Memorandum from the Road Safety Foundation
(RS 75)
Britain can cut road deaths and serious injuries
significantly and catch up with top performing countries through
combined action on safe driving, safe vehicles and, particularly,
safe road design.
The Road Safety Foundation was established as
a charity in 1986—the year that Britain established its
first road safety target. The charity was initially known as the
AA Foundation for Road Safety Research in recognition of its major
donor at the time.
In the last quarter century the charity has
taken leading roles in the research lying behind a number of major
policy initiatives including young drivers, speed, vehicle safety
(EuroNCAP) and, latterly, on safe road infrastructure design.
The Foundation has focused its recent work on
establishing the European Road Assessment Programme (EuroRAP).
With EuroRAP, techniques have been established with major global
research centres (including TRL) to measure the safety performance
of roads consistently—and monitor the rate of improvement.
EuroRAP techniques are now being applied on
every continent with support from HMG and top performing governments
across the world (eg the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand
etc) as well as from supranational institutions like the European
Commission and World Bank.
At the beginning of 2007, the Foundation returned
its attention to Britain. The cost to the economy of British road
deaths and injuries is 1.5% of GDP. It is of concern that, in
2001, Britain was the top performing nation measured in deaths
per capita. Britain has since slipped quickly down the European
safety league behind the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland.
EC benchmarking shows the majority of EU members countries are
improving faster.
Recent British policy has not been driven by
the same goal driving top performing countries. Top performing
countries are working to implement a "safe road system"
which is as at least as safe as rail or air. Many have adopted
the challenge of "vision zero": no road deaths at all.
Designing a safe road system means action on
safer driving, safer vehicles and safer roads together. All three
are needed and road users, vehicle manufacturers and road authorities
all must accept their share of responsibility for the "safe
road system". Drivers need to drive within the law—particularly
wearing seat belts, being sober, and obeying speed limits. Vehicle
manufacturers must make vehicles which are safe for occupants
and for other roads users with—as standard—crumple
zones, airbags and increasingly, electronic equipment such as
electronic stability control (ESC) and intelligent seat belt reminders.
Road authorities must act to eliminate high risk roads.
International comparative research such as the
SUNflower studies, recommend that Britain pays special
attention to its weakness in safe road design, particularly outside
built-up areas where most Britons die. Dutch and Swedish policies
for roads are more explicit requiring roads to be "self-explaining"
so that they do not invite mistakes; and more "forgiving"
so that inevitable human errors do not result in death and maiming
injury. Safe road design means safe roadsides, safe junctions,
safe overtaking and safe speeds where vehicles and vulnerable
road users mix.
"Safer road infrastructure" programmes
are affordable and deliver very high rates of return. They do
however need to be generated from systematic studies of the network,
with an understanding that unacceptable risks on the network will
not be revealed by short term clusters of accidents alone. "Safe
infrastructure programmes" need to be carried out by authorities
as part of their responsibility for a "safe road system".
The Foundation is currently collating evidence
working with local authority professionals, TRL and its own expert
staff on the scope for a major British `safer roads infrastructure
programme' as has been adopted elsewhere in Europe and overseas
(eg State of Victoria, Australia).
The Committee may also be aware that there is
increasing international discussion about who should set acceptable
safety performance levels for roads. A number of governments (eg
Sweden, France) like Britain are handing over many roads from
national to local authorities. These roads tend to be those which
are difficult to manage for safety, causing concern about how
their improving safety can be assured. It is now possible to ensure
safety is managed as a "quality" within the "safe
road system". In the Netherlands, the Dutch Minister has
already publicly announced that EuroRAP 2-star roads will be eliminated
from its national network by 2020, ie only 3-star and 4-star roads
will be permissible; regional roads are now being studied.
The Road Safety Foundation therefore recommends:
1. The Committee should urge the government
to review the casualty savings and economic return possible from
a major "safer infrastructure programme" on both national
and local authority roads.
2. The committee should urge the government
to review carefully who and how minimum safety performance levels
should be set in future.
May 2008
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