to give your vehicle that authentic
look. The six sheep hanging out of the back (I know you
were looking for the sheep reference somewhere) suffices
well enough.₃
basic rules for which are broadly similar to our own, whilst
acknowledging that many of the practices we take for
granted (such as the regular and heavy application of high
friction surfacing) are often not a cost effective or appropriate
engineering solution to an extremely challenging road environment.
There is a common phrase Kiwi’s use to describe their often
ingenious application of basic technology to their needs – its
called “The Number 8 Wire” mentality (where number 8 wire,
as it took me ages to discover, is a gauge of fencing wire). If
you can’t make it out of that or corrugated iron (wrinkly tin as
it’s known around here) it probably isn’t going to work. It’s
certainly been a life changing experience adapting a Home
Counties and UK approach to road safety practice (which I’m
happy to remind them regularly is the best in the world of
course) to a very, very different road environment.
As a footnote, there is considerable interest here in SoRSA –
and I’m pleased to say there are some very, very good safety
auditors and engineers here that we would do well to welcome into the SoRSA fold (if you’ll excuse a final sheep analogy).
There is still widespread use of simple sight rails adjacent to unrecoverable
drops and significant roadside structures and culverts on busier routes. These
are the subject of large scale programmes of removal or redesign of the hazard, improved protection or increased delineation in the interim. Typical issues
identified through network safety inspection process which help to identify and
rank risks.
Tim Cheesebrough – SoRSA Web Officer, Southern
Hemisphere
And on a Serious Note….
New Zealand and Australia were among the first countries
elsewhere in the world to consider and adapt UK safety auditing practices, through good work carried out here by captains of our profession – Barbara Sabey and Malcolm Bulpitt
to name but two. Fostered and adapted to the New Zealand
environment by valued friends and colleagues here such as
Dr. Ian Appleton and my own work colleague Marten Oppenhuis, New Zealand has achieved in partnership with Australia, safety auditing practices that are second to none, in
meeting the rather different needs of New Zealand and Australian roads.
Embedded into typical practice by the New Zealand Transport Agency (the New Zealand equivalent of a merged DfT
and Highways Agency) and many territorial local road controlling authorities, is the safety auditing of existing routes.
This, combined with a more rigorous application of ranking
(or risk assessment) of recommendations for both existing
road safety audits and for new schemes, enables a cost effective set of practical recommendations and improvements
to be considered for New Zealand’s roads.
Although in cities such as Auckland traffic levels can be as
high as any British city, there are also many, many miles
(sorry, kilometers) of rural route where there may be only a
few hundred vehicles a day. When combined with mountainous terrain in some places and with still a high proportion of
unsealed roads, the need for pragmatic risk ratings of safety
audit recommendations such as “That further consideration
be given to the addition of safety barrier” isn’t viewed as especially helpful, constructive or cost effective.
So the key lessons thus far have been about appropriately
adapting United Kingdom practice to a road environment, the
SORSA
NEWSLETTER
The
deployment of innovative bend delineation and advisory speed chevron signing for out of context curves, widespread on New Zealand’s roads, represent
an excellent technique for better managing curve speeds on rural routes. The
technique to grade curves and advise drivers accordingly may have benefits
for UK roads with the drive to tackle higher risk rural routes contained in the
governments new safety strategy to 2020 review.
Footnotes
1, 2 and 3.
In August 2009 (I would like to think in response to this draft
article, but probably not), the New Zealand Ministry of Transport published its “Safer Journeys” Road Safety Strategy to
2020 Discussion Document. Among some 60 optional initiatives to improve the safety record of New Zealand’s roads
under a “safe system” approach of Safer Roads and Roadsides, Safer Speeds, Safer Road Users and Safer Vehicles;
there are possible measures to abandon the give way to the
right rule, raise the young driver qualification age to 16 or 17
and introduce compulsory third party insurance. On November 1st 2009 hand held mobile phones will be outlawed.
ISSUE
6
PAGE
SPOTLIGHT ON… Mike Bowen
Spotlight on is a new feature where we get to know one of our fellow SoRSA members. Mike works for Capita Symonds.
Age: 30
Number of years in the profession: 7
Number of years as a road safety auditor: 5
Number of road safety audits completed: Approximately 150
Have you ever completed an audit with no issues: No—there’s always something lurking somewhere!!
Outside of auditing what do you get up to: Playing hockey for Carlisle hockey club and cricket for Scotby
cricket Club
If you could star in a Sitcom which one would it be and why: Only fools and horses—just to have a
conversation with Trigger—he is a legend.
Claim to fame: I played cricket at Edgbaston in the Wrigley’s Softball National Finals (when I was 10!) - I got my award presented by Gladstone
Small.
What’s the most outrageous thing you’ve ever done: I wore my sisters school uniform on my 21st birthday.
When you were growing up what did you want to become: Paramedic or professional cricketer.
What’s the strangest saying you’ve ever heard: It’s Fergal outside—meaning cold (as in Fergal Sharky—Parky!)
If you could travel in time what year would you chose and why: 1999—so that I could put a bet on Jimmy Glass (Carlisle Utd’s
goalkeeper) scoring the winning goal to keep them in the league
Thanks to Mike for this
And Finally...
Libby Sands sends in this coherent cycle
route!?!
If you would like anything entered in this newsletter
contact [email protected]
The Institution of Highways & Transportation
119 Britannia Walk
London
N1 7JE
Registered Charity No. 267321 Registered in England
No. 252735
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