Speed & Crash Risk: OECD’s recommendations

This paper is one of a series of ‘essential evidence’ papers, produced by Dr Adrian Davis from the University of the West of England, which summarise key evidence from peer-reviewed literature. All of the summaries are published on a single page in order to better disseminate academic research to practitioners for implementation within planning and policy.

This paper summarises a report by the International Transport Forum of the Organisation for Economic and Cultural Development (OECD) titled ‘Speed and Crash Risk’.

Dr Davis’s top line summary is:
Excessive speed is a cause of deaths and injuries across all motorised societies. Through a Safe Systems approach to road safety, with lower speed limits, the evidence is that deaths & serious life-changing injuries can be reduced, while improving quality of life.

The report’s four key recommendations were:
• Set speed limits according to Safe System principles
• Reduce the speed on roads as well as speed differences between vehicles
• Improve infrastructure and enforcement if speed limits are to be increased
• Use automatic speed control to reduce speed effectively