LTB 233/17 CWU Greater Mersey & SW Lancs Amal Branch Health & Safety Reps Win (1)
No. 233/2017
24 April 2017
Our Ref: V4/17
CWU Greater Mersey & SW Lancs Amal Branch Health & Safety Reps Win Wirral Council Mind Your Business’ Road Safety Awards 2017
To: All Branches
Dear Colleagues,
The CWU Greater Mersey & SW Lancs Amal Branch Postal Health & Safety Reps, Jamie McGovern Area Safety Rep and Mark Evans Deputy Area Safety Rep have been honoured for their outstanding work on road safety by the Wirral Council Local Authority at a special awards and presentation event for the 2017 Mind Your Business’ Road Safety Awards.
The Metropolitan Borough of Wirral is a metropolitan borough of Merseyside, in North West England. It has a population of 325,000 and includes Birkenhead, Wallasey, Bebington, Heswall, Hoylake and West Kirby.
The awards detail the end of a really successful safety initiative in Royal Mail’s Wirral and Cheshire Delivery Offices and the CWU team worked closely with both the Wirral Council’s Road Safety Officer and the Merseyside Police roads policing team.
So far, the CWU Safety Reps have completed work at 10 delivery offices, delivering safe driving presentations, advice and coaching, plus top tips to over 350 delivery staff in the offices. The sessions were cost free to the business (only time) and each session lasts approximately 40 minutes. Each session is focused totally on promoting safe and responsible driving on roads in the Wirral area.
The results have been impressive and road traffic accident rates have been falling, showing improvements in across all the Royal Mail Delivery Offices visited by the CWU Safety Reps, supported by the Merseyside Police and Wirral Council Road Safety Team Officers.
A summary of the Road Traffic Collision statistics demonstrate the significant improvements achieved:-
- 2014 – 39 RTCs
- 2015 – 35 RTCs
- 2016 – 24 RTCs
This represents an improvement of over 31% over the last year 2016 and is 39% better than 2 years ago. Royal Mail’s 2017 Road Traffic Collision performance improvement target was set at 12% which was easily surpassed in the CWU Safety Reps campaign units last year.
Feedback and interaction from CWU members and Unite/CMA members to the campaign visits, information distributed and active presentations and demonstrations has been very positive. The sessions end with a powerful, hard hitting and very graphic video which stuns the audience and helps raise awareness about the need for attention to good driving practices, technique and legal compliance. One CWU Member said “It is quite hard hitting and almost brought a tear to the eye and a lump in the throat”. However the video does speak volumes and supports the ultimate aim, which is to reduce accidents caused by careless/drunk/drugged/reckless drivers. See attached photographs of the Campaign Team, the Awards Presentation and the Drive Safe’ Van stickers supplied by Wirral Council as part on the initiative which were attached to Royal Mail Fleet Vans operated in the Wirral.
A message to all CWU Health and Safety Reps and CWU Members that Drive from Jamie McGovern Area Safety Rep and Mark Evans Deputy Area Health and Safety Rep: is . “REMEMBER- ROAD SAFETY MATTERS!”
Statistics show that there were 1,800 road deaths in 2016 in the UK and 140,000 were injured. Overcrowded roads increase the collision risks. The RAC state that over the past 20 years, the rise in the number of cars on the road in Britain has been relentless, going up from 21 million in 1995 to 31 million in 2015 due to a swiftly growing population, an increase in the number of households and the growth of women in work. Cars on the England’s roads increased by a record increase of 600,000 in 2016.
Yours sincerely
Dave Joyce
National Health, Safety & Environment Officer