Keywords

Introduction

Deaths and injuries from road crashes remain an enormous burden worldwide. Each year, 1.35 million people are killed in road traffic crashes globally (World Health Organization 2018). Deaths and injuries from road crashes involve a violent event, life-changing grief and psychological suffering in injured victims and families left behind, reduced household income, living with permanent disability, and fighting for justice (Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety, 2020). Deaths and injuries also generate enormous costs to national economies and retard national economic growth (World Bank, 2017; Wambulwa & Job, 2019).

In 1997, the Riksdag, the Swedish Parliament, adopted Vision Zero as a new goal and strategy for road safety in Sweden (Swedish Government, 1997). Vision Zero as an overall public road safety policy differs from a more traditional road safety in how it defines a road safety problem and its causes, the long-term goal of road safety, how responsibility is shared between individuals and system providers (Job et al., 2022) and what the most appropriate strategies are to create a safe system (Belin et al., 2012). In the more than 20 years since the Vision Zero policy was adopted, it has spread internationally as a model of a public road safety policy (ITF/OECD, 2008, 2016; World Health Organization, 2017; World Bank, 2013, 2020; Job, 2017). It is not only in the transport sector that Vision Zero has attracted interest, but it has also spread and continues to spread to other sectors of Swedish society such as fire safety, patient safety, occupational accidents, and suicide (Kristianssen et al., 2018).

The Vision Zero approach began formally with adoption by the Swedish Parliament in 1997. In this approach, as adopted elsewhere, the Safe System is the state of the road transport system required to deliver the vision of zero deaths, acknowledging the need to provide a system which protects road users by accommodating the inevitability of human error and the vulnerability of the human body to physical force in crashes. A similarly system-based approach was also developed in the Netherlands with the name Sustainable Safety, and the Safe System approach has spread gradually to many countries. One of the first countries after Sweden to adopt the approach was Australia, most likely for two visible reasons. First, Claes Tingvall, a leading architect of Safe System in Sweden, moved to Australia for over 2 years and advocated for Safe System from his role leading road safety in the state of Victoria. Second, this advocacy fell on fertile ground ready for change: A push already existed for the system to be addressed rather than just the road user (for example, the assertion that road crashes are a political issue in the 1980s: Job et al., 1989), and Australia (especially including the states of Victoria and New South Wales) had reached highly effective levels of behavior change including high levels of safety-belt usage and powerful drink-driving enforcement through random breath testing resulting in large reduction in deaths (Job et al., 1997), yet leaving large numbers of people being killed or seriously injured. An improved approach was needed, and the broad road system was already the recognized target. Many countries representing all global regions have followed, including New Zealand, Canada, Qatar, Nigeria, and the countries of the European Union, and more recently the United States has adopted toward zero deaths. Globally influential organizations advocate for Safe System including the OECD, GRSF, the World Bank, World Health Organization, the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration which made Safe System a centerpiece of the Global Plan for the Decade of Action on Road Safety 2011–2020 (UN Road Safety Collaboration, 2011), and most recently the “Stockholm Declaration” of the third Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety 2020 (Government Offices of Sweden, 2020) as well as the United Nations General Assembly resolution on road safety included Safe System (General Assembly of the United Nations, 2020).

There are well-established evidence-based solutions which have proven to be effective in greatly reducing deaths and injuries (Welle et al., 2018) especially as related to speed management (Job & Sakashita, 2016a). Speed managing interventions deliver strong yet often underappreciated benefit-cost ratios (Yannis et al., 2008; SafetyNet, 2009; Elvik et al., 2009). It would seem justified to expect that a full suite of interventions comprehensively adopted would have the potential to eliminate road trauma, although no country has yet fully adopted the required interventions.

