Information relating to accidents on A90 Drumlithie junction: EIR release

Information requested

With regard to the A90 Drumlithie Junction and the following news article

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeenshire/2740258/christmas-setand-hold-msp-calls-for-actionto-prevent-more-atrocious-collisions-at-a90-junctionwhere-three-died-in-crash/

1. Please supply a copy of the papers for (reports, risk assessments, cost benefit analysis etc) and the minutes of the meeting quoted in the article where the conclusion was that no engineering work is required.

2. Bear Scotland undertook a week long video survey of the junction in 2019. I had been told it captured a number of “near miss” events. Please supply the conclusions from this survey and explain how they were incorporated in the decision not to undertake engineering work.

3. How was the conclusion that no engineering measures were necessary reached given your current road safety strategy and the aim to reduce risk?

4. Please explain why driver confusion is believed to be an issue and why is there a focus on improvements for HGVs at the junction when the casualties at the junction have all been in cars.

5. Please supply details of the works being considered.

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

1) Please see Annex A to this response for a copy of the Fatal Accident Notification which contains the findings from the post Fatal Accident site meeting. An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), Transport Scotland is not required to provide information which it does not have. We do not have some of the information you have requested because no formal minutes of the site meeting were recorded.

This exception is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about meeting minutes, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

2) Please see the following conclusions from the Conflict Study report:

"The Station Road junction has significantly more HGV movements (than Rolland Road to the south), with between 30 and 50 of these making right-turn exits onto the southbound A90 during weekdays. 75 conflicts occurred at Station Road junction during the survey period with the great majority of these involving HGVs projecting into, or near lane 2 of the northbound A90 whilst in the central reserve. It should be noted, however, that all the recorded conflicts were low in severity, with 72 of these having a severity ranking of 0 (no conflict occurrence, but poor driving observed).

“The conflicts occurring at the Station Road junction are being caused by the current width of the central reserve gap. Whilst this meets the current design standard, it provides little margin for error for HGVs that are undertaking a two-stage right-turn movement from Station Road.

“The scope of this report does not extend to identifying improvement options that may reduce the risk of the above conflicts taking place. However, it is recommended that the information contained within this report is considered when developing improvement options for this location."

In response to how the conclusions were incorporated in the decision not to undertake engineering work, please see response to question 3 below.

3) Of the week long study, 3 out of the 75 conflicts were noted where evasive action was required. 1 of these conflicts resulted in a driver applying controlled braking or slowing down to avoid collision. The other 2 conflicts could be described as ‘severe’ situations where the drivers had reduced time to carry out a controlled manoeuvre and rapid deceleration or stopping was required to avoid collision. The historic collision trend at this location does not indicate incidents involving HGV’s. Any works to alleviate the risks identified in the conflict study would require major investment as this would require widening the A90 dual carriageway to allow the central reserve area to be widened to provide additional width/area for HGV’s to wait. Given the competing priorities for investment to target identified casualty reduction sites, engineering measures at this location over and above the road marking upgrades currently being undertaken, are not been considered at this time.

4) From the review of the conflict study, driver confusion does not appear to be an issue at this junction as it was not evident during the survey. Following this review and a more recent assessment of the junction undertaken as part of the road marking upgrade work, no changes were considered necessary to the give-way signage, however the road markings are being renewed which includes remarking of the give-way lines to increase their visibility.

5) The road markings at the junction are currently being renewed with a new road marking type which offers enhanced visibility during the hours of darkness, poor weather or visibility. This will assist in raising the conspicuity of the junction to all users. A further review of the give way signage at the junction on 29 March 2021 found the existing provisions to be adequate.

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FOI202100183444 - Annex A

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