Sustainable Safety in The Netherlands Creating a Road Environment where People on Foot and on Bikes are as Safe as People in Cars

Abstract

Road crashes claim over one million lives each year worldwide, overwhelmingly in low- and middle-income countries. A handful of higher-income countries have made great progress in reducing traffic fatalities and are moving toward Vision Zero. The goal of this study is to evaluate how one such country, the Netherlands, has cut its traffic fatalities by over 90%. The results show that the Dutch have virtually eliminated the concept of “vulnerable road users” in that the risk of fatality for pedestrians, bicyclists and vehicle occupants has all converged at a low level. This is an amazing achievement, especially when compared with countries like the U.S. where the risk of fatality for non-vehicle occupants is 5–8 times that of vehicle occupants. In this paper, we assess the evolution of risk for different types of road users in the Netherlands since 1970. We also review critical events, advocacy, policies, and programs that were implemented in the Netherlands over the last five decades to address the issue of traffic safety. This analysis demonstrates that the Dutch used protests and advocacy campaigns to garner support for policies and programs that promoted non-motorized transportation as routine mobility choice. Furthermore, the governing body for safety in the Netherlands was an early adopter (in the 1990s) of a systems-based approach to traffic safety called Sustainable Safety. A 2020 FHWA webinar highlights that this systems-based approach is now beginning to take hold in the U.S.