Management Systems For Road Safety
Progress in the area of prevention is formulated in an environment of beliefs, called paradigms as can be seen in the next table. Some of them can be refereed as professional folklore, i.e. a widely supported set of beliefs with no real basis. For example, the “accident-prone driver” was a belief that was supported by the data in the sense that a small number of drivers do participate in a disproportionate number of accidents, it follows that the identification and removal of this drivers will reduce crashes. A more scientific analysis of the data indicate that this phenomenon can be explained simply by the random nature of the accidents, and not for a specific error-prone attitude of such drivers.
| ASPECTS | PARADIGM I | PARADIGM II | PARADIGM III | PARADIGM IV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decennia of dominating position | 1900 - 1925/35 | 1925/35 - 1965/70 | 1965/70 - 1980/85 | 1980/85 - present |
| Description | Control of motorised carriage | Mastering traffic situations | Managing traffic system | Managing transport system |
| Main disciplines involved | Law enforcement | Car and road engineering, psychology | Traffic engineering, traffic
medicine, advanced statistics |
Advanced technology,
systems analysis, sociology, communications |
| Terms used about unwanted events | Collision | Accident | Crash, casualty | Suffering, costs |
| Premise concerning unsafety | Transitional problem, passing stage of maladjustment | Individual problem, inadequate moral and skills | Defective traffic system | Risk exposure |
| Data ideals in research | Basic statistics, answers on “What” | Causes of accidents; “Why” | Cost/benefit ratio of means “How” | Multidimensional |
| Organisational form of safety work | Separate efforts on trial and error basis | Co-ordinated efforts on voluntary basis | Programmed efforts, authorised politically | Decentralisation, local management |
| Typical countermeasures | Vehicle codes and inspection, school patrols | The three E’s doctrine, screening of accident prone drivers | Combined samples of measures for diminishing risks | Networking and pricing |
| Effects | Gradual increase in traffic risks and health risks | Rapid increase of health risk with decreasing traffic risk | Successive cycles of decrease of
health risks and traffic risks |
Continuous reduction of serious road accidents |
From: OECD Road Transport Research
(to be completed)
Read more about Management Systems For Road Safety: National Programs, Management Systems, Semantics
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