Rethink road safety, look at the behaviour of people

Citizens are usually blamed for a crash. However, this mindset fails to assess if the road design is safe to begin with

Globally, two people die every minute due to road traffic crashes. The 2023 World Health Organization report notes a slight decrease in the number of road traffic deaths, yet road safety remains a persistent global health crisis with over 3,200 people losing their lives every single day and pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users bearing the brunt of it.

Citizens are usually blamed for a crash. However, this mindset fails to assess if the road design is safe to begin with. Humans make mistakes but should not lose their lives for it. Evidence suggests that the most effective way to prevent road deaths is a systematic approach that shifts the responsibility of safety from the individual to the policymakers, engineers and people designing the roads.

The “safe systems approach” adopts a holistic strategy of designing roads based on how people behave. Most of the roads in urban India today are designed primarily to improve traffic flow, while most people in India either walk, cycle or use public transport.

Providing space for pedestrians to walk, stop and cross safely can also help reduce conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles and improve traffic flow. Simple elements like refuge islands, median refuges (places for people to stop before crossing), pedestrian crossings, and signages can be provided to enhance safety and minimise conflicts between vehicles and pedestrians. Countries like Sweden, which adopted this approach from 1994 onwards were successful in reducing road fatality rates by 55% (1994-2015). It is also estimated that more than one million deaths could be avoided annually if countries were to adopt this approach.

Road safety in our cities can also be enhanced by reducing the total volume of vehicle kilometres travelled, which will reduce the risk of crashes and provide safer access to pedestrians and cyclists. An increased emphasis on shifting to public transport will help reduce the exposure to everyday risks for drivers, passengers and other road users. The co-benefits also include increased physical activity for commuters and a reduction in carbon emissions. This can be categorised as the avoid-shift-improve (ASI) framework, which simply means, avoiding growth in vehicle kilometres travelled, shifting trips to safer and more sustainable modes like public transport, and improving the condition of transport in terms of safety, time, cost and comfort.

Speeding initiates deadly crashes. The faster the vehicle travels, the greater the possibility of a crash and the consequences for the people involved. Every 1% increase in mean speed produces a 4% increase in the fatal crash risk and a 3% increase in the serious crash risk. Speed management in India, unfortunately, involves reviewing and revising speed limits based on the intended speed at which the driver should drive and not the design speed that the road permits. A more nuanced approach where speed management goes beyond assessment by focusing on critical elements like looking at the design of the road, the way people move and what causes motorists to speed in the first place would enhance safety significantly.

Road safety demands a paradigm shift towards a more comprehensive and proactive approach. By adopting a holistic strategy that considers human behaviour, designing streets with pedestrian safety in mind and promoting sustainable modes of transport, we can mitigate the persistent global health crisis of road traffic crashes. It is time we collectively commit to rethinking road safety, acknowledging it as a shared responsibility that can only be addressed through collaborative, systematic and innovative approaches. The lives saved, injuries prevented and communities strengthened will serve as a testament to the transformative power of adopting a holistic and forward-thinking perspective on road safety.

Pawan Mulukutla is executive programme director, Integrated Transport, Clean Air and Hydrogen, WRI India and Tanushree Venkatraman is programme communications manager, WRI India. The views expressed by the authors are personal

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