A Petition for the Reduction of Speeds on White Horse Drive Oakdale
BOROUGH OF POOLE
TRANSPORTATION ADVISORY GROUP – 31 JULY 2008
REPORT OF HEAD OF TRANSPORTATION SERVICES
ON A PETITION FOR THE REDUCTION OF SPEEDS ON WHITE HORSE DRIVE OAKDALE
1.Purpose and Policy Context
1.1To consider a petition to reduce vehicle speeds on White Horse Drive, Oakdale.
1.2The Council’s Transportation Strategy aims to achieve a reduction in injury accidents on our roads.
- Recommendation
2.1It is recommended that:-
a)the petition is noted and the petitioners are advised that the cost of installing traffic calming measures cannot be justified at the present time, for the reasons set out below in 4.2.and 4.3.
b)The Area Committee is invited to consider the feasibility of introducing a 20mph limit to compliment the recreation facilities being proposed for the central green
3.Information
3.1A petition has been received which has been signed by 48 people, representing 35 out of the 50 dwellings in the road.
3.2The petition requests that in order to stop cars speeding, ramps be provided for White Horse Drive.
3.3The road ( shown as Appendix A ) is just over 200 metres in length and runs in a north-east to south-westerly direction together with a small semi-circular section of service road surrounding an open space. It is a residential cul-de-sac and the access road is just over 6 metres wide with no parking restrictions.
3.4The road traffic collisions records for the road indicate that there has been just one slight injury accident in the last 25 years. This involved a 51 year-old female cyclist and it occurred outside 7 White Horse Drive in October 1987.
3.5Preliminary speed surveys carried out indicate that average vehicle speeds in White Horse Drive are at around 22mph and 85th%ile speeds are around 24mph. These sorts of results are below average for residential roads with direct property frontage. It was observed at the time of the survey that residents vehicles parked in the road had a calming influence on traffic speeds.
4.0Background
4.1Poole’s Road Safety Engineering Programme no longer considers treating solitary accident collision hotspots because the worst locations around Poole have now been largely dealt with. As the programme worked its way down the collision hotspot list of around 60 individual sites, it was treating sites with significantly fewer accident numbers. It also became more difficult to analyse these accident sites and find common causation factors with such small numbers involved and this makes finding engineering solutions more problematic.
4.2The government has set challenging casualty reduction targets to the year 2010. It therefore expects that funding it provides will be spent in reducing casualties, thus providing value for money. In terms of "return on investment" it becomes more difficult to justify any remedial measures at individual sites with small accident numbers - in other words the cost of the work is not justifiable in terms of overall accident savings and any casualty reduction.
4.3White Horse Drive does not appear in the previous list of top 60 collision hotspots and the road does not fall in an area which meets any of the current accident intervention criteria. This means that at present it is considered not justifiable to fund engineering measures to calm traffic in White Horse Drive.
4.4In terms of speed enforcement, a copy of the petition was passed to both the Dorset Safety Camera Partnership and Dorset Police at the recent Police Road Safety Tasking and Co-ordinating Group meeting for their attention and consideration of mobile speed enforcement. The measured speeds and low accident history will mean, however, that the road is only ever likely to receive passing attention in terms of enforcement.
4.5Poole Housing Partnership (PHP) is, however, currently consulting residents on possible playground facilities on the green in the centre of the road. Although this Group would not be able to justify introducing calming features the ambient traffic speeds are relatively low and the Area Committee could consider implementing a 20 mph limit to compliment the playground proposals. PHP’s proposals would be firmer by the time the Area Committee considers this issue – their next meeting is on 10 September at which they will consider their programme for next financial year.
Julian McLaughlin
Head of Transportation Services
Appendix A – Whitehorse Drive
Name and Telephone Number of Officer Contact
Martin Baker(01202) 262073
Background Papers - none
19 May 2008
TAG310708T3B
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