Moving Beyond the Vision Zero Slogan

Abstract

Safe System is a holistic way of managing traffic safety based on all components within that system including road environments, speed regimes, vehicle safety, and post-crash intervention. The ultimate goal is to achieve zero road death and serious injury. Safe System was pioneered in the Netherlands and Sweden in the 1990s and gradually began to influence traffic safety management in other countries, including the U.S. Our research shows that since the adoption of Safe System in the Netherlands and Sweden, the risk of fatality has decreased at a rate far outpacing that in the U.S. The improvements have been particularly impressive when it comes to pedestrians and bicyclists who now have fatality risks that are as low as that of people in cars. Our paper outlines details of the Dutch and Swedish approach to Safe System that is associated with their tremendous success in reducing traffic fatality. The synthesis suggests that to embrace the Safe System approach, we need a paradigm shift that puts safety and quality of life at the forefront of our thinking about transportation planning, design, and implementation. We argue that there is a need for a broader dissemination, understanding, and adoption of the underlying principles of Sustainable Safety, and recommend that universities improve engineering and planning education with more Sustainable Safety thinking. We also argue for greater coordination between federal, state, and municipal agencies, and a move away from victim blaming toward the achievable goal of zero road deaths through the adoption of Sustainable Safety approaches.