Jim Langford

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Austroads Safe System

• Jim Langford
• Monash University Accident Research Centre
• 19 October 2005

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What is being replaced?

• Collections of individual programs.
• For example the 10-Point Plan
• - speeding
• - drink-driving
• - seatbelts.
• Haddons Matrix

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Features of previous strategies

• 1.Solve the problem by eliminating the cause
• 90 of crashes are caused by the nut behind the
  wheel
• The main target is therefore obvious
• Hence the preponderance of education-cum-enforceme
  nt countermeasures

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Features of previous strategies

• 2. Strategies were reactive
• Almost by definition, there needed to be a
  problem in the first instance ( and yes, there
  were exceptions)
• As a specific instance the frequent use of
  Benefit-cost ratios in fixing priorities

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Features of previous strategies

• 3. Blame the road user
• The perceived problem an idiot driver crashing
  into a pole
• The response - too often, blame the idiot driver!
• Lets return to this later

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Haddons Matrix was an outstanding success
1965
1982
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The next step forward

• The need for a quantum shift are to meet national
  road safety targets
• 9.3 fatalities per 100,000 pop in 1993
• 5.6 fatalities per 100,000 pop in 2010
• HENCE THE SAFE SYSTEM APPROACH

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Whence the crash reductions?

• Source of Australias target reduction by 2010
• safer roads 48
• safer vehicles 25
• safer road users 23
• new technology 5.

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What is the Safe System approach?

• The short answer
• It is pretty much all that Claes has been
  describing for Sweden
• And that is not coincidental

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Safer roads

• improved risk analysis of the road network
  including but not restricted to crash
  performance
• identification of the most effective treatments
  including those offered by ITS
• review of current safety standards (including
  speed limits, clear zones and roadside hazard
  control) to develop safety benchmarks for new
  works, remedial treatments.
• Predominantly a proactive approach

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Safer vehicles

• especially through improved marketing of vehicles
  with high safety ratings
• promotion of vehicle crashworthiness ratings to
  the general public
• the development of safer fleet vehicle purchase
  policies.

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Safer speeds

• Speed and road conditions interact such that
• a protective road infrastructure will allow
  higher speeds
• a poor road infrastructure will require either
• - road improvements or
• - reduced speeds, especially in treating
  high-risk
• sections of the road network where there
  are no
• immediate engineering options

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Safer road users

• Passive
• the interaction of safer roads, vehicles and
  speeds will result in protected and safer
  road users
• Active
• road users need to take responsibility in
  obeying the rules, knowledgeable about safety
  implications of their actions.

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Safer road users - Why the emphasis on passive
safety features?

• human behaviour does not readily change, many
  road safety attempts notwithstanding.
  Motivation, attention, emotion, observation,
  prediction, knowledge and skills are all
  weaknesses that prevent the human from being the
  ideal traffic participant (van Vliet
  Schermers, 2000p9).
• humans are largely unpredictable and most safety
  efforts that aim to eliminate unsafe behaviours
  by directly targeting road users, cannot be
  sustained over the long term.

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Re-structuring the road user problem

• Scenario a driver crashes into a telephone pole
• The old question why did that bloody idiot
  crash into the pole?

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Re-structuring the road user problem

• Scenario a driver crashes into a telephone pole
• The old question why did that bloody idiot
  crash into the pole?
• The additional new question what bloody idiot
  put that pole there to be crashed into?

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An unsafe system

• A stupid system may be unfair but
• Drink driving - but pubs with car parks
• Speeding - but fast cars and so marketed
• Vehicle incompatibility subsidize the purchase
  of 4WDs (and dont miss the pedestrians)
• Seatbelts the solution is there but hampered to
  implement
• etc.

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An unsafe system

• but certainly it is unsafe.
• if all road users complied totally with all road
  rules, fatalities would fall by around 50 per
  cent and injuries by 30 per cent
• under optimum conditions therefore, around
  one-half of fatalities and 70 per cent of
  injuries would remain.
• Elvik R (1997).

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Safe System targets

• The challenge is to ensure that
• no fatalities will occur
• serious injuries will be reduced.
• To be achieved mainly by safer management of
  vehicles, the road infrastructure and speeds to
  minimise the probability of death as a
  consequence of a road crash.

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Status of Safe System

• It is still predominantly a document but with
  some level of commitment from all jurisdictions
• It requires implementation especially at
  jurisdictional levels
• In the meantime, it has been accompanied by some
  national efforts

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Example 1 of a Safe System program - speed

• Speeds currently set using an engineering/driver
  choice philosophy
• Road and roadside features and development
• Driver choice 85th ile travel speeds
• The result Australia has amongst the highest
  (especially urban) speed limits in the world

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Australian and international speed limits
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Austroad Project Balance Between Harm Reduction
and Mobility in Setting Speed Limits

• Aim to develop, trial and evaluate a new system
  for setting speed limits based on harm reduction
  principles.
• Different speed philosophies being considered
• Economic optimisation model
• Harm reduction model

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Austroad Project Balance Between Harm Reduction
and Mobility in Setting Speed Limits

• Work still in progress but a likely model
• Lowered default speed limits for different road
  types
• Variations (higher or lower) depending especially
  on the risk factors along each road or road
  section

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Austroad Project Balance Between Harm Reduction
and Mobility in Setting Speed Limits

• A major challenge
• Perceived public opposition to further reductions
  in speed limits, both urban and rural
• Opposition led particularly by the automobile
  associations.
• A staged introduction perhaps urban speeds

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Example 2 of a Safe System program - roads

• Existing road network currently improved mainly
  by blackspot programs in various forms
• at a specific site or section of road
• along a route with high crash numbers
• area-wide, encompassing a collection of roads and
  streets that collectively have high crash
  numbers
• through mass action, whereby a known remedy is
  applied to a wide spread of locations with common
  crash problems.

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AusRAP

• Assessment of a roads safety status
• Two standard protocols
• risk mapping of casualty crashes
• a star rating based on a road protection score
• Two measures of risk
• Risk pertaining to the road
• Risk pertaining to the individual driver

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AusRAP

• Origin
• In Australia, the automobile clubs with support
  from Austroads and the jurisdictions
• Based on EuroRAP, parallels with NCAP
• Status underway
• risk mapping has occurred for rural sections of
  the National Highway in all jurisdictions but
  Tasmania

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A mop-up

• The situation before Safe System
• Some key features of the Safe System
• A couple of national programs representing the
  Safe System philosophy

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Questions?