What would a road safety policy fully consistent with safe system principles mean for road safety?

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What would a road safety policy fully consistent with safe system principles mean for road safety?

Elvik, Rune

Highlights • Complying fully with Safe System principles can reduce traffic fatalities by 50–70 %. • Current policy is not fully consistent with Safe System principles. • Defining Safe System principles clarifies the responsibility of system designers.

Abstract If fully implemented, the Safe System principles as formulated by the International Transport Forum would lead to a considerably safer road transport system. The aims of this paper are: (1) To define operationally what full consistency with Safe System principles means; (2) To estimate the potential effects on traffic fatalities of full compliance with the Safe System principles. Operational definitions of full consistency with Safe System principles are proposed for speed limits, road design, road maintenance, vehicle safety and road user compliance with road traffic law. Estimates for Norway indicate that by complying perfectly with Safe System principles in all these areas, the number of fatalities could be reduced by 50–70 %. This is a conservative estimate. This shows that the Safe System principles are well justified scientifically: adhering to them would greatly improve road safety. However, currently road safety policy in many countries, including Norway, fails to realise these improvements in safety by not complying with the Safe System principles.