Social Attitudes Towards Transport

Traffic police have a selected amount of land to cover throughout the region. Their role is to Provide an emergency response, Reduce road collision casualties, Minimise disruption to the free flow of traffic, provide any possible assistance and reassurance to road users, Provide specialist support services to the force and Ensure that the division makes the most efficient use of all its resources. In all the traffic cars the patrol cars have been fitted with specially designed suspension and brakes to cope with the extra load and the varied and demanding conditions they are exposed to. Motorcycle officers also have a specialist role in the policing of major public events, such as football matches, and providing a police escort for VIPs. They co-ordinate roadwork’s, speeding complaints and monitor local collision trends.

Rapid Response Ambulance

Rapid response ambulance is specified to attend emergency incidents, ideally within eight minutes of notification. The Trophy Yellow estate cars, with green reflective Battenburg livery, incident equipment carried on the vehicles includes; oxygen therapy, cardiac defibrillators, entonox, maternity and paediatric pack, burns bag, cervical collars, splints and first aid bag. Plans for major incidents, site maps, body bags, triage cards and contacts for agencies and hospitals are also carried. Additional special items include the light roof bar, radio communications and a reverse-decal ‘Ambulance’ livery on the bonnet and ‘RESPONDER’ on its tailgate. These cars aren’t stationed at the hospital; they are located in areas close to the region boarders making their response time a lot quicker. Their role is to attend emergencies, be first on the scene and aid injured people.

Both services are required to attend incidents within a short period of time. To be able to make these deadlines, they are both authorized to use their sirens and lights to make other road users aware that they are responding to an emergency. In many cases both rapid responses are linked together. If theirs an RTA the rapid response would be first on scene that would then get the ambulance service called out if anyone is injured. The rapid response ambulance may take that call if it’s within their area, which would attend and wait for ambulance to attend from the hospital to take casualties to hospital.

Criminals target vehicles, New cars are automatically fitted with some sort of device attached immobiliser, tracker or alarm. The ideas of these security devices are outlined beneath. Immobilising system, which is automatically activated when the ignition key is removed. The way it works is the device transmits a radio-frequency signal every time the engine is started, sending a different password to the system. Insuring the car cannot be started any other way without the key. Electronic engine immobilisers prevent your car from starting and are the best way to stop thieves.

Car alarms can deter thieves from not only stealing your car, but also taking items from it. Older cars are criminals prime targets due to the lack of security protection fitted to them. Steering wheel locks are a cheaper alternative to engine immobilisers use them every time you leave your car. Locking wheel nuts easy to fit and stop thieves from taking your wheels. Have your car registration number or the last seven digits of your Vehicle Identification Number etched onto all windows, both windscreens and your headlamps. Mark all your car equipment, like your car stereo, with your vehicle registration number.

Having any of these security measures reduces the attractiveness of the car to thefts. Analysis of driver’s attitude whilst travelling on the roads. Due to no one having the same characteristic everyone is different, with his or her own style of driving technique. With this in mind people tend to act differently on the roads. Road rage is the biggest form of driver’s attitude on the roads and they aren’t necessarily the person behind the wheel either. People speeding, acting irresponsible and general behaviour of others on the roads can cause road rage.

Older citizens push the blame onto younger citizens for the way that they drive, younger citizens reverse the blame. There are business people who due to road rage drive more dangerously and faster blaming traffic and deadlines as their excuse. Parents who want to pick children up, but cant park near schools due to heavy congestion around the school. There are people who drive for living truck drivers, van drivers and public transport drivers who are consistently on the roads, that travel through all the peak times of the days. There are the rush hour periods during the day that make everyone less tolerable to waiting calmly. Speeding is mostly influenced by other people speeding, thinking if they can break the limit then so can they, which causes many other problems on the roads.

After researching speeding I found that in Northampton there was a work shop for people who had broken the speed limit, where people can analysis there own behaviour on the roads. After the workshop results showed that: 92 per cent of respondents who had been on a Speed Workshop said that they were now more likely to keep to the speed limit. Of those who had received a speeding ticket, but hadn’t been on a Speed Workshop, 53 per cent of respondents said that it was not acceptable to exceed the speed limit. After the Workshop, this increased to 78 per cent.

Drink driving in England is unacceptable especially around the Christmas period where more than the average drink. The UK legal limit for drivers is 80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood but there is no failsafe guide to the amount of alcohol that a driver can safely consume. The amount and type of alcoholic drink, the weight, sex and metabolism of the driver all play a part. But any amount of alcohol affects driving ability. A motorist’s ability to judge speed and distance may be impaired, their reaction times may be slowed and their judgement of risk seriously affected.

Advice from the drink-driving site has given this structure for drinking:

• Immediately before driving: Men should consume no more than 4 units, women no more than 3
• When drinking the night before driving: Men should consume no more than 10 units, women no more than 7. (This assumes that no alcohol is consumed after 11.30 pm, and that driving does not take place before 8 am the following morning)

Cambridge county council have published that in the last three years there have been 324 drink drive accidents involving death and injury. Drink driving may cause the driver not able to judge the speed and distance accurately; the driver may become more overconfident whilst driving endangering other road users. With all these people on the roads, there is no wonder so many people are involved in accidents. Accidents can also be caused by people’s personal preferences. A driver may like to drive slower than the person in the car behind due to not feeling confident on the roads or just being cautious.

Many drivers on the road don’t have enough breaks during travelling that could make the driver tired, irritable and likely to become a danger to themselves and others. Business people travelling in their own car are likely to have mobiles in use, without hands free or microphone the drive by law has to stop where safe and answer the call. As this is unlikely event to happen most people fit attachments in the car to prevent committing an offence.

Parents with children should to prevent the driver being distracted, entertain children with some sort of music or equipment that will entertain the children while in their baby seats or whilst they are belted up in the back seats. Using this sort of attitude whilst making a journey will decrease the chance of a common traffic offence and in case of an accident reduce the chance of critical accident.

Poster on tiredness – I did a surveyed on ten people asking what they do during long journeys, five people said they don’t stop but tend to differ the speed, play music and have sweets in the car. Two people said that they stop every two hours at a pre-selected break while the other three said that it depends on the weather and whether they know where they are going.

After showing the poster to the five that don’t stop, the drivers have changed their opinion and have agreed to wither stop for a stretch, swap drivers if able to and plan their journey that stop every hour to two hours. Poster on mobile phones – whilst driving, proves that people aren’t multi-skilled that means driving and using a mobile will divide there attention running higher risk of an accident. Surveying the same ten people that I did for the tiredness poster, I asked how many have their mobiles switched on and how they would deal with the driving if they’re mobile started ringing.

Three people said that they don’t have their phone on at all through journeys. Two people said that due to the nature of the business that they have hands free kits and one person said that their company installed a microphone set to avoid missing calls whilst on the road. Four people said that they would only use there mobile whilst sitting in traffic or when they are driving on roads that wont cause the driver distraction.

After showing the poster and asking them to read it out, they found it very hard and took a few seconds to work out that the transcript was engaging two different statements. After this experiment, all of the drivers that I surveyed that said that they would at least get some equipment installed in their car to avoid causing accident. Even using hand free kits and microphones aren’t advised, but they aren’t against the law and they have reduced the amount of accidents. Not everyone can avoid using their mobile whilst travelling due to their job but this does reduce the amount of accidents for the time being.