Since taking over as Chair of the Forum for 2009-10, I have been delighted at the progress made in identifying and addressing the road safety issues of most concern to Forum members.

There are three words that best describe our approach to achieving our aim of significantly reducing fatalities and injuries on West of Scotland's roads year on year ... education, education, education! We believe road safety awareness to be a lifelong learning process and this is reflected in two particular initiatives which have proved highly successful in targeting high risk groups at opposite ends of the age scale.

In response to the disproportionately high number of car crashes in our area involving young, inexperienced drivers aged 17-25, our Hero to Zero campaign uses the look and language of today to convey key messages about the dangers to themselves and their passengers of such practices as inappropriate speed. Conversely, our Stepping Out Safely campaign looked back to a far gentler age to highlight the risks faced by elderly pedestrians in a fast moving world with more traffic on the roads than ever before.

Today we have launched a major initiative designed to raise awareness of the benefits of driving at 20mph in residential areas and we are in the process of developing another publicity campaign to tackle the unacceptable number of casualties on rural roads. We are also looking forward to the fresh challenges posed by the recent publication of Scotland's Road Safety Framework to 2020, with new targets starting from 2010.

I hope you enjoy browsing through our newly updated website and that you will continue to support our work at the West of Scotland Road Safety Forum to make our roads a safer place for all.

Councillor William Hendrie
West Dunbartonshire Council

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