Difficult safety problems

Abstract

The third Global Status Report on Road Safety (WHO, 2015) illustrates that the number of road traffic deaths globally has plateaued at 1.25 million a year. Low- and middle-income countries have double the fatality rates of high-income countries and 90% of global road traffic deaths. Vulnerable road users – pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists – make up half of these fatalities. The report reiterates the importance of a ‘Safe Systems’ approach to changing road user behaviour. The report highlights the important role of safe infrastructure and safe vehicles in reducing road traffic injuries, and the need to design roads taking into consideration the needs of all road users and not only automobiles. However, the effort required to address the high traffic crash rates involving pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and young drivers poses a much more challenging task. Elvik (2010) discusses why some road safety problems are more difficult to solve than others. Why do some well-known problems like the high accident rate of young drivers, the high share of traffic exceeding speed limits, or the differences in accident rates between different types of the traffic environment, persist over time? Elvik (2010) concludes that problems remain unsolved because: (a) the problem is widely tolerated, and not regarded as a problem; and (b) solving the problem involves overcoming social dilemmas, which means overcoming opposition to effective but unpopular measures. Language: en