Are we doing enough?

John Smart, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Technical Affairs, Institution of Highways and Transportation, looks at road casualty reduction and where to go next

Road traffic injuries are a major public health problem and a leading cause of death and injury around the world. The UK’s roads are some of the busiest roads in the world. They are also some of the safest, yet on these roads in 2007, 2,946 people were killed, 27,774 seriously injured and a total of 247,780 injured.
    
This, however, pales to insignificance when you consider the global problem. Each year nearly 1.2 million people die and millions more are injured or disabled as a result of road crashes, mostly in urban areas of developing countries. In addition to the enormous economic and social costs to individuals, families and communities, road traffic injuries place a heavy burden on national health services, in particular those of developing countries. They are the second leading cause of death for people aged 5-25 years, with devastating impact on families and communities. Among this age group, young men – as pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, novice drivers and passengers – are nearly three times more likely to be killed or injured on the roads than young women.
    
So as 2010 looms and government officials prepare to pat themselves on the back for delivering the casualty reduction targets set out nine years ago in ‘Tomorrow’s roads: safer for everyone’1, the question everyone is the road safety profession is asking is “Are we doing enough, where do we go from here?”
    
During 2008 the Department of Transport (DfT) embarked on a lengthy consultation process with the industry to establish answers to that and other questions. What I would like to offer is the Institution of Highways and Transportations (IHT) view on where we go next.

Adopting targets
It is clear from work undertaken during the production of the IHT’s own ‘Collision Prevention and Reduction’2 guidelines that casualty reduction targets are a good performance indicator to adopt. They provide focus and if present in local authorities high-level strategic documents ensure that a culture of casualty reduction exists across a range of local authority service areas and are not just the preserve of the highways department. International statistics demonstrate that the best performing countries around the globe all have national reduction targets. So targets are a given, but what sort of targets?
    
It is clear that a long-term national target that all authorities can focus on is required. This enables the DfT to mandate highway authorities to deliver casualty reduction, but there is merit in regional targets as statistical analysis shows that the casualty problem differs from region to region both in scale and type.
    
There is also a need to consider shorter term mode or group specific targets to be introduced when particular problems surface. An example of this could be a specific short-term target (four year) to reduce motorcycle casualties.
    
If we put in place challenging targets what areas of road safety will contribute to a sizeable reduction? Work undertaken during the late 1990’s for the establishment of the 2010 targets demonstrated that no one particular area of road safety could deliver wholesale reduction on its own. It was a combination of the 3E’s: engineering (both vehicle and highway), enforcement and education.

Looking to the future
For the future we need to (a) do what we do now but better and (b) look for a new dimension to the way we undertake road safety.
    
For (a) it is about raising our performance in certain areas. The PACTS document ‘Beyond 2010 - a holistic approach to road safety in Great Britain’3 suggests that if the UK was to achieve comparable levels of enforcement in seat belt wearing, drink driving and speed as the best performing European countries we could reduce the level of fatal casualties by one third.
    
It is also about dissemination of best practice and encouraging those authorities that are not performing as well as others to look at the practices of the best performing authorities and follow their example. This approach is outlined in the IHT’s document ‘Collision Prevention and Reduction’ and the Audit Commission’s document ‘Changing Lanes ….evolving roles in road safety’4 confirms that the best performing authorities are those who ensure their staff are well informed.

Engaging shareholders
For (b) it is about looking outside our comfort zone of road safety and consider safe mobility for all ages, greater stakeholder involvement, and I do not just mean other authority departments like health and education, but the travelling public is a stakeholder, they have a responsibility. Over the past 20 years the road safety profession has achieved much through road safety engineering programmes targeting locations with high accident rates and implementing remedial measures, encouraging councillors and residents alike to believe problems can be resolved with engineering measures.
    
Car manufacturers have marketed very well the benefits of a car with five star Euro NCAP5 rating to car owners suggesting the technology can better protect them out on the road. What this has achieved, I believe, is to distance the road user from their responsibility to consider safety when using the road network by implying the engineer or the car manufacturer is managing their safety.
    
We need to engage all users irrespective of mode of travel and reaffirm their responsibilities to others when using the network. We need to look at different ways to get our road safety message across especially to those groups known to be difficult to reach, such as the young male driver. They need to understand that having a driving licence and owning a car is not a right of passage but a privilege bestowed upon them because they have demonstrated that they have the necessary skills and abilities and are prepared to act responsibly by considering others when out on the road network.
    
Road safety engineers need to become social engineers developing their behavioural skills alongside their traditional engineering skills that have served them so well over the past 30 years, if the industry is to make further in roads into the casualty figures.    
     
I would like to conclude with a statement made by Kofi Annan, when he was Secretary General of the UN: “Road safety is no accident. Road safety happens through the deliberate efforts of many individuals and many sectors of society, governmental and nongovernmental alike. Every one of us has a role to play: ministers of transport, health and education; health care providers; automobile associations; educators; students; insurers; vehicle manufacturers; the media and victims of road traffic crashes. But a strong commitment at the political level is crucial. Today’s success stories often result from a decision at the highest level of government to improve safety on the road.”
    
So as a nation let us be bold and set challenging targets and whether in our role at work or as an individual using the road network on what ever form of transport we choose let’s take responsibility for our actions and consider how we can contribute to reducing road casualties.

Notes
1. Department for Transport - Tomorrow’s roads: safer for everyone (2000) http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/strategytargetsperformance/tomorrowsroadssaferforeveryone

2. Institution of Highways and Transportation – Collision Prevention and Reduction guidelines (2007) http://www.iht.org/en/publications/index.cfm

3. Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety - Beyond 2010 - a holistic approach to road safety in Great Britain (2008) http://www.pacts.org.uk/research.php?page=2

4. Audit Commission - Changing Lanes ….evolving roles in road safety (2007) http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/Products/NATIONAL-REPORT/A199BBC7-6F37-4f0d-A99B-E291497C0C72/ChangingLanesprintfriendly.pdf

5. Euro NCAP - http://www.euroncap.com/home.aspx