Friday 17 July 2015
Media Enquiry from Guernsey Press:
Following an incident yesterday where an old lady tripped and fell due to the small raised bumps at the courtesy crossing in town, can the department please answer the following questions:
-Is the department aware of the incident and what is its response to what happened?
-How many accidents have there been at the crossing in the last fifty years and how many since the changes were made to the crossing recently?
-Does the department think the bumps need to be made more visible so that elderly people do not trip?
-Does the department think the changes at the courtesy crossing have been for the better and will it consider any more changes in the future?
Environment Department Response:
The Environment Department has to date received no formal notification of any accident at this location and, despite its best efforts to contact the family, has been unable to confirm the exact details of the incident.
However, given the initial reports on social media an immediate assessment of the area where the incident was understood to have taken place was instigated. From the limited information we had received at the time, but now corroborated in today's paper, it was understood that an elderly lady had tripped and fell over the white painted base of one of the temporary traffic bollards on the marina side of the crossing. Our subsequent inspection identified this as a potential tripping hazard and measures have already been taken to remove this risk.
In investigating this matter it was noted that the exact positioning of some of the street furniture adjacent to the bollard was not as originally designed and steps have been taken to ensure that the exact location of all the street furniture is properly recorded in the event that any of it is temporarily moved again in the future.
The Department extends its sympathy to the lady who was injured by the fall and wishes her a speedy recovery.
However, the cause of the accident would appear to be attributable to the temporary nature of the bollards and street furniture and the fact that they can be moved. Whilst this incident was extremely unfortunate and regrettable it is not in itself grounds to revert back to the previous arrangements.
The Department in response to your enquiry has checked the Police accident database from January 2009 to when the trial was introduced (which is considered to be a reasonable period for statistical purposes) as it was simply not possible to review 50 years of data. During this period there has been 1 reported accident at the informal crossing point and there have been no other reported accidents since the trial was introduced.
However, the number of reported accidents (and there are also many accidents and near misses that go unreported) is not the issue as the previous informal crossing point did not comply with any recognised engineering standards. In its current form, the informal crossing introduces sufficient safety improvements to allow it to operate as an informal crossing with the exception of busy cruise liner days when pedestrian movement numbers, sometimes in excess of 1,500 movements per hour, require additional management measures to be put in place.
The future of the informal crossing along with consideration of how best to safely manage interaction between pedestrians wishing to access the piers and Town shops and the 20,000 vehicles that use the Town Quay on a daily basis will be one of the issues influenced by the work of the recently formed Town Seafront Working Party.
Contact Information:
Karl Guille, Traffic and Transport Services Manager
Environment Department
Tel: 243400