Comprehensive solutions and legislated requirements to ensure safety are adopted for other areas of human activity, such as workplace health and safety, yet oddly exclude road crashes generally. For example, in many high-income countries (HICs), companies are required to ensure the safety of their employees at work in offices as well as high-risk situations such as construction. While many countries are apparently adopting “Safe System” for road safety, the way it is commonly described, defined, and promoted in road safety hinders delivery of the zero deaths and serious injuries target which forms part of the Safe System Approach (Job et al., 2022; Belin, 2016) .

This chapter argues that this failure to comprehensively address road safety is in part due to the lack of a rigorous and agreed definition of “safe” in road safety, presents an analysis of the meaning of “safe,” and offers a rigorous definition of “Safe System” necessary to achieve elimination of deaths and serious injuries from road crashes.

The Meaning of the Adjective “Safe”

Multiple authoritative definitions of the adjective “safe” exist. Various dictionaries (with the exception of the Oxford English Dictionary) offer slightly differently worded versions of what are clearly two different definitions of safe: probabilistic and absolute (as summarized in Table 1). While apparently similar, these definitions are in a fundamental sense inconsistent with each other. The first type of definition (see examples in Table 1, Probabilistic Definitions) involves degrees of safety, through probabilities with definitions including that harm is not likely or unlikely, or that there is little risk. The second class of definitions presents safety as absolute with definitions which include free from harm or not involving any risk or protected from danger (see examples in Table 1, Absolute Definitions). These two inherently inconsistent conceptualizations of “safe” in terms of absolute versus relative are also highlighted in previous literature (Hansson, 2012).

Table 1 Definitions of “safe” in various dictionaries
Full size table

Another way to conceptualize the different uses of the term safe is to consider their perceived opposites. The probabilistic definitions of safe can be conceptualized as being the opposite of dangerous: A hungry great white shark is dangerous to anyone in the water near it, whereas the water without a shark is relatively safe (i.e., safe under the probabilistic definition). The absolute definition presents safe as the opposite of any risk. Thus, the water is not safe because people can make mistakes in the water such as swimming out too far from shore, swimming while impaired by alcohol, or not detecting and avoiding a rip (current) on a surf beach or in a river with consequent deaths. The vast majority of human deaths in water are due to drowning not sharks, yet the media and the generation of fear (perception of risk) are more focused on the remote risk of a shark attack (reflecting the sometimes significant gap between perceived and actual risk). The solutions typically offered for drownings emphasize swimmer responsibility with swimming lessons, as well as teaching water skills and awareness. Globally per year, there are around 320,000 drownings (World Health Organization, 2020) indicating that current approaches are not delivering real safety, compared with just over 100 provoked and unprovoked shark attacks combined, with most not being fatal (Florida Museum of Natural History, 2017).

Paralleling the contrast of sharks and drownings, road safety too often demonstrates a focus on emphasizing road user responsibility via training, awareness, and other elements of behavior change with similar failures to deliver absolute safety. Claims of safety are commonly based on the absence of danger in the sense that the road will not cause a crash, the parallel of sharks. The road causing a crash would be, for example, where the signage and the environment do not match, such as a curve advisory speed warning of 80kph for a curve which requires a speed of 30mph to be negotiated, or a junction where the signage and lines (or lack of them) indicate to drivers on all approaches that they have right of way. These are quite rare instances, and thus, fixing them as the criterion for safe results in little road safety value (Job & Sakashita, 2016b). The large majority of crash deaths (parallel to drownings) remain demonstrably ineffectively addressed with this approach to safety – with over 51 million failures each year globally (1.35 million deaths and up to 50 million injuries: World Health Organization 2015, 2018) almost all not involving a crash caused by the road (as described above). These contrasting definitions of “safe” are visually represented in Table 2. Applying the absolute definition of safe to the road transport system would require that the system does not allow deaths and injuries to occur – the Vision Zero Safe System goal.

