Quarter 2 2018
General
Our team of volunteers have been in operation for 18 months. Apologies that there was no Quarter 1 Report for 2018 as we agreed not to operate in January and February due to the shortness of daylight and poor weather conditions. Then, the snows came and all but one of our sessions for March were cancelled. During the only session that we held in March, we recorded NO vehicles exceeding 34mph, hence no report.
Does King’s Somborne have a speeding problem? YES! Particularly on the A3057 exiting towards Romsey as the data below supports. I have taken some action as described in the final section and need the Parish Council’s support to further de-risk the community.
Sessions in Quarter 2
We operated for a total of 10 hours during the quarter, reporting a total of 340 vehicles travelling at 35mph plus (we report all vehicles travelling at 10% plus 1mph above the limit). The site on the A3057 Romsey Road remains by far the most ‘productive’ site of those approved by Hampshire Constabulary. As a result, we agreed to upweight operations there so that we now schedule every other session at that site.
Here is the data for the quarter:
Date | Location | # of Vehicles Reported | Maximum Speed Reported | Average Speed of Vehicles Reported |
6th April 2018 | Romsey Road | 26 | 42mph | 37.4mph |
16th April 2018 | Village Green | 0 | n/a | n/a |
30th April 2018 | Winchester Road | 13 | 49mph | 39.3mph |
14th May 2018 | Romsey Road | 48 | 44mph | 37.4mph |
21st May 2018 | Winchester Road | 22 | 42mph | 36.6mph |
1st June 2018 | Romsey Road | 63 | 47mph | 36.9mph |
4th June 2018 | Furzedown Road | 0 | n/a | n/a |
15th June 2018 | Romsey Road | 63 | 47mph | 38.3mph |
18th June 2018 | Village Green | 0 | n/a | n/a |
29th June 2018 | Romsey Road | 105 | 57mph! | 38.7mph |
TOTALS | 340 | 57mph | 37.8mph |
Site | Number of Vehicles Reported at Site | Average Reported Vehicles per Session | Maximum Speed Recorded | Average Speed Recorded |
Furzedown Road | 0 | 0 | n/a | n/a |
Romsey Road | 305 | 61 | 57mph | 37.7mph |
Village Green | 0 | 0 | n/a | n/a |
Winchester Road | 35 | 18 | 49mph | 38.0mph |
Team News
Since the start of the year, the following team changes have occurred:
- 2 resignations due to ill health
- 1 team member temporarily moved from the village
- 1 team member unavailable for the 2018 to date
- 1 new team member recruited via Facebook posts
Therefore, we currently have 6 members (down from 9). Ideally, we need a team of 4 to operate, so we hope to attract more volunteers for the second half of the year, via Facebook ads and an advert in The Gauntlet, although the team size has not prevented us from operating close to our target of 13 sessions per quarter (4 in Quarter 1 due to visibility and weather).
Session Operations
We encounter operational problems at the Romsey Road site due to the high volume of vehicles travelling at excessive speeds. The manual recording process means that we estimate that we miss more vehicles speeding than we recorded at this site.
Thankfully, we encounter few examples of abuse during sessions, with most driver’s who acknowledge our presence showing gestures of support!
Hampshire Constabulary Liaison and Communications
There has been a change of PCSO with the departure of Claudia Pattison and the arrival of Sam Bate. Claudia was particularly supportive to the team but as yet, Sam has only stopped briefly whilst passing.
Given the volumes and average speeds recorded at the Romsey Road site, I sent the data to Sam as evidence of the need of a greater speed van presence in the village and particularly at the Romsey end. As Sam was away a colleague forwarded this to the Safer Roads Team, for consideration of placing the van at this venue in the future. I have not yet had any communications from this team. I have also asked the team who load our data onto the police database if there is anyone else I can contact about encouraging the van to visit. I have given the example of Timsbury where regular speed van visits have resulted in most vehicles obeying the limit. As far as I know, there are no schools in Timsbury, but there are in KS.
Action and Support Required
- Can the PC also write to Hampshire Constabulary to seek the support of the Speed Van? The statistics here could be used as supporting evidence.
- One of our team reports that a village in Dorset has a sign that says something along the lines that “Speedwatch operates in this village; this year we have reported xxx vehicles”. If the PC could fund similar, strategically placed on the A3057, I am willing to update the numbers after each session.
- I have mocked up a poster for the PC Notice Boards (attached). Can these be placed to encourage more volunteers?
- I will contact The Gauntlet about the placement of an ad.
- I will continue to place ads in Facebook from which we recently recruited a willing team member.