The peak age range for pedestrian road deaths in the UK is 5-14, with boys out-numbering girls roughly 2:1. There is a charity campaigning for the introduction of 20mph limits in residential areas, known as “20’s Plenty”, and voluntary signage is now available for these roads. We know that motorists respond to caption-based supplementary signs mounted below the 30, 40 and 50 mph statutory ones. Behavioural insights suggest that we might expect a photograph to result in a greater reduction.
The concept is to mount images showing happy children interacting positively with the motorist. If this was to be developed, I would approach the charity with a view to conducting a trial within a selection of communities that are equipped with SpeedWatch guns, so that the impact can be measured.
Targeted police campaigns often report that it is local people who make up a significant proportion of the offenders. Therefore, it might be worth soliciting local ‘models’ for the signs? This would have the added value that fewer signs would be the same around an area, or even nationally, and so there’s the likelihood of a reduced degree of over-familiarisation.