Table 2 Two meanings of safe (probabilistic or relative vs absolute) and their implications in safety management
Full size table

Confounded Use of “Safe” in Safe System

Appreciating the uses of these distinct meanings of safe in road safety is vital to resolving existing miscommunications. Road safety is a multidisciplinary field with different disciplines employing different meanings of the term safe while communicating as though there is an agreed meaning. In road design and engineering, safe generally takes the probabilistic form: The road is designed not to cause a crash and to guide the user to reduce errors. Thus, the road can be described as safe because it by itself (with perfect use) will not create danger, even though people still die on it. Road design standards are developed to achieve this probabilistic definition of safety not absolute safety. In most countries, road design standards are the equivalent of ensuring that we do not build swimming pools with sharks in them, and audits as commonly applied in many countries are the equivalent of removing sharks from swimming pools, while still allowing people to drown/die in crashes. This approach is facilitated by a continuing powerful culture of victim blaming, allowing the road to be presented as safe while those who crash are blamed for their unsafe behavior (Deborah, 2007; Job, 2020) or the unsafe behavior of a road user other than the victim. In the eyes of genuine Safe System advocates, such roads are not safe (as unambiguously demonstrated by people dying on them) because the absolute definition of safe is being employed. Vital miscommunications arise in this context. Calls for roads to be made safe by Safe System advocates are often met with the response that they are already safe, having been built to “accepted” design guidelines. The vital conversation around what is meant by safe is not undertaken because the difference in usage of the term safe is not appreciated. Highlighting this difference to the community may also increase broad appreciation of Safe System, the deeper (absolute) safety it offers, and the responsibility of governments and system operators for safety instead of being allowed to avoid this responsibility through victim blaming. Community understanding and demand could be a key driver of more genuine development of safe road systems.

A deeper problem in Safe System is also revealed by the visibility of the different meanings of safe: The Safe System concept fundamentally includes vision zero, and thus the names are interchangeable, though they emphasize different elements of the approach: Safe System is that which is required to deliver Vision Zero, whereas the name Vision Zero highlights the final objective. Vision Zero is the logical outcome of aiming for, and ultimate achieving, absolute safety: no risk and no danger, not low risk or little danger. However, Safe System itself has fallen victim to the use of probabilistic definitions of safe in various applications of Safe System. Two examples are apparent.

First, shared responsibility with road users is commonly articulated explicitly as a Safe System principle both in global guidance documents and in national strategies adopting Safe System, with only slight variations of description which retain the responsibility of road users for their safety (shared with system owners and operators). Examples abound: the classic World Report (World Health Organization and World Bank, 2004) asserted as part of safe system that “At the same time, the road user has an obligation to comply with the basic rules of road safety”; the United Nations Global Plan for the Decade of Action on Road Safety (UN Road Safety Collaboration, 2011) included “The individual road users have the responsibility to abide by laws and regulations”; the Road Safety Strategy for South Australia (Government of South Australia, 2011) and the National Strategy for Ireland (Road Safety Authority [Ireland], 2013) both included shared responsibility, described identically as: “Shared responsibility – everyone has a responsibility to use the road safely with organisations, businesses and communities taking responsibility for designing, managing and encouraging safe use of the road transport system.” The Canadian Road Safety Strategy (Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, 2016) and the United States road safety vision, Towards Zero Deaths (Towards Zero Deaths, 2014), similarly still include road user responsibility for their own safety.

While this is how safe system is commonly described and defined in many recent policy documents, this is not in line with the original ideas adopted by the Swedish parliament in October 1997. According to the decision, the responsibility for safety is split between the road users and the system designers (i.e., infrastructure builders and administrators, the vehicle industry, the haulage sector, taxi companies, and all the organizations that use the road transport system professionally), on the basis of the principles that:

  • The system designers have ultimate responsibility for the design, upkeep, and use of the road transport system and are thus responsible for the safety level of the entire system.

  • As before, the road users are still responsible for showing consideration, judgment, and responsibility in traffic and for following the traffic regulations.

  • If the road users do not take their share of the responsibility (for example due to a lack of knowledge or competence) and personal injuries occur or other risky situations occur, the system designers must take further measures to prevent people from being killed or seriously injured.

The latter point is now pervasively omitted in policy positions.

