Road Safety Officer

Introduction

Road safety officers encourage the public to become safer road users through education, training and publicity campaigns. This involves activities such as visiting schools, making presentations to local community groups and arranging exhibitions. Road safety officers are employed by local authorities.

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Work Activities

Road safety officers aim to reduce casualties on the road through education, training and publicity. Their target is all road users, regardless of age.

Road safety officers look into why accidents happen, and recommend ways to prevent them happening again in the future. Measures can include developing road safety educational programmes in schools, giving presentations to community groups, staging exhibitions and publicity campaigns, and either running or supporting cycling proficiency and better driving courses.

A major part of their work is to consult and co-operate with a range of different people and organisations, such as elected councillors, road engineers and surveyors, schools and playgroups, the police, employers, community and voluntary groups.

Some road safety officers are responsible for all activities in a particular region, others may be responsible for a specialist aspect of road safety such as publicity, or visiting secondary schools. In both cases, their visits to schools, day centres and a wide range of other local groups and organisations may involve some local travel.

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Personal Qualities and Skills

Whatever aspect of road safety you cover you will need excellent communication skills. Because you could be speaking to a range of groups and individuals, you must be able to adapt your style to their different needs.

Organisational, persuasive and analytical skills are important and you should be able to work both on your own and as part of a team. You should have imagination to think up new, creative ideas to get positive messages across, particularly to children.

Teaching experience is useful in this type of work, and it suits those who like variety, enjoy meeting people and do not want to be stuck behind a desk all the time.

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Pay and Opportunities

Road safety officers are paid on local authority scales, which may differ from authority to authority.

The pay rates given below are approximate.

Road safety officers earn around £19,500 - £26,000 a year. Road safety managers can earn around £26,000 - £31,000 a year.

They usually work a basic 37-hour week. However, attending meetings, providing training courses and staging exhibitions usually involves some evening and/or weekend work.

Road safety officers work for local authorities. The number of road safety staff varies with the authority.

Opportunities exist for promotion to senior posts within road safety, but promotion may involve moving to a different area or authority. Some large companies with transport fleets may also employ road safety officers to reduce accidents among their drivers.

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Adult Opportunities

It is illegal for any organisation to set age limits for entry to employment, education or training, unless they can show there is a real need to have these limits.

Road safety officers normally have previous relevant experience, for example, in teaching, training or driving.

Working as a road safety assistant while doing part-time study, may lead to entry to officer-level posts.

• 30% have flexible hours.

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