Pictured above: Stephen Nye

A road safety expert at Irwin Mitchell's Birmingham office has welcomed the release of the new Inner City Safety Demonstration Project report in the city.

The aims of the Department for Transport initiative included measuring the importance of road safety in the area, ensuring the issue is considered in regeneration projects, engaging local communities on such issues and providing safer environments for local residents.

Roads including the A47, A4040, A45, as well as the Bordesley Green and Alum Rock areas, were targeted as part of the scheme after statistics highlighted that child pedestrian, speeding and hit and run accidents were most prevalent in such locations.  

Speed reduction programmes, community group work and educational programmes within schools and mosques were all organised and used throughout the project.

Stephen Nye, Partner and road traffic accident specialist at Irwin Mitchell in Birmingham, said that the report has shown the major impact that such work can have. 

Discussing the findings, he said: "We very much welcome the final project report, particularly as the results already seem to indicate a reduction in casualty rates of around 16 per cent. In addition, there has been a noticeable reduction in incidents causing serious injury or death.  

"The cases that my team and I deal with demonstrate that there has consistently been a high number of road accidents in the Birmingham area, many of which occur on very busy A-roads. 

"Excess speed is very often the main factor in terms of causing accidents, while pedestrians have also been found not to be crossing at designated crossing points. Because of this, we regularly support a number of initiatives including Road Safety Week and have also separately presented road safety education sessions at local schools.  

"I hope that the effects of this latest project will be long lasting and we can look forward to further reductions and casualty numbers in the future.  

"It is of course a project that has required local authority funding, but the results are there to be seen and it is hoped that support for the initiative will be continued."