Developing safe system road safety indicators for the UK

This report urges the Government to adopt a set of road safety ‘performance indicators’, based on international good practice and tailored to UK needs.PACTS says the performance indicators would cover roads, vehicles, users and emergency services in order to focus scarce resources on the most effective actions.

In the report, PACTS proposes a framework which recognises that the safety of the entire road system needs to be considered to reduce deaths and serious injuries – not simply driver behaviour.

PACTS says adopting such a system would give practitioners the breadth of information they need to assess the performance of their road network.

The indicators proposed by PACTS are:

• Percentage of traffic complying with speed limits on national roads
• Percentage of traffic complying with speed limits on local roads
• Percentage of drivers who do not drive after consuming alcohol or drugs
• Percentage of car occupants using a seat belt / child seat
• Proportion of drivers not using an in-car phone (handheld or hands free)
• Percentage of new passenger cars with highest Euro NCAP safety rating
• Percentage of roads with appropriate iRAP rating
• Percentage of emergency medical services arriving at accident scene within 18 minutes