Lawford Kidd's Blog

New 20mph zones have been introduced in Glasgow as the city follows Edinburgh’s lead in attempting to reduce the number of road traffic accidents and injuries to vulnerable road users.

Edinburgh announced that a speed limit would be put in place in some areas of the city centre in March 2015 and Glasgow has now introduced a similar speed policy in a number of “high-risk” areas.

The Glasgow 20mph area covers a number of danger areas for vulnerable road users covering much of the South bank of the Clyde. While the new speed limit will not be enforced by speed cameras, police will be monitoring the areas to make sure that the new limits are adhered to, with new warnings also in place for drivers. The decision to implement a new speed limit was approved following a six-week public consultation, with 69% of the respondents being in favour of introducing a significantly reduced speed limit.

A new study has revealed that luxury vehicles are more likely to be involved in road traffic accidents than Smart cars and other similar models.

According to the latest data, Smart cars have the lowest "at fault" insurance claim rate out of any model. Between July 2014 and June 2015, vehicles such as the Smart car only registered 78.6 at fault claims per 1,000 drivers. This is in stark contrast to drivers of high-end cars such as Lexus, who had a 111 fault claims per 1,000 road users.

Other high-end luxury brands such as Land Rover and Audi were some of the worst performing in the study, with 110.1 and 105.2 at fault claims per 1,000 drivers respectively. The survey, from Moneysupermarket, analysed over 11.3 million car insurance quotes from the last year and shed some light into the driving habits of drivers.

Google’s self-driving cars have been involved in at least eleven road accidents since they were introduced in 2009, however, according to the technology giants, the accidents have been a result of other drivers crashing into the smart cars.

According to Google, the vast majority of incidents have occurred when drivers hit the back of the smart cars when they stop. The figures come following the mainstream press in the United States criticising the cars.

Chris Urmson, the director of Google’s self-driving car programme said that there have been “11 minor accidents (light damage, no injuries) during 1.7 million miles of autonomous and manual driving with our safety drivers behind the wheel”.

A survey from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) has found that the legal costs for making third party whiplash-type injury claims has fallen by 65%.

According to the IFoA, the introduction of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2013 has not only led to a reduction in the cost of legal fees, but also a reduction in the cost of making a genuine whiplash claim. The introduction of the act has also led to a decrease in the number of bogus claims throughout the UK.

The IFoA findings show that the cost of whiplash-type bodily injury claims has fallen by 19%, with the frequency of the claims also dropping by 12% from the previous year.

A new guide, which is aimed at reducing road traffic accidents in Scotland, has been published by The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).

The step-by-step guide, which will help councillors in Scotland to prevent road tragedies, was compiled after RoSPA joined forces with Transport Scotland.  Whilst the new guide is primarily aimed at local councillors, it can be used by anyone who wants more information about road safety and how to improve it.

According to the guide, three people still die and 37 seriously injured on Scotland’s road every single week. The risk of being involved in a road traffic accident is higher for some groups, including young drivers, older drivers, at-work drivers, motorcyclists, pedestrians, pedal cyclists and children.