Institutional and Cultural Barriers in Road Safety

Peter DalyChief Engineer Traffic and Roads

Outline

1. RACV interest

2. Context

3. Models of safety

4. Our biggest problem

5. The solutions

RACV Members

•RACV represents 1.4 million road users

•Collectively the Australian Clubs represent 6.4 million users

•Motoring community who use many modes (motorised and non-motorised)

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RACV & road safety

Advocacy Information Education Dedicated research

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Advocacy Information Education Dedicated research

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RACV & road safety

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People want mobility…..

ANOP research ANOP research clearly shows clearly shows people value people value mobilitymobility

ABS 2000: Transport expenditure was 15.7% of total ABS 2000: Transport expenditure was 15.7% of total household expenditure - second only to food as a household expenditure - second only to food as a consumer itemconsumer item

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Mobility is a real need and one demanded by the community

Enhanced mobility and enhanced safety should not be a trade-off

Transport systems can be safe for the required level of mobility

‘Blame’ models are outdated

National road safety strategy– 700 lives per year

by 2010

Safer drivers, in safer cars, on safer roads

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Old “Fix the Driver” Model

Behaviour

Road

Vehicle

Over 90% of accidents “result” from human error - but to err is human!

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Death Reducing Model

seatbelt education,experience,novice drivers

drink drive lawpenalties,gaol

forgiving design: OHS model

Road & Vehicle

Criminal& Unstable

Unwise

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Surviving More Than 70km/h

Even moderate speeds will kill if the car and road don’t work together as a system to protect people from severe impacts

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Roadside Safety – the ‘hard nut’

• In Victoria, four out of every ten deaths result from impacts with roadside hazards

• In rural areas, more than five of every ten deaths occur in this way.

While the road toll has trended downwards, the proportion of roadside deaths remains alarmingly high

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But we know how to crack it !!!

We know what constitutes a safe roadside Safer roads and roadsides

can reduce crashes by 40 %on average

Some treatments can reduce certain crash types by up to 80%

So what is stopping us?

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Why aren’t we doing it?

The problem is not only technical

Blockers between knowledge and action:

1. Lack of community and political salience

2. Diversity of objectives among stakeholders

3. Ill-defined stakeholder accountability

4. Technical short comings

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Blocker 1Run off road crashes lack community and political

salience Pre-occupation with human error aspect

‘blame the driver’ media tends to highlight the most extreme

cases and the reports typically implicate excessive speeds and extremely risky behaviours

little public and political support for large expenditure into infrastructure improvements that will protect such drivers.

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Blocker 2

The diversity of key stakeholders creates conflicting priorities Road and road reserve serve a diverse

range of purposes for a diverse range of organisations

Diversity of objectives in these organisations creates conflicting priorities

Adverse safety impacts are not a priority for many of these organisations

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Blocker 3

Lines of accountability are ill defined Accountability of stakeholder

organisations are ill defined in terms road safety outcomes

While specific initiatives may be assigned to organisations, no explicit links between program outputs and road safety outcomes.

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Blocker 4Technical short comings

Shortcomings in existing standards

Many situations which require standards but are governed only by guidelines

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Overcoming the blockers

In order to overcome these impediments, we need:

1. a formal commitment to a Safe Infrastructure System

2. to assign specific accountabilities for reducing road trauma to key agencies

3. to ensure performance is transparent4. to review all existing standards and warrants

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Creating the constituency

AusRAP – Aust. Road Assessment Program

Sister program to ANCAP (Australian New Car Assessment Program)

Based on EuroRAP – 2 main outputs

– Risk Mapping of Casualty Crashes

– Road Protection Score based on engineering features

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AusRAP Star Ratings

Provides a “5 star” rating of the safety of the road based on the safety features

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MELBOURNE0

kilometres

50 100

GREAT ALPINE ROADWESTERN HIGHWAY

NHILL-HARROW ROAD

CALDER HIGHWAY

HUME FREEWAY

PRINCES HIGHWAY WEST

ROAD PROTECTION SCORE

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ROAD PROTECTION SCOREVictoria, 2005

AusRAP Star Ratings

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Overcoming the blockers

If we can make roads match the protection of cars, death and serious injury in road crashes will stop being regarded as something that is normal

If we had 5-star drivers in 5-star cars on 5-star roads, there would be no fatalities

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Thank you