Road safety (original) (raw)
The field of road safety is concerned with reducing the numbers or the consequences of vehicle crashes, by developing and implementing management systems based in a multidisciplinary and holistic approach, with interrelated activities in a number of fields.
History
Crashes seem as old as automobile vehicles themselves. Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot crashed his steam-powered "Fardier" against a wall in 1770. The first recorded automobile fatality was Henry Bliss on September 13, 1899 in New York, New York. The spectacular grow in motorization has result in a corresponding grow in crashes, and today it is accepted that in most OECD countries the cost of accidents amount to about two per cent of GDP, In undeveloped countries, this losses are greater than international help and loans received, fact that have prompted the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to include activities in this field as one of his priorities. In terms of fatalities, the worldwide estimation was 800.000 per year in 1999, forecasted to grow to between 1.1 and 1.2 million in 2010 and to between 1.3 and 1.4 million by the year 2020. (Silcock, 2003)
Evolution of road safety paradigms
| ASPECTS | PARADIGM I | PARADIGM II | PARADIGM III | PARADIGM IV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decennia of dominating position | 1900 - 1925/35 | 1925/35 - 1965/70 | 1965/70 - 1980/85 | 1980/85 - present |
| Description | Control of motorised carriage | Mastering traffic situations | Managing traffic system | Managing transport system |
| Main disciplines involved | Law enforcement | Car and road engineering, psychology | Traffic engineering, traffic medicine, advanced statistics | Advanced technology, systems analysis, sociology, communications |
| Terms used about unwanted events | Collision | Accident | Crash, casualty | Suffering, costs |
| Premise concerning unsafety | Transitional problem, passing stage of maladjustment | Individual problem, inadequate moral and skills | Defective traffic system | Risk exposure |
| Data ideals in research | Basic statistics, answers on �What� | Causes of accidents; �Why� | Cost/benefit ratio of means �How� | Multidimensional |
| Organisational form of safety work | Separate efforts on trial and error basis | Co-ordinated efforts on voluntary basis | Programmed efforts, authorised politically | Decentralisation, local management |
| Typical countermeasures | Vehicle codes and inspection, school patrols | The three E�s doctrine, screening of accident prone drivers | Combined samples of measures for diminishing risks | Networking and pricing |
| Effects | Gradual increase in traffic risks and health risks | Rapid increase of health risk with decreasing traffic risk | Successive cycles of decrease of health risks and traffic risks | Continuous reduction of serious road accidents |
From: OECD Road Transport Research
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National programs
A prerequisite for progress in this area is to introduce national programs with clear and quantifiable objectives, some examples are :
- Chile with a target of 0% growth in fatalities, (down from historical 5-7% annual growth), (CONASET, 1993)
- EU, 40% reduction in fatalities for 2010.
- Denmark 40% reduction for 2000
- Finland 65% reduction for 2005
- United Kingdom 33% reduction for 2000
- USA 20% Reduction for 2008 (from OECD 2000)
Sweden has developed a new concept to improve road safety called "Vision Zero" Vision Zero is conceived from the ethical base that it can never be acceptable that people are killed or seriously injured when moving within the road transport system. It centres around an explicit goal, and develops into a highly pragmatic and scientifically-based strategy which challenges the traditional approach to road safety.
Vision Zero: strategic principles
- The traffic system has to adapt to take better account of the needs, mistakes and vulnerabilities of road users.
- The level of violence that the human body can tolerate without being killed or seriously injured forms the basic parameter in the design of the road transport system.
- Vehicle speed is the most important regulating factor for a safe road traffic. It should be detemined by the technical standard of both roads and vehicle so as not to exceed the level of violence that the human body can tolerate. While the concept envisages responsibility for safety amongs the designers and users of the system, the designer has the final responsibility for "fail-safe" measures.
Vision Zero: system designer has primary responsibility
- System designers are responsible for the design, operation and the use of the road transport system and are thereby responsible for the level of safety within the entire system.
- Road users are responsible for following the rules for using the road transport system set by the system designers.
- If the users fail to comply with these rules due to a lack of knowledge, acceptance or ability, the system designers are required to take the necessary further steps to counteract people being killed or injured.
Management systems
Modern Road Safety makes a distinction between the situation and the management systems necessary to control it, with prevention activities that largely exceeds the self-evident fields of the traditional 3�E (Engineering, Enforcement, Education) approach, first introduced in 1925. Modern Management systems have the aims of be inclusive, i.e. to include explicitly all activities part of such system.
The more extensive effort to obtain a comprehensive, holistic design of a road safety system, with the direct participation of 123 persons, representatives of different areas of activities, was done in Chile, (CONASET, 1993), utilizing the methodology for the design of social systems developed by Del Valle (1992). The result was the design of the control apparatus for this situation, called �Road Safety System�, defined by its components. An informal test of his completeness can be done simply by consider this management systems without any of his components, for example if we remove rescue we simply lose opportunities to save human life coming from activities in this area. It can be used as a outline to assess the completeness of national road safety programs.
