As part of efforts to increase traffic safety for their residents, the municipalities of Mislinja and Ravne na Koroškem have installed “Your Speed” signs at critical stretches of road. This has already resulted in greater road safety. In the first week of operation, the proportion of speeding drivers fell by 8% on the local road between Mislinja, Šentilj and Dovže and by 5% on the national road as it enters the town of Ravne through the village of Javornik.
As the Slovenian police have been warning for several years now, speed kills. Being struck by a vehicle travelling at 50 km/h has the same effect on the human body as a fall from a height of 10 metres. At 100 km/h, this equates to a fall from a height of 40 metres, which means the pedestrian will suffer extremely serious injuries, if they survive at all. As even small reductions in speed are key to preventing serious road accidents, traffic calming in residential areas, where pedestrians are most at risk, is one of the main elements of a preventive approach and an effective measure for reducing the number of road accidents.
The Calming Traffic Together project was proposed by Sipronika and is supported by Zavarovalnica Triglav and municipalities around Slovenia, among them the Koroška municipalities of Mislinja and Ravne na Koroškem. The most pronounced fall in the percentage of speeding drivers in the municipalities in question occurred in Mislinja, at the junction by the local primary school, where the speed limit is 30 km/h.
Another tile in the safety mosaic
“In the past, we have carried out piecemeal measures to improve road safety on this section of road, such as rearranging the pavements, installing speed bumps and laying down road markings to warn drivers to take extra care. The ‘sharrow’ markings, which indicate that cyclists and drivers have to share the roadway equally, also warn drivers of the presence of cyclists on the road. The speed display sign will add another small tile to the mosaic of greater road safety for children. At the same time, the data recorded by the display units will be a useful tool during lessons at the local primary school,” explained Mislinja’s mayor Bojan Borovnik.
The percentage of speeding drivers has also fallen by 5% in the Municipality of Ravne na Koroškem, where the speed indicator has been installed on the national road as it enters the town of Ravne and speeds are restricted to 50 km/h. This dangerous section, which contains a pedestrian crossing and is a route to school for many children, is regularly used by over 2,500 vehicles a day. “There have been many initiatives and warnings from local residents regarding the location at which the display has been installed. They have pointed out that the crossing is dangerous because of high vehicle speeds, and because it is also used by children going to Koroški Jeklarji primary school in Javornik from Na Šancah. We believe that the speed display will help make pedestrians and children who use the crossing safer, and that we will therefore be able to prevent serious accidents in the future,” said Dr Tomaž Rožen, mayor of Ravne na Koroškem.
An innovative tool that works
In the past two years, Zavarovalnica Triglav, in collaboration with Sipronika, have installed 30 “Your Speed” smart display systems around the country as part of the preventive “Calming Traffic Together” project. The signs thank drivers for driving carefully or make them aware that their behaviour behind the wheel is unsatisfactory. At the same time, they store and process traffic data, which can then be viewed on the www.vi-vozite.si website, on the municipality's website and on netbook computers in school assembly halls, including the halls of the Koroški Jeklarji and Mislinja primary schools. The system therefore constitutes an innovative and effective solution and an important tool for analysing data and determining future speed-reduction measures. “The positive effect of the ‘Your Speed’ signs on road users seen in those municipalities in which they are already operational has been replicated in these two municipalities in Koroška. We do nevertheless advise these municipalities to check the data regularly on the www.vi-vozite.si website and, with the help of that data, and in conjunction with the police, the traffic warden service and representatives of the Road Safety Council, adopt any further measures to ensure that drivers begin to take speed limits more seriously,” explained Sipronika’s managing director Marjan Kržišnik.
44 speed display signs installed by the end of June
For several years now, Zavarovalnica Triglav have been involved in a variety of activities designed to improve road safety. Its support for the installation of speed indicators in the two Koroška municipalities is in line with its fundamental values, which place safety and social responsibility to the fore. “Here at Triglav, Slovenia’s oldest insurer, we are proud to have helped ensure, in collaboration with Sipronika and the municipalities of Ravne na Koroškem and Mislinja, that schoolchildren and other road users in Koroška will now enjoy greater levels of road safety. Our experiences up to now mean that we are well aware that speed indicator signs are an effective way of calming traffic and that they really do increase safety on selected sections of road,” said Tonja Vinkl, director of the Slovenj Gradec regional office of Zavarovalnica Triglav.
By the end of June, Slovenian municipalities, in collaboration with Sipronika and Zavarovalnica Triglav, will have further increased the safety of all road users in a total of 44 local communities around the country.
