Communications

There are three full time equivalent posts responsible for communications activity across the West, East and North Units. This structure has helped to publicise safety camera activity throughout 2022/23. Highlights include:

  • The website (www.safetycameras.gov.scot) remained a well-used resource across the year, with 147,755 users accessing the site over the course of 2022/23. This was an increase of 27,472 when viewed against the number of views in 2021/22.
  • A steady and consistent social media profile. This is evident through:
    • The twitter (“X”) account having 7,224 followers. This represents a 3% increase in followers against the previous (2021/22) year.
    • A Facebook page, which was created in late 2017, also grew throughout the period, with 3,631 followers at the end of the reporting period which is which is an increase of 42% of followers in 2021/22 (2,566).
    • In addition, views on YouTube were 264,591 for 2022/23. This represents an increase of 64,218 (32%) against the level of views during 2021/22.

Graph showing website and social media statistics, as described above

Key communications based highlighted undertaken across 2022/23 included:

Winter Campaign

Aimed at encouraging motorists to drive to the conditions of the road. Social media content was created with the strapline ‘you can’t control the road conditions but you can control your speed’ and was posted on social media channels from January to March 2023. The highest reaching post received 15.1k views.

Limit Your Speed Not Their Future Campaign

The “limit your speed not their future” campaign was launched on 22 March 2023 to coincide with the clocks going forward and the expected increase in vulnerable road users during the summer months. The campaign encourages motorists to think about the lives of those walking, wheeling, cycling and horse riding, consider their safety and drive at an appropriate speed. The social media assets focus on the future plans of vulnerable road users to highlight that inappropriate speed on the road can result in lives being cut short and ambitions being unfulfilled. A toolkit was created with example social media posts to encourage stakeholders to engage with the campaign by sharing and creating their own content. The highest reaching post in March had 15 retweets and received 11k views.

New Enforcement Locations

Digital audio broadcasts were used to highlight the new spot speed locations during September 2022, and a campaign which ran for four weeks. The advert had a total of 187,636 impressions, broken down to roughly 62,000 impressions in each of the three geographic locations. The advert reached 101,750 people with a listen through rate of 98.81%. Due to the success of this it was decided to continue with advertising on digital audio for the winter campaign.

Localised and Targeted Communications

  • A number of localised campaigns were undertaken throughout 2022/23 in response to local issues, such as on the A96, where an audit of offences highlighted the geographic location of those speeding, resulting in a 5-week targeted media campaign, including digital radio where messaging was focussed on towns and villages specific to that route.
  • In Argyll and Bute, the “Street Lights Mean 30mph” campaign stickers were distributed locally with a view to continuing local stakeholder engagement.
  • Targeted and specific communications work was deployed in partnership with the Highland and Island Visitors Guide available within local accommodation such as hotels and B&Bs, posters within community settings and areas of high visitor volumes.
  • In addition, the North Unit worked in partnership with Police Scotland Roads Policing along the route of the NC500 including using Facebook Live.
  • Wheelie bin and bus-back campaigns focussing on speed and camera locations.
  • A national vulnerable road user campaign commenced in July 2022.
  • Various road user direct engagement events, ranging from motorcyclists to school students and young drivers.
  • Camera locations continue to be the topic of greatest interest on social media and the website.

Perceptions of Safety Cameras across Scotland

  • Generally, the level of public support for safety cameras in Scotland is high although has slipped from 78% in February 2018 to 72% in February 2022 (Source the biannual RITS surveys).
  • Whilst 70% of people consider the use of road safety cameras as a good thing, this has dropped from 79% in February 2018.
  • There has been a slight decline in those who consider safety cameras help to discourage dangerous driving, from 74% to 69%, again since February 2018 to 2022.
  • There has been 14 point reduction in perception that road safety cameras help to prevent collisions, from 73% to 59%, since February 2018 to 2022.
  • There has been a marginal increase in perception that cameras are an easy way of making money out of people (58-60%) and that there are too many cameras (26-29%).
  • Whilst none of these statistics are major, the decrease has been sustained and consistent over the past five years. The Programme Office formed a working group with the Comms Officers from the three units to discuss future ways of improving perception of the role of safety cameras across Scotland.
  • A range of administrative actions were also managed across 2022/23, including the handling of Freedom of Information (FoI) Requests and a range of general correspondence. The total number of FoI requests for the year was 66.

Conclusions

Given the small but sustained reduction of positive perceptions of the role of safety cameras in reducing collisions, enhancing communications should be prioritised for 2023/24 with a view to reversing that trend.

Local Engagement

A customer satisfaction survey was circulated to all road authorities in Scotland to allow them to feedback on local engagement. This is the eighth such survey undertaken since the introduction of the three-Unit structure in 2015. The findings of all surveys are summarised below:

Graph showing how satisfied authorities are with the engagement they have with their Safety Camera Unit, as described below

Graph showing how satisfied authorities are with safety camera enforcement undertaken in their area, as described below

Graph showing how respondents feel about the frequency of engagement between their authority and Safety Camera Unit

Graph showing how respondents feel their authorities consider that the revisions to the Safety Camera Handbook have been of benefit to their area, as described below

Conclusions

The result of the 2022/23 Local Engagement survey shows all respondents are satisfied with the level of engagement they receive from their respective Units. In addition, there has been a slight increase in satisfaction in safety camera resources deployed in their respective areas. There has been consistency amongst authorities with the frequency of engagement and no change in the measure of benefit from the 2019 changes to the Safety Camera Handbook. However, these figures are based on only 11 out of 32 authorities providing feedback. To improve this going forward, it would be beneficial if each Unit would engage with their roads authorities and encourage them to respond to the 2023/24 survey.