Whilst five road deaths a day is half the toll in 1992 when RoadPeace was founded, it is still five too many.
It is not just the number of deaths. They are premature, causing the types of bereavement that we most fear – of parents, of children and of young spouses. And with road crashes, deaths are not just premature but sudden and violent. A road death is not a normal death.
The government has adopted the Safe System approach, as explained in their British Road Safety Statement, available here: DfT – British Road Safety Statement.
This approach recognises:
- We can never entirely eradicate road collisions because there will always be some degree of human error;
- When collisions do occur the human body is inherently vulnerable to death or injury; and
- Because of this, we should manage our infrastructure, vehicles and speeds to reduce crash energies to levels that can be tolerated by the human body.
Vision Zero goes further. Introduced in Sweden in 1997, it starts from the premise that all road death and serious injury is preventable. In his draft transport strategy for London, Mayor Sadiq Khan, aims to eliminate all road deaths and serious injuries from London’s streets by 2041. It’s Vision Zero has been extended to road danger reduction.
