Lincolnshire campaign launched to reduce road fatalities

The campaign, Project Edward, has been launched today (Thursday) by the European Traffic Police network after fatalities on the continent's roads topped 25,000 last year.

To combat this, Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership, the police, fire service, Community Speedwatch and Lincolnshire County Council have combined forces to publicly make the pledge to support Project Edward.

They want to encourage all road users to think about their driving and how this can be improved for their own and others’ safety.

Superintendent for Specialist Operations at Lincolnshire Police, Paul Timmins says: “Over the past seven months we have had more than 240 people seriously injured as a result of road traffic collisions and 34 people have died. That’s completely unacceptable and we want to make sure that we do everything we can to try and reduce this figure.

“Aspects of bad driving all combine to make our roads unsafe for a lot of motorists; speeding, seatbelts, mobile phones and drink or drug driving are the #Fatal4 elements which have the biggest influence on this.

“Let’s get the message out there that it is unacceptable to engage in these things while driving. We all need to pledge to change society’s attitudes to these behaviours in order to make our roads safer.

“As part of this operation our Community Speed Watch initiative will have enforcement teams out in local communities to mark Project Edward on Thursday 26th September and other dates in the future.

“We will also have Specialist Operations patrolling the roads of Lincolnshire in marked and unmarked vehicles.”

Project Edward was launched along with LRSP’s 2Fast2Soon project at Bishop Grosseteste University by Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones who says: "It is tragic that so many of our residents, both young and old, are losing their lives on the roads of Lincolnshire.

"Much positive work has been done in the last few years to address the problem but, despite that, it is a sad fact that there are still too many families devastated by the tragic loss of life on our roads.

"Frankly, we need to do more and that is why I have made road safety a top priority.

"Over the last 12 months I have overseen the introduction of a new Safer Roads Team, a new Community Speed Watch Scheme, introduced advanced and refresher driving courses for under 25s and over 60s and provided the investment for new, more powerful, pursuit cars and police motorbikes.

"There will be no easy solutions but I will continue to seek new and innovative ways to keep our highways safe for the people of Lincolnshire."