Though this understanding of shared responsibility may not have been the original intention of Safe System in Sweden (While this is how safe system is commonly described and defined in many recent policy documents, this is not in line with the original ideas adopted by the Swedish parliament in October 1997. According to the decision, the responsibility for safety is split between the road users and the system designers (i.e., infrastructure builders and administrators, the vehicle industry, the haulage sector, taxi companies, and all the organizations that use the road transport system professionally), on the basis of the principles that: The system designers have ultimate responsibility for the design, upkeep, and use of the road transport system and are thus responsible for the safety level of the entire system. As before, the road users are still responsible for showing consideration, judgment, and responsibility in traffic and for following the traffic regulations. If the road users do not take their share of the responsibility (for example, due to a lack of knowledge or competence) and personal injuries occur or other risky situations occur, the system designers must take further measures to prevent people from being killed or seriously injured. The latter point is now pervasively omitted in policy positions), the subsequent descriptions of shared responsibility with road users under the banner of or in association with Safe System implicate the probabilistic definition of safe. With human fallibility acknowledged as a fundamental principle of Safe System, making (fallible) road users responsible for their own safety means that errors with fatal consequence are inevitable. This subtle acceptance of probabilistic definition of safe for Safe System hinders progress toward its fundamental aims of zero deaths and serious injuries.

Second, increasingly over time various documents refer to “Safe System Speed Limits” (e.g., ETSC, 2008; Government of South Australia, 2011; Ministry of Transport [New Zealand], 2010; Road Safety Authority [Ireland], 2013). The risk curve indicating the risks of deaths for different levels of speed – 30kmh where vulnerable road users are present, 50kmh where side impact crashes are possible, and 70kmh where head-on crashes are possible –has been (mis)employed to define what constitutes a “safe” speed limit, supposedly adhering to Safe System principles. Subtly merged “Safe System” limits are almost universally agreed, promoted (e.g., OECD, 2006; Sustainable Mobility for All, 2019; Tingvall and Haworth, 1999), and ubiquitously expressed in Safe System road safety strategies and plans even though those limits still carry a 10% probability of death in crashes. This 10% death risk generally presented as a part of Safe System clearly reflects the adoption of a probabilistic definition of safe not an absolute definition of safe. This subtly accepts a 10% death rate in crashes at these speeds as low risk (safe in a probabilistic sense) in addition to the many serious injuries which will occur at these speeds. This transformation of the use of “Safe System” moves away from its fundamental aims for zero deaths and zero serious injuries. Therefore, setting speed limits according to tolerance against kinetic energy needs to be seen as a step in the right direction rather than absolute safe speed limits. We still need more research to clarify appropriate operating speeds and speed limits from a safe system perspective (Belin and Vadeby, 2022).

Conclusions: The Necessary Meaning of Safe System Including Vision Zero in Road Safety

In order to achieve zero deaths and serious injuries, the definition of “safe” in Safe System must be rigorously the absolute definition. Thus, a Safe System is a road system “in which road users cannot be killed or seriously injured regardless of their behaviour or the behaviour of other road users” (Job et al., 2022). This definition accurately encapsulates the absolute meaning of “safe” in terms of “protected/free from hurt, injury, danger, harm, damage or risk.” A Safe System must protect users and not rely on (fallible) users to protect themselves by behaving in a particular (safe, legal, and responsible) way. A system is not safe if the behavior of a user could cause death of that user or another person. In a Safe System, whether anyone suffers a death or a serious injury cannot be left to be dependent on the behaviors of human road users even as a share of responsibility. Once it is agreed that humans inevitably make mistakes and that the human body is frail and will not survive certain forces, the system must literally protect us from dangerous forces even in the event of error or when breaking the law intentionally or unintentionally. A uniform understanding of “safe” in road safety as the full accommodation of inherent human flaws and full protection with no serious harm under any circumstance is vital in order to facilitate a better understanding of Safe System and thus deliver Vision Zero on deaths and serious injuries.