Defining a road safety vision for Northern Ireland

A number of countries have adopted road safety visions; these include Sweden and the Netherlands, which are often seen as leading the way in their approaches to road safety. Scotland now has a vision and targeted reductions in road traffic related deaths and serious injuries to 2020, and Great Britain has recently consulted on various road safety issues for the next decade or more, including a vision.

Much of the material in this report is taken directly from previous TRL work that has contributed to the development of Great Britain’s road safety vision and strategy, though it has been supplemented following the GB work and also similar developments specifically in Scotland. It examines the motivation for, and the nature of, visions from various countries and reviews and considers their implications for road safety practice, policy and strategy.

Going forward there is a need to recognise the importance of integrating any road safety strategy and vision with other policy areas, and to further recognise the challenges described by the Eddington and Stern reports, as discussed by the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Committee for Regional Development (2007). Any road safety strategy, whether or not in pursuit of a vision for road safety, should reflect the need to understand and improve road safety in the context of the full end-to-end journeys of people and movements of goods, and to do so in ways that are consistent with an overall reduction in emissions and support for economic growth.