posted on 2009-03-25, 13:57authored byRachel Elliman, Lucy Rackliff, Steven ReedSteven Reed, Andrew MorrisAndrew Morris, Heikki Jahi, Lindsay Cant, Gilles Vallet, Michael Jaensch, D. Shingo Usami, Gabriele Giustiniani
SafetyNet Work Package 4 (WP4) organised a workshop in Brussels March,
27th 2007. The aim of this workshop was to consult a variety of road safety
stakeholders on the appropriateness and necessity of WP4 Draft
Recommendations (SafetyNet 2006b), applicable to and aiming to assure the
independence and transparency of road accident investigations and the
subsequent investigation data. The workshop was attended by 60 persons
including WP4 partners. 47 attendees were not involved in WP4 and out of
these 40 filled the workshop questionnaire. The workshop attendees and
questionnaire respondents represented 15 different EU Member States and
three other nationalities. In terms of professional background, researchers and
safety investigators were best represented, but people from policy making,
manufacturing and insurance industries and judiciary sector were also present.
The workshop was divided into five sessions. The first introduced the SafetyNet
project, WP4 and the work performed during the first three years of the project.
Each of the four following sessions presented one cluster of the WP4 Draft
Recommendations. External speakers were also invited to present their views
on accident investigation. Each session was concluded by a general discussion
and an invitation to fill in the relevant parts of the questionnaire. The external
presentations, discussions, questionnaire responses and all other comments
were constructive. The workshop allowed a large amount of good quality
feedback to be gathered. Some of the feedback confirmed what had already
been discovered in the six month consultation period that followed the
submission of WP4 Deliverable D4.3 Draft Recommendations. Other feedback,
from sectors less familiar to WP4 partners, was new. In any case, all feedback
will be useful in preparing the finalised WP4 Recommendations for transparent
and independent accident investigation.
While the majority of our Draft Recommendations were judged appropriate and
necessary by at least 65% of the respondents (26 questionnaire respondents
out of 40), three individual recommendations consistently received a lower
approval rate varying from 58% to 63% (23 to 25 respondents). In some cases
the formulation of an individual draft recommendation was unclear, leaving too
much room for interpretation. In these cases WP4 must reformulate the
recommendation and then seek the opinion of stakeholders. In other cases,
individual recommendations were judged appropriate and necessary for the
investigation of certain types of accidents and not appropriate or necessary for
the investigation of certain other types of accidents. In these cases WP4 must
clearly state the type of accident and the type of accident investigation, an
individual recommendation applies to.
Finally, the most widely approved Draft Recommendations will certainly be
included among the finalised recommendations, while the most problematic
Draft Recommendations might simply not be included. In any case, the
feedback gathered during the consultation period, at the workshop and the
further feedback that will be gathered between June 2007 and April 2008, will
help to considerably enhance the WP4 Recommendations.
History
School
Design
Citation
ELLIMAN, R. ... et al., 2007. Building the European Road Safety Observatory. SafetyNet. Deliverable D4.4 Workshop report
Publisher
European Commission, Directorate-General Transport and Energy