Road Safety Week 15th– 21st November 2021

Its Road Safety Week 2021 this week – how can TWM help make roads safer?

Road Safety Week, run by Brake, is the UK’s largest road safety event and brings businesses and communities together to promote the right to safe and healthy journeys.

Raising awareness of road safety is crucial to combat the range of dangers and hazards on our roads. Here at TWM, we have taken a look at some of the ways our solutions can help improve road safety, including road safety signs, zebra crossing belisha beacons and vehicle activate signage.

The DayBright PLUS is an alternative belisha beacon head that includes the industry-standard globe, enhanced with a halo of super bright amber LEDs. The DayBright range of retro-fit LED products are designed to give drivers enhanced visibility of pedestrian zebra crossings, improving pedestrian safety. DayBright is a leading product in today’s market that when fitted to existing pedestrian crossing posts, gives 24-hour high-performance illumination in all conditions, especially very bright sunlight.

School Safety

Speeding close to schools and through villages is a key concern for a large proportion of rural communities. In areas around schools, it is important to ensure drivers are aware that they are entering an area where there are likely to be children and that correlating low-speed zones are highlighted accordingly, for instance through part time ‘20mph speed zone’ signage.

It is important to make drivers aware of when they are entering into school zones as they may not always be obvious in more rural locations. By utilizing safe route to school signage with twin amber flashers (TAFs) as well as LED belisha beacons, drivers can become more aware of why there is a reduced speed limit, which will help with compliance.

TWM supported Edinburgh City Council in a pilot School Streets scheme, introducing part-time pedestrianised areas around schools. Overall, there was a reduction in vehicle speeds by up to 34% on both School Streets and surrounding streets along with a net reduction in traffic volumes across the associated streets, with up to 68% less vehicles in some locations.

Safety on rural roads

Temperatures in rural settings can be much lower than in our towns and cities and this can impact driving conditions on rural roads. During the colder months, there is more likely to be ice and slippery conditions as well as a higher likelihood of debris which may cause drivers to swerve or lose control of the vehicle. Should drivers not be aware of the shift in temperature they can be caught out by icy surfaces.

Installation of ice warning signs with an automated temperature detector can be a useful way of warning drivers of potential hazards. When the temperature falls to an established point, alternating amber LEDs are activated.

Intelligent signage can use radar detection to activate only when a car approaches so as to limit energy consumption and improve efficiency.

Urban driving environments

Speed indication devices (SIDs) measure the speed of oncoming vehicles and display this speed on the sign. By making drivers aware of their speed, especially in built-up areas, the signs encourage adherence to the speed limit abd have been proven to reduce the issue of speeding.

Interactive speed control signs can use radar detection to recognise oncoming vehicles and activate the LED signage to display the speed limit instead of drivers’ speed. It is also possible for speed control signs to be flashing speed signs with corner amber LED clusters or feature red LEDs around the rim of the sign to further increase visibility.

The next generation of intelligent transport systems involves multifunctional signage which can display dual safety messages subject to the relevant hazard for the road user. This can be particularly useful in urban driving environments, for example, using radar technology it is possible to display a ‘junction ahead’ warning should a car be detected approaching a junction.  The technology can also be used to display speed warning messages, speed limit or speed display message in response to an oncoming vehicle.

By implementing such technologies, road safety can be prioritised whilst ensuring street clutter is avoided.