Road safety experts at Loughborough University are leading a €5.8m European project designed to help halve road deaths in Europe by 2020.
25,900 fatalities occurred on Europe’s roads in 2012, more than half of which were vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, children, the elderly and disabled. The European Commission (EC) has set ambitious targets to halve this figure by 2020, and reach close to zero fatalities by 2050.
Funded by the EC’s Horizon 2020 Programme, the SafetyCube project will develop an evidence-based road safety decision support system to enable policy-makers and stakeholders to identify the most cost-effective measures to address the most pressing road safety problems.
SafetyCube is the first systematic pan-European in-depth study of accident causation. As well as providing data on existing technologies, it will also enable predictive estimates to be made of the effectiveness of new technologies which may only be on the road in small numbers or not yet in use.
The project brings together 18 partners from 15 European countries and spans all elements of road safety from infrastructures and speed limits, to vehicles, road users, and driver behaviour.
The project will be led by Professor Pete Thomas of the Safe and Smart Mobility Research Cluster in the Loughborough Design School.
Professor Thomas said: “Road safety records for countries in the European Union vary considerably. If all Member States had the road safety levels of the best performing countries it is estimated deaths would have been reduced by over 10,000 in 2012.
“SafetyCube is the first support system of its kind, and will help road safety policy-makers and industry stakeholders adopt the evidence-based policies of the most successful countries, as well as helping them identify the most cost-effective measures for their own country.
“Countries that perform best in road safety are those which uniformly have a strong evidence base and a systematic approach to policy making that starts by identifying causes and key risk factors. This has not been adopted by most EU Member States with the consequence that road safety policies may be erratic and not results-focussed.
“But even the best performing countries do not have available an evidence-base of the breadth and depth to which SafetyCube will work, so all can expect to have opportunities to further reduce casualties.”
Interesting comments about the indecision between choices drivers and others can make: these are related to our having a Highway Code – not a Highway Law. In other countries e.g. Germany, the Road Traffic Rules (Strassenverkehrsordnung) are much more definitive and prescriptive. e.g. it lays down that if you run into the vehicle in front of you you are automatically at fault unless certain (limited) circumstances apply. Thus much of the minor damage only issues never get to court but are dealt with through insurance claims against the person at fault. As with our having an unwritten constitution and common law, we have a different legal system – be careful what you wish for.
Honor Byford, Chair, Road Safety GB
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Sorry Idris, I should have said that a fully compliant driver would not “Kill” anyone else rather than crash. I am aware that a fully compliant driver may well be “crashed into” and that has been a theme to one recent thread about pedestrians wandering out into the carriageway unexpectedly. I still am waiting for an explanation from Duncan as to what such a beast is?
Nick, Lancashire
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Poacher turned gamekeepr Idris? You’ll be reporting speeders next. For all you know, the young lady in question might have spent many hours pouring over accident data and concluded that parking on a zig-zag by a crossing, whilst illegal, wasn’t dangerous at all and therefore justified it to herself – some people have that attitude apparently.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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Well said, Duncan.
Hugh – while there are certainly many drivers well aware that they are breaking rules, especially ones like parking on double white lines, overtaking within crossing zig-sags and speed limits, there are also many who have never bothered to understand the rules and therefore do not even understand that they are in breach of them. One example – when on foot I saw a young driver casually park on a zig-zag, right next to the crossing itself and walk into the newsagent. When I helpfully pointed out that this was both illegal and dangerous – and why it was dangerous – it became clear that she really had no idea that this was the case.
Idris Francis Fight Back With Facts Petersfield
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I think those who do drive dangerously, break the rules, drive without due care etc., certainly do know or suspect that they are doing so, but something in their psyche prevents them from wanting to corect their behaviour. Even after incidents take place, it was never ‘their fault’ – they simply don’t learn from their mistakes. As I said elsewhere, they tend to be persistent and repeat offenders set in their ways. I’ve encountered motorists with many points on their license, but who still haven’t learnt.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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In a report elswhere on the RSGB site GEM motoring assist says that the “safest journeys happen when everyone obeys the rules of the road”. The advocates of autonomous vehicles also maintain that these vehicles will be safer because they are programmed to always comply with the rules.
