We know that many accidents in South Gloucestershire happen when a car driver fails to spot a motorcyclist. Therefore, our awareness campaigns have included an element targeted at the car driver – in particular, temporary road signs at motorcycle accident hotspots.
Although we cannot be sure how much impact the road signs (or the wider campaigns) have had on drivers, statistics show that motorcycle accidents have dropped at these hotspots.
In 2003/4, we put up temporary road signs at nine accident hotspots. In the three years beforehand, there had been a total of 57 accidents involving motorcyclists at these sites. In the 18 months afterwards, there were 16 such accidents (in the rest of South Gloucestershire, the number of accidents rose by 13 per cent.)
We were impressed enough to use similar techniques in our campaign the following year.