A letter from Arrive Alive

20^th March 2008
Dear Mr Hughes,

Further to your recent request, I can now provide an update on Arrive Alive activity at the Vounog Hill/Chester Road area of Penyffordd for you to circulate.

The Chester Road/Vounog Hill area of Penyffordd has been included as an Arrive Alive area of community concern for mobile speed enforcement and the following actions have been taken or planned:

• The casualty history has been checked for the last three years showing there have been no reported injuries from road traffic collisions on Chester Road with one slight injury on the Vounog Hill section. Therefore, this site does not meet requirements to install a fixed camera
• A speed survey has been carried out which measured the speed of some 16854 vehicles with an average speed of 32 mph.
  
• The 32 mph average is a red herring which hides 2000 speeding cars a day.
  
• The area has been visited in excess of 6 hours during 2008 for speed enforcement by Arrive Alive officers
• The times/days of these visits have been varied
• Hugh Jones has also visited the area for roadside education and to raise driver awareness. These sessions have been at various times of the day
• The area is currently a Police Community site and we are aware that local officers visit
• Rumble strips have been installed by Flintshire County Council
• A flashing vehicle activated sign is due to be installed shortly .
• I have previously asked about having Arrive Alive signs in the village, this has been ignored. CNH
  
• We intend to carry out another speed survey shortly to compare results and see the effect that our education and enforcement programme has had at this site. I suggest that the speed survey results are more relevant than the number of tickets issued which is operational information and not normally released.
• I am highly disappointed of your total unwillingness to share anonymous traffic data with the Chester Rd Community and the 700+ communities of North Wales. CNH.
  
• Speed awareness courses may be offered to drivers who have received a speeding ticket in North Wales as part of an educational programme.

As you can see there is effort taken to raise driver awareness of the speed limit and to educate drivers. However, throughout North Wales there are inevitably some road users who travel at inappropriate speed above the limit and it those drivers who risk prosecution.

With regard to the speed at which tickets are issued – this is operational information and is not normally released. There is no reason at all why this data cannot be released.CNH. However, I can say that Arrive Alive operates within the guidelines set by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).

It should be noted that we have invited you to the Arrive Alive office to discuss the matter further. As you did not take up this offer, we arranged for an enforcement officer to visit you and discuss the site in detail, I hope this discussion was useful.

As I have over 2000 vehicles that speed passed my house every day I could not see the point of me visiting Arrive Alive as it would not gain anything although I am very impressed indeed with Arrive Alive staff comittment CNH

Please be aware that the volume of traffic, noise of traffic and road engineering are outside the remit of this department.
Noise is generated by large volumes of traffic breaking the speed limit. I guestimate that over a 1000 cars a day go faster than 40 mph passed my house. CNH

Every effort has been taken by Arrive Alive to assist you but our time and resources must be used to the best advantage throughout North Wales. In view of this, I must now advise you that no further responses will be given to emails of this nature sent to Arrive Alive. We will, however, inform you of the next speed survey results.

The results will only have relevance if speeds of vehicles can be compared. CNH

I trust this information reassures you that appropriate action is being taken at this site.

Arrive Alive lack the resources to be effective. A full non-disclosure of data confirms this.

Yours sincerely,

Rose Middlemas (Mrs)

Gweinyddwr/Administrator

pp Essi Ahari (Insp)

Rheolwr, Siwrne Saff/Manager, Arrive Alive

Partneriaeth Lleihau Anafiadau Ffyrdd Gogledd Cymru/

North Wales Road Casualty Reduction Partnership

Llinell Uniongyrchol/Direct Dial: 01352 781435

Ffacs/Fax: 01352 781436

One casualty on our roads is one too many - preventable death and injury is unacceptable. /

Mae dim ond un anaf ar ein ffyrdd yn un yn ormod - mae marwolaeth neu anaf a ellir gael ei osgoi yn gwbl annerbyniol.