Road safety concerns over lack of interest despite increased incidents across Warwickshire

Paul Kerr, from Warwick, had hoped to launch the 2016 Coventry and Warwickshire Student Road Safety Awards at an event on Friday.

But due to a lack of interest both to this and to a seminar to assess road safety for youngsters aged from 11 to 18 across the city and county Mr Kerr will instead hold a much smaller meeting with a handful of interested parties today (Friday).

Mr Kerr said: “I am concerned about the lack of concern from secondary schools on road safety.

“As you will see from the Warwickshire County Council’s stats there has been an increase in all severities on our roads.

“Seeing these I thought that it would be good to get secondary schools across Coventry and Warwickshire to discover what road safety education is currently available to them, see what can be done to improve it and to take-up of courses and to launch the Student Road Safety Awards.

“It is a recognised fact the students from 11 - 18 years of age need road safety education before they start driving.”

Warwickshire County Council has reported that in 2014 there were a total of 2,261 casualties of all severities in road accidents in the county reported to the police, a 16,per cent increase compared to 2013.

There were 28 people killed - up from 23 in 2013 - and 315 people were killed or seriously injured - up from 288 in 2013.

The number of casualties in 2014 increased compared to 2013 for all the main road user groups - car and taxi users by five per cent, pedestrians by 45 per cent and motorcyclists and cyclists by 21 per cent.