Incident screens to prevent accident rubbernecking - will they work?

[tigersaw]

Didn't I read every fatal crash costs the sevices 1 million?

If they manage to prevent a single opposite carrigeway pile up then money well spent

[Biker Biggles]

Originally Posted by Ch00

Deployment time would be a major factor. Also anyone in anything higher than a large van will still see over them.

Better off spending the money on people to deal with the job faster.

Agreed.Who is going to put them up and how long will it take them?The gawpers will already have gawped,and hopefully the casualties will have been moved by then.For the money,Id rather see extra ambulances and police deployed,but I guess there is no headlines or wow factor in doing that.

[Ch00]

Originally Posted by Stingo

This. IMO they will give some much needed dignity to victims of accidents and incidents.

I do fully agree with this. We do use some tent type things already to do this.

[Stingo]

I would imagine that the screens can be erected quite quickly. With regard to using the money for more emergency equipment etc I would suggest that there is little point in sending too many vehicles etc to an incident when resources such as these are precious and my actually be of use elsewhere, perhaps responding to another incident. Once all the hoo-ha has died down the screens will become just part of the infrastructure of road culture. I don't see anyone wining about the cost and inconvenience of tents being erected around the location of a murder site (or similar) whether it be in a field or in a back garden etc.

[Biker Biggles]

If only you knew just how stretched the basic police and ambulance services are.They often struggle to get anyone to attend these incidents within a reasonable time,never mind loads of optional extras and thats really my point.Lets spend what little money there is on the basics.The times of jam on top are long over,and things will get a lot worse before they get any better.

[MisterTommyH]

Surely spending the money on more emergency services isn't an option?

The highways agency have their budget - to maintain the road network and keep traffic flowing.

The emergency services have their budgets - to undertake their respective tasks.

From what I understand these screens have been purchased by the HA, to be kept in the back of the HA vehicles and erected by HA staff - I can't imagine that the emergency staff at the scene would be tasked with putting up the screens while there were relevent tasks to be undertaken (i.e. medical aid, cutting off car roofs etc).

The HA get to decide what they do with their budget and they've decided that this is worth trying and will save them money from dealing with shunts on the other side of the road due to rubberneckers - thats their decision. They're hardly likely to say "we don't need this money, use it elsewhere". Even if they could they wouldn't get to say where it went, and it would probably go on something other than 999 services.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by MisterTommyH

The HA get to decide what they do with their budget and they've decided that this is worth trying and will save them money from dealing with shunts on the other side of the road due to rubberneckers - thats their decision. They're hardly likely to say "we don't need this money, use it elsewhere". Even if they could they wouldn't get to say where it went, and it would probably go on something other than 999 services.

Which is a completely fair one, IMO. Ounce of prevention vs a pound of cure etc.

[MisterTommyH]

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Which is a completely fair one, IMO. Ounce of prevention vs a pound of cure etc.

Exactly

Originally Posted by Mr Speirs

Here here. £2.2m these things have cost us so far. Not to mention the money required to pay people to operate them, vehicles to transport them and storage and maintainence of them!

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

2.2 million quid on a bit of harris fencing and some green plastic? Bloody hell it's no wonder we're in debt.

The point being that this had come out of the existing budget... meaning that savings elsewhere within the HA budget will be needed to pay for them. Hopefully from within the money they save not attending the additional shunts - which should make Jam times better for the rest of us. (If not they'll have to find it somewhere else and we'll get a worse service for a while). But people see the £2.2m figure and expect that it's something extra they've applied for from central government - not the case - it's trying a different way of operating within the same budget that they get year on year (give or take inflation, enforced cuts etc).

Although I agree that £22k for a 75m barrier seems a lot, they've gone and made purpose built trailers for them, which I'll bet is where at least 50% of the cost is. Shame they couldn't just use a flatbed.

[Biker Biggles]

I like rationale,but I dont believe it will work in the sense that it will not prevent gawpers from gawping.Whether they can see the incident in detail or just a load of fire police and ambulance trucks and a barrier wont stop them looking and crashing.Dont get me wrong,Ive no problem with trying to give accident victims some privacy if possible,but I dont buy the financial justifications.Im also sure the Highways Agency isnt flush with dosh right now either,and surely they have had a recruitment freeze on Traffic Officers for several years,so who is going to be there to operate this gear?

[keith_d]

I'm a bit late into this discussion, but then I think that's going to be the problem with these screens.

The UK has around 3500 miles of motorway and about 100 sets of screens which can't be distributed evenly around that network. To keep it simple I'll assume they have to travel 25 miles to an incident.

Assuming the first police unit on the scene requests the screens when they arrive (around 10 minutes) and they are dispatched immediately (yeah, right!) by trailer at 50mph, that's somewhere around 40 minutes to reach the incident. By which time the opposite carriage way will already be jammed solid.

So, IMO, a complete waste of resources.

Keith.