| Road Safety Management System | |
|---|---|
| A Drivers, Training & LicensingA-1 Training of professional driversA-2 Training of car driversA-3 Driver�s testingA-4 Training of driving instructorsA-5 Licensing of instructorsA-6 Licensing of practical examinersA-7 Driving schools supervisionA-8 Permanent grading of drivers | E EnforcementE-1 Drivers enforcementE-2 Technical conditions of vehiclesE-3 Technical conditions of roadsE-4 Inspection of transport servicesE-5 Pedestrian enforcement |
| B Management Of Vehicle QualityB-1 Technical specificationsB-2 Safety equipmentB-3 New vehicle�s certificationB-4 Technical inspectionB-5 Supervision of vehicle inspection shopsB-6 Supervision of maintenance shopsB-7 Mechanics Training | F Judicial ActionF-1 Prosecution of infractionsF-2 Efficient infraction systemsF-3 Law modificationF-4 Accident investigationF-5 Civil responsibility of the state |
| C Management Of Roads And Public SpaceC1 Traffic managementC2 Signs & markingsC3 Safety auditC4 Black spotsC5 MaintenanceC6 Road safety elementsC7 Rest areas for drivers and bus stopsC8 Pedestrian facilitiesC9 Bicycle facilitiesC10 Land use planning | G Accident Control And InsuranceG1 Comprehensive rescue systemG2 Comprehensive rehabilitation systemG3 Insurance coverage |
| D Management Of Transport ServicesD1 Remuneration systemsD2 Work conditionsD3 Permanent grading of personnelD4 Dangerous loads and stowingD5 School children�s transport | H Research & InformationH1 Integrated information systemsH2 Drivers and infractions registerH3 Vehicles registerH4 Accident registerH5 Preventive indicators registerH6 Register of instructors and examinersH7 Accidents studiesH8 Users information |
| (Not occupied) | I Education And CommunicationsI1 CurriculaI2 Teachers trainingI3 Didactical materielI4 Students protectionI5 Campaigns |
Related articles
Semantics
The field of Road safety is handicapped by the terminology. Words have power to them that conveys impressions as well as meanings, phenomena that in this case results in sub-optimal approaches to prevention, as follows:
- Road safety The name �Road safety� have convey that in this field the activities needs to concentrate on items that properly belong to roads and, by extension, to the roads authorities, keeping a reduced scope of activities in a number of different areas, in spite of their potentially significant contributions. For example, in the U.K., Burrough, (1991) indicates that only one-third of the target reduction will be delivered by road safety engineering measures while Koornstra ( 2002) indicates �The contribution of local road engineering to the fatality reductions between 1980 and 2000 are estimated to be 4% for Sweden, 10% for Britain, and 5% for the Netherlands�. Whereas TEC (2003), quotes a research from the imperial college, London that indicates than the progress in medical technology and care made a significant contribution to the 45% fall of fatalities during the last 20 years, and account for 700 lives saved annually, and further puts forward that the lack of consideration of the benefits coming from the medical area, suggests that road safety is probably less effective that thought. It is remarkable that implicitly the author of the research doesn�t consider medicals activities as a component of a road safety management system.
It reflects confusion between the space where this phenomenon occurs (mainly roads) and the design of the Management systems to control it, in what �Roads� is only a 11% of the activities(one area out of nine in previus table).
- Accident the use of the word �accident� with his connotations of it being and unavoidable event, weaken the resolve to intervene in order to reduce crashes and his harm. Evans (1991) argues that the word �crash� indicates in a simple factual way what is observed, while �Accident� seems to suggest in addition a general explanation of why it occurred.
- Cause of accidents Moder Road safety recognize that crashes, and his consequences, are multifactor events, Ogden (1996) indicates: �An approach based in notions of cause and blame is simplistic in the extreme�. In short, crashes have factors not causes .
- Problem-solving Old approaches emphasize the concept of problem-solving in Road safety, but it is more correct to recognize that Road safety activities doesn�t solve problems. For instance, when a safer road design is implemented, hopefully the number of crashes, or their seriousness, will go down, but they will not disappear. It is more correct to see crashes as an area where the implementation of correct policies, programs and measures will reduce his numbers or consequences, but they will no be ��solved��.
This realization is important, because it changes the focus from a problem that will go away if we devote enough resources to it, to a situation requiring on-going management. This management in turn requires the development of scientifically-based techniques, witch will enable us to predict with confidence that safety resources are well-spent and likely to be effective.
See also
References
Burrough P. Procedure for the Road Safety Audit of Truck Roads Schemes. 10p. (UK Department of Transportation, London)
CONASET 1993, Pol�tica Nacional de Seguridad de Tr�nsito. Comisi�n Nacional de Seguridad de Tr�nsito, Chile 1993.
Del Valle, Alfredo, 1992. Innovative planning for development: An action-oriented approach. University of Pennsylvania, 1992.
Evans, L. (1991) Older drivers risks to themselves and to other road users. Transportation Research Record 1325, 34-41. Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C.
Koornstra, 2002. SUNflower: A comparative study of the development of road safety in Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands Matthijs Koornstra (SWOV), David Lynam (TRL), G�ran Nilsson (VTI), Piet Noordzij (SWOV), Hans-Erik Pettersson (VTI), Fred Wegman (SWOV), and Peter Wouters (SWOV). SWOV, 2002. " class="external">http://www.swov.nl/rapport/Sunflower/Sunflower.pdf
Nader, Ralph, Unsafe at any speed; the designed-in dangers of the American automobile
Ogden, K. W., 1996 SAFER ROADS, A guide to road safety engineering. Ashgate Publishing Limited.
OECD Road Transport Research: Outlook 2000. CHAPTER V: ROAD SAFETY, (1997 )Table V.1 Page. 17 " class="external">http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/41/2/1859509.pdf
OECD Economic Evaluation of Raod Safety Measures (2000)
Ogden, K. W., 1996 SAFER ROADS, A guide to road safety engineering. Ashgate Publishing Limited.
Silcock, David. Preventing death and injury on the world�s roads. Transport Reviews, Volume 23 Number 3, July-September 2003.
TEC 2003. Traffic Engineering & Control June 2003, page 200. Hemming Group.
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