Colin Buchanan was commissioned by the Department of the Environment's Road Safety Division to: undertake a literature review of road safety for children and young people in rural areas and review current and planned interventions in rural areas undertake a 10 year analysis of collision and casualty data for children (aged 0-15) and young people (aged 16-24) in rural areas to identify influencing factors and any common trends, patterns and characteristics of rural casualties and collisions investigate the travel patterns, behaviour and attitudes of children and young people on road safety in rural areas recommend specific action measures aimed at reducing collisions and casualties involving children and young people in rural areas in Northern Ireland The study was based on demographic data for each of the 890 Census Super Output Areas (SOAs) and road collision data for the period 2000-2009 supplied by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). The road collision data comprised records for 63,340 collisions involving 102,997 casualties of which 38,440 were under 25 years old. In addition to the ten year dataset, a three year dataset was provided by the PSNI for the period April 2007 — March 2010 (inclusive). Postcode information relating to casualties has been recorded by the PSNI since April 2007. This allowed an analysis to take place of how the location of collision and location of residence of the casualty are distributed. Key points of relevance to the study were identified in three key areas. These included: * Behaviours and attitudes to road safety: * many attitudes and behaviours associated with risky drivers are present at ages much younger than 17 (Waylen and McKenna (2002)) * account needs to be taken of the individual differences in characteristics such as sensation-seeking, anti-social behaviour and competitiveness (Waylen and McKenna (2002)) * speed is a major contributory factor in collisions involving young people on rural roads (DOE(2010a)) * young male drivers are more confident than young female drivers (Scottish Executive Social Research (2005)) and male and younger drivers show more enjoyment and riskier behaviours particularly on unfamiliar rural roads. Their perceptions of risk are minimised by their confidence (Collins et al(2008)) * the presence of passengers such as family members moderates risk but for young male drivers the presence of friends of a similar age encourages riskier behaviours (Collins et al(2008)) * in Ireland, young male drivers are disproportionately at risk of being killed when drinking and driving (Bedford et al(undated)) * Drivers in rural areas are less likely than urban drivers to wear seatbelts and are more likely to drive under the influence of alcohol (Rakauskas et al(2007)) * Exposure to risk on rural roads - young children are especially at risk on rural roads where the severity ratio is 50% higher than on urban roads (TRL (2004)) - Child cyclists using rural routes are more at risk from being involved in a serious collision that those in urban areas (DfT (2010)) - Children in rural areas may be more exposed to accident risk as car passengers because of the greater car ownership, longer trip lengths and higher levels of travel to school by car (Christie et al(2002)) * Interventions - Engineering measures tried and tested in rural areas include speed reducing techniques such as traffic calming, improvements to verges and bend treatments - Publicity techniques to attract the attention of young drivers have also been tried and tested and have indicated that young people need to be able to relate to what they are seeing in order for it to be effective - Research has shown that young people are receptive to better training particularly when driving on rural roads. However, they are averse to any restrictions to limit or restrict their freedom (Collins et al (2008)). McKenna (2010) highlighted the need for supporting evidence when advocating road safety education interventions to ensure their effectiveness - Acknowledging that road safety is a life-skill and supporting and encouraging parents and teachers to pass on road safety messages to children from a young age will help to ensure that as they grow-up they are made aware of the risks they face in the present and in the future. Road collision casualty data were provided by the PSNI. The data covered the period January 2000 to March 2010 (inclusive). The population data used were those relating the 2001 Northern Ireland Census. The data were downloaded from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) website. Deprivation data relating to the Multiple Deprivation Measure (MDM) for 2005 were downloaded from the NISRA website. (Author/publisher)
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