The rules say that you must not drive dangerously, or drive without due care and attention or drive without reasonable consideration for other road users, but nowhere are these terms actually explained and codified. Without any reasonable explanation of what these rules actually represent the average driver can only ever assume that they are complying as they can never know for sure. When there is ambiguity within a rule set then it requires the human being to make interpretations and judgements as to how well they are managing that ambiguity. Thanks to the local rationality principle a human will always be satified that they are managing it extremely well and that therefore they are fully compliant with the rules.
It is only after an incident or accident that this judgement might be called into question when hindsight bias will give a perspective that simply was not available to the person involved at the time. Unless and until the ambiguity can be completely removed from the rule set then yes the fully compliant, non-speeding driver will remain the biggest killer on the roads.
Duncan MacKillop. No surprise – No accident.
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Once again, and only a week or so since I tried to lay it to rest, the idea that anyone fully complying with the rules will not be involved in an accident. Nonsense – not even the best driver in the world is invariably capable of avoiding the transgressions of others.
I am pleased to see – at last? – that cost effectiveness is to be assessed. I have to hope that this will be on the basis of cost effectiveness of spending similar money in a wide range of possible benefits and not just on a few different road safety methods.
For instance – what road safety policy could possibly be more cost effective than appointing staff specifically to walk around our hospitals making sure that no patients are becoming dehydrated or starved for lack of monitoring of their food intake?
Idris Francis Fight Back With Facts Petersfield
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Perhaps it is only me – who knows there may be others in the same position? – that doesn’t understand what a “fully compliant” driver is?
To be legally compliant whilst driving does a driver not need to be behaving, amongst other things, with “due care and attention”? If they are then perhaps they will not crash? Are you referring to full compliance with a posted speed limit Duncan?
NIck, Lancashire
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A quick read of some of the papers that Prof Thomas contributed to reveals that he will be the ideal person to head this initiative. Rather than sticking with the now discredited behaviourist model of accident causation he is very much in tune with Hollnagel and the concepts of what is now known as Safety II. This represents a significant and welcome change to the thinking behind road safety and I for one am really looking forward to seeing the results of the SafetyCube work.
Here is just one of his papers that you may find to be of interest. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3861814/
Duncan MacKillop. No surprise – No accident.
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As modelling for future events has proven to be completely fallible with regards to global weather and climate conditions, and given that we are talking about a European situation that will encompass the statistics or evidence from Eastern countries, the averages are going to be skewed, if not inaccurate. Out of whose pockets is this €5.8m project going to come?
Derek Reynolds, Salop.
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I am very pleased to see that Loughborough University want road safety to start using “an evidence-based” approach. They will be using “predictive estimates” (or modelling) to assess which interventions might work best but there is no mention of how the actual effect of interventions will be measured. Clearly, Loughborough University will understand the value of running scientific trials so I am sure they will be keen to be the first in the world to run scientific trials in road safety. Will SafetyCube start a revolution in the quality of road safety evidence? I hope so.
Dave Finney, Slough
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This sounds like an enlightened approach to road safety instead of what we have now. Signage overload, speed humps that damage vehicles, cameras everywhere and the never ending reduction in speed limits on all roads forcing people to look everywhere but where they are going. I do hope that they come up with solutions other than the go to speed of a vehicle.
Steve Armstrong, Halifax UK.
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With the evidence clearly pointing to the fully compliant, non-speeding driver as being the biggest killer on the roads this new scheme is to be welcomed.
Duncan MacKillop. No surprise – No accident.
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Perhaps this is the reason for dropping the previous strategic policy for 2020. This is the new all in one package for those reductions to take place.
At least under one umbrella it has a greater chance of achieving what individual countries can’t. Being from a University I would expect some scientific trailing to find the best interventions that can be obtained.
Bob Craven Lancs…… Space is Safe Campaigner
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