The London Borough of Bromley has one of the highest levels of car ownership in London. Out of a population of approximately 300,000, over thirty per cent of households have two or more vehicles. There are 500 miles of road in the Borough and, as seventy per cent of all journeys are less than one mile, this can lead to congestion. Also, more cars mean more accidents.
The Road Safety Unit has access to the details of all accidents that result in personal injury, and are recorded by the Police. In the year 2007 there were 676 accidents resulting in 900 casualties. Of these 7 were fatalities and 136 serious injuries.
The information obtained from the accident details is used by a variety of people, both in and out of Bromley Council:
- By Road Safety Officers and Traffic Engineers in prioritising and targeting problem sites.
- By Road Safety Officers to decide routes for the Walking Bus scheme and Safer Routes to School.
- By local residents requesting details of accidents on a particular road.
- By Road Safety Officers when working in local schools on statistics projects as part of the Traffic Education scheme.
- By consultancy and engineering firms in the planning stages of a project and solicitors requesting details of accidents on a particular road. The charge to businesses is £35.