It's that time of year again, which means that Road Safety Week is back, to provide us with reminders and motivation to stay safe on the roads. As you may remember from last year's blog post, 2015's theme focused on reducing the number of people using the roads, in an attempt to cut the number of driving-related fatalities.

This year, Brake (the charity who organise the RSW), are encouraging people to focus on six elements of their 2016 pledge:

Slow, Sober, Secure, Silent, Sharp & Sustainable 

You can make and share this pledge online, whether you're a business, an organisation or an individual; it's even open to non-drivers. All you have to to, is follow the six rules set out on the Break website, in order to protect yourself, as well as the people around you. Here's a bit more about each rule:

Slow - For drivers this means staying under the speed limits, and slowing down in bad weather, as well as for brows and bends. It also means adjusting your speed to protect pedestrians, in areas with schools, shops and homes. For everyone, this means speaking out for reducing speed, and helping drivers to understand the dangers posed by excess speed.

Sober - For drivers, this means never driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, while for everyone else, it means planning ahead to ensure that this never happens.

Secure - This means ensuring that everyone is belted up when driving, including small children, who should be in the correct restraint. Everyone else should to the same as a passenger themselves, and when accompanying family and friends.

Silent - This means never taking/making calls, or reading/typing whilst driving, and ensuring that you never chat on the phone to someone else who's driving.

Sharp - This means staying focused on safe driving, and taking regular breaks when needed. Drivers should also never drive when tired, stressed or when using medication that could impact their ability. Drivers should also wear any required glasses/contacts, and get their eyes tested every 2 years. We should all look out for friends and family whilst driving, and advise them if we don't think they're up to it.

Sustainable - This reiterates last year's point about aiming to drive less, or not at all, using cycles, public transport or walking as much as possible.

Need some additional motivation? Here are some of the facts that led to this year's theme choice:

• Breaking the speed limit or travelling too fast for the conditions contributes to one in four fatal crashes in Great Britain.
• In 2013, one in ten drivers killed in a crash had alcohol in their system, despite being under the legal limit, while one in seven road deaths are caused by a drink driver.
• Seatbelts reduce the chances of dying in a crash by 50%, while 21% of those who do die, were not wearing a seatbelt.
• When using a mobile or similar, you are three times more likely to crash.
• Poor vision cause and estimated 2,900 casualties, and cost £33 million per year.
• There are an estimated 29,000 pollution-related deaths in the UK every year, with 5,000 down to road transport.

The advice is simple: Stick to the legal guidelines, along with the advice given by safety signs, and take responsibility for your own actions whilst driving. If you're a non-driver, look out for those who are, and encourage them to follow these rules at all times.

As you will have already noticed, we've been placing an increased focus on the subject of UK road safety over the past few days, in order to help spread the message about Road Safety Week. In Northampton, a primary school has also been getting involved in this week's activities, by breaking the world record for the number of high visibility vests worn in one place. More than 1,500 people, including the pupils at the school, crammed onto the school yard in order to smash the previous record of 1,475 people, setting the bar for the next group of people looking to take on the challenge.

While the main aim of the day was to aid the promotion of Road Safety Week, it was also an opportunity for staff, pupils and local residents to pay tribute to one of their former pupils. 13 year old Sophie Bywaters was tragically killed whilst crossing the road upon returning from a youth club back  in 2009, an accident made even more heartbreaking by it's preventable nature. Members of the local police as well as the fire and rescue service were also in attendance at the event, not only to aid in the record attempt, but also to give various presentations on road safety. A number of informative activities took place later that day, including a road safety signage competition for students, with the winning designs being chosen for use on international infrastructure group Balfour Beatty's sites. There were also live demonstrations with safety vehicles and fire safety appliances, in order to aid the illustration of vehicle blind spots and proper safety procedure.

It's extremely inspirational to see how this school has managed to encourage interest in the topic of health and safety, by presenting the information in a fun and engaging fashion. It is vitally important that we inform the most vulnerable members in our society about these issues, and ensure that they are fully aware of the safety procedures that should be followed at school, at home and on the roads. This comes from providing good quality and easy-to-read information, in the form of engaging activities such as this one, and of course in the form of good quality safety signs. 

To find out more about Road Safety Week, visit the Brake website.

  To browse our range of high quality health and safety signs, click here.

Today we are continuing with the road safety theme (it is Road Safety Week, after all!) and asking you how well you know your road signs.

Be honest now, after passing your driving test, how many of you can remember what all the road signs actually mean? Well, according to a survey commissioned by Zuto, a car finance expert, a staggering 90 per cent of drivers in the UK admitted that they find road signs confusing. Some of the results of this survey are truly shocking:  

• One third of the participants did not recognise the national speed limit
• Half of the participants believe that there are too many signs on the road
• One in 20 admitted that they have made mistakes driving due to confusing road signs
• Over 4 million drivers didn’t understand the “level crossing without a barrier” sign
• One in four drivers didn’t understand the “car and motorcycles prohibited” sign, with 13 per cent believing that it meant the exact opposite.

Here at Label Source, we take health and safety very seriously, and not knowing your road signs can lead to accidents and hazardous driving. As it is Road Safety Week, we thought it would be fun to test your knowledge of some UK road signs. See if you can correctly identify these road signs: 

1.     What does this sign mean?

a)  Slippery road

b)  Double bend first to the right

c)  No right turn

d) Junction on bend ahead

2.       What does this sign mean? 

a)      Traffic has priority over oncoming vehicles

b)      Oncoming vehicles has priority

c)       Way out

d)      Ahead Only

3.       What does this sign mean? 

a) 

a) Maximum height

b)  Maximum length

c)  Maximum width

d) Height width allowed sign 

4.       What does this sign mean?

a)      Keep left

b)      Keep right

c)       Turn right

d)      Right turn ahead

5.       What does this sign mean? 

a)      Train station ahead

b)      Steam Train museum ahead

c)       Level crossing

d)      Level crossing without barrier ahead

Answers

1.       B

2.       A

3.       C

4.       B

5.       D

Label Source would like to remind you that the use of the correct road signs is crucial for safety of the road user and pedestrians. To view our full range of road signs, please click here.

Today marks the beginning of Road Safety Week, a flagship event created by road safety charity Break, which runs from the 23-29 of November. This year's theme is 'Drive less, live more', the aim of which is to help prevent injuries and fatalities on the road, while also causing people to think about their overall car use. 

To give you a better understanding of why this event is so important for health and safety in the UK, here are some facts which were released by break today:

• Five deaths, and 64 serious injuries happen daily on UK roads
• Air pollution is estimated to kill 52,000 people in the UK each year
• In a survey of a 1,000 driving adults, 85% believed we should reduce overall car use
• Road casualties in the UK went up by 4% last year.
• One in three non-cyclists said they would be more willing to cycle their commute if routes were safer

It's clear that driving has a serious impact on the heath and well-being of the UK as a whole, due in part to driving-related pollution and immobility,as well as fatalities and injuries caused by human error. In order to help promote Road Safety Week, Label Source would like to advise all of our customers to use and display the correct road safety signs at all times! Our full range of signs and barriers can be found here.

Remember, accurate and clear road safety signs can reduce the chances of an accident, by warning divers of hazards and speed restrictions! 

To see the full list of statistics published by Brake, click here, or take a look at their interactive resource.

We would also encourage you to share this post on Twitter and Facebook, using the hatshtags #RoadSafetyWeek and #drivelesslivemore