Global road safety: a well-travelled road?

In 1908 the first mass-produced motor vehicle, the Model T Ford, took to the roads. Over the nineteen years that followed, a further 15 million Model T’s were sold (Ford, 2012). The exponential growth of this motor vehicle was the beginning of the ascendency of private motorisation across many high- and middle-income countries. Such proliferation of private motor vehicles in the first half of the twentieth century saw increased levels of road trauma; a negative externality arising from investing in a road transport system designed predominantly for private motor vehicle use.

As highlighted by (Bhalla, Mohan, & O’Neill, 2020) in this special issue, it was not until the 1960’s and 1970’s following the establishment of regulatory institutions, that an extensive array of scientifically evaluated road safety strategies were implemented. These strategies involved changes to motor vehicle design, road infrastructure and the targeting of specific driver behaviours. Importantly, success in reducing road traffic injury in high-income countries was only attained when countries stopped relying on ineffective behavioural interventions and shifted the responsibility for road safety to the designers and managers of the road transport system (Bhalla et al., 2020; O’Neill & Mohan, 2020). This approach (often referred to as Safe System, Vision Zero, or Sustainable Safety) has its genesis in the pioneering work of William Haddon in the United States (in the 1960s) which focused on addressing the structural determinants of safety, including road infrastructure, vehicles, and trauma care systems. Most importantly, the approach relied (and still does) on empirical research that investigated how interventions affect road traffic injury and invested significant resources to scale-up the most effective approaches to mitigate road traffic injury.

Despite the extensive global road safety advocacy in the early decades of the twenty-first century, the United Nations Decade of Action on Road Safety (2011–2020) has ended with low- and middle-income countries no closer to achieving targets set under the Sustainable Development Goals namely, halving road traffic deaths by 2020. Much of the empirical research to date however, has limited utility in reducing road traffic injury in low- and middle-income countries which account for over 90% of the global burden of road traffic injury. The road transport systems in many low- and middle-income countries operate under varying vehicle speeds and road user mix (including motorcyclists, bicyclists, and pedestrians). Reducing road traffic injury in low- and middle-income countries therefore, requires evidence on how interventions affect these unique environments along with significant investments to scale-up effective approaches. The establishment of the Independent Council for Road Safety International (ICoRSI) and this special issue is an important step in growing the needed evidence-base for global road safety.

The road transport system of the twenty-first century is becoming increasingly complex. The digital revolution is rapidly poised to introduce a new ‘operating system’ into a vast, well-established, and regulated road transport system (Kitchin, 2014). For example, the advent of autonomous vehicles in the transport system may be potentially as disruptive as the invention of the Model T Ford (Legacy, Ashmore, Scheurer, Stone, & Curtis, 2019). One must ask therefore, whether the regulatory institutions established in the mid-twentieth century across many high-income countries and those being established in low- and middle-income countries are (or will be) capable of governing and whether they have appropriate decision-making structures to manage the digitally-enabled challenges facing the road transport system?

The safety of the road transport safety in the twenty-first century is predicated on the efficacious interventions that have been trialled and implemented across the road networks in many high-income countries during the twentiethcentury. However, in the twenty-first century, road safety cannot be considered in isolation. Reform of current road transport systems is needed to ensure delivery not only of safe, but importantly, sustainable road transport systems. This will require a significant response that extends beyond what high- and middle-income country governments are typically delivering. In Australia for example, the government and policy makers have responded to the growing congestion and increasing rates of road trauma (indicators of a failing road transport system), with the largest-ever investment in road construction ($20 billion) (The Urban Developer, 2018). In the absence of amendments to land-use decisions that have resulted in cities with limited public transport options and an over-reliance of private motor vehicles, building more roads merely increases exposures to risks associated with traffic speeds and volume, vehicle emissions, and physical inactivity (British Medical Association, 2012; Stevenson et al., 2016).

To achieve reduced rates of road traffic injury across the worlds road transport networks in the short-term (10–20 years), transport policies related to road safety need to embrace the tenets of safe and sustainable mobility (Sustainable Mobility for All, 2017) thereby divesting in a road transport system dependent on fossil fuelled private motor vehicle use.

Mark Stevenson
The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
[email protected]

Kavi Bhalla
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6679-7820