We are always interested in what other countries are doing in terms of road safety. We can learn a lot from what others are trying, and what is working/not working for them.
In last week's webinar presented by Fleetcoach, Dr Isler mentioned the 'Vision Zero' that Sweden has in place. We thought we'd look at this a little more closely, and find out more about what this means.
Quite simply, Sweden's top traffic safety strategists made a decision in 1997, that even one fatality or injury, is too many. That's revolutionary in a world where we measure success by way of improvement in the statistics. Sweden acknowledges that less crashes is better, but no crashes is best.
Here's a great interview with one of the key architects of the policy, Matts-Åke Belin. One of the things he mentions is that the policy has to take the human side of the equation into account. Instead of banning things like cellphones behind the wheel, why not accept that some people will always break those rules, and instead create roads and traffic situations that are safer regardless.
Says Belin: "If we can create a system where people are safe, why shouldn’t we? Why should we put the whole responsibility on the individual road user, when we know they will talk on their phones, they will do lots of things that we might not be happy about? So let’s try to build a more human-friendly system instead. And we have the knowledge to do that."
From the article: It’s a radical vision that has made Sweden an international leader in the area of road safety. When Vision Zero first launched, Sweden recorded seven traffic fatalities per 100,000 people; today, despite a significant increase in traffic volume, that number is fewer than three. To compare, the number of road fatalities in the United States is 11.6 per 10,0000.
So there you have it, Sweden's Vision Zero in a nutshell - we can see why Dr Isler finds it an inspiring goal to aim for. To read the rest of the interview with Belin, visit this link.
