The road safety team liaises with the police on fatal and - when notified - life-threatening collisions. We investigate the locations of fatal collisions to understand why they might have occurred and whether any intervention is required to prevent similar collisions taking place.
We use injury collision data from Avon and Somerset Police to identify where there are clusters of collisions. A cluster (blackspot) is denoted as a collision site experiencing four or more injury collisions within a 40-metre radius over a three-year period.
We investigate and prioritise highway improvements at these locations to achieve the greatest casualty reduction numbers across the whole North Somerset network. By being objective through a data-led evidence approach we do not direct funding away from these critical locations.
This method does mean that locations where there are very few collisions have a lower priority, but this does mean that we are able to demonstrate good value for money on the schemes we do introduce.
We also look at other factors to prioritise the delivery of improvement schemes and we can consider requests from communities supported by North Somerset Council ward members and town/parish councils.