Gloucestershire County Council (one element of the the Road Safety Partnership) is recognised by the Department for Transport as the local processing authority for road accident statistics.

This is a role performed on behalf of Gloucestershire Constabulary and it involves collecting from their officers, selected details of every injury accident they attend. In addition to this national requirement, the county also collects information relating to ‘damage only’ accidents where a prosecution file is being prepared.

Each report is carefully checked using a computer-generated map of the county. Details like road type, road number and grid reference are especially important. Once a month the data is transferred to the Department for Transport to assist with the compilation of national road casualty statistics

As a result, the Partnership has access to a database dating back to 1983 and containing just over 100,000 records, which can be used together with the computer mapping system to monitor risk, accident clusters and concentrations on the highway network.

The mapping system can be used to study clusters of accidents by any of the characteristics stored on the database. This information is invaluable in our road safety life skills planning, and campaign work.

In addition to identifying accident clusters and “Hot Spots”, the database can also be used to:

• Determine the nature and characteristics of accidents along routes;
• Help prioritise spending on road improvements
• Ensure that proposals with road safety benefits receive priority consideration, and
• Identify speed related accident clusters where Safety Cameras may be beneficial.