 A coroner called for more to be done to cut fatal crashes |
Road safety officials working to cut Lincolnshire's high death toll on the roads have been answering criticism. The coroner for East Lindsay, Stuart Fisher, had said that, while the road safety partnership was doing valuable work, it was failing because more people had been killed.
His comments, made in a recent radio interview, followed the deaths of 20 people so far this year.
The partnership claims it is unfair to measure its success by figures from just January and February.
Re-focus attention
They say they are working for a drop in the number of fatalities over a 10-year period.
Signs showing how many people have died on Lincolnshire's roads were withdrawn for a time after complaints they were deterring people from moving to the county.
The road safety partnership's development manager, Richard Greener, described why the signs were altered: "The format of the signs was changed to depict people killed and seriously injured.
"We did this because we were responding to criticism that signs showing the number of people killed were putting people off moving to the county.
'Death traps'
"What we have done by changing the signs is to re-focus attention back onto the signs.
"The signs are part of a nine month campaign.
"They are currently down because we are in the planning stage and they will be re-launched in April."
The original signs showing the number of fatalities will return in April 2003.
Coroner Stuart Fisher had previously said: "A road safety campaign ought to drive home the harsh message that the Lincolnshire roads are death traps.
"The road safety partnership needs more resources and more people, they need to talk to teenage children about the dangers." The partnership said it was inviting coroners to its offices so they could see at first hand what is being done.
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