Malcolm Burns (pic opposite) made the transition from vice chair to chair of LARSOA at the Association’s AGM on Tuesday 17 April. He succeeds Simon Ettinghausen, whose two-year stint in post has come to an end.
Malcolm Burns is group manager road safety policy at Wiltshire County Council.
The new vice chair is Alan Kennedy (pic below), Durham’s road safety section manager. Under the Association’s constitution, Alan will succeed Malcolm Burns in April 2009.
All other LARSOA officers are at the mid point of their terms of office and will continue in post until April 2008. Click herefor details of all officers.
Representatives from 50 members attended the AGM, which was held at the Brunei Gallery, Russell Square, London.
There were a record six nominations for the annual Lynda Chalker Award. After deliberation, LARSOA’s P&M committee selected Derek Thrush, a Kerbcraft volunteer from Liverpool, to receive the award. As well as his Kerbcraft role, Derek visits community groups to talk about road safety, and helps with Walk to School and Speedwatch projects. Click here to read the full press release about the Lynda Chalker Award.
After the formal business, delegates received five presentations. First, Nick Rawlings updated those present on the progress of the LARSOA website and unveiled the new look site, which went live on 23 April.
After lunch, Peter Rodger, chief examiner, IAM, gave a bright and breezy overview of the newly formed IAM Motoring Trust, which was launched in January 2007.
He told delegates that the IAM has 216 local groups around the UK willing and able to assist RSOs in their work. Peter can be contacted on 020 8996 9620, or peter.rodger@iam.org.uk.
Lancashire police accident prevention officer Ian Ashton gave a brief overview of the reworked Teddy Takes a Tumble pre-school resource, which has been revamped to reflect recent changes to child car seat legislation. Ian also outlined future plans to extend the resource to cover pedestrian safety and cycling.
Steve Whitehouse, principal travel awareness & safety officer at Sefton MBC, then updated delegates on National Standard Cycle Training and the launch of Bikeability.
It is clear from the numerous questions from the floor – regarding the cost of training instructors, and a perceived lack of consultation and evaluation – that there remains considerable skepticism and unease among RSOs about several aspects of this subject.
Finally, Geoffrey Rendle, senior manager research with the Audit Commission, gave a brief overview of a study entitled Changing Lanes, Evolving Roles in road safety, which was published on 26 February 2007.
Key themes in the study include the value of partnership working, the challenge of changing behaviours, and the key role that local authorities have in co-ordinating road safety activity in their areas.
The report concludes that road safety should be considered a key quality of life issue, and is intended to help local agencies work more effectively to reduce the number of deaths and injuries on our roads.
