What is Road Safety Week?
Road Safety Week is the UK's biggest annual campaign promoted by Brake, the road safety charity and its aim is to promote and raise awareness for road safety. This year, Road Safety Week will take place from 16 November to 22 November. Throughout the week, thousands of organisations, schools and communities across the UK will be carrying out events to support road safety.
This year, the theme of Road Safety Week is safe vehicles, one of the five key pillars of the Safe System Approach. Each year, more than 1,700 people die on roads in the UK, with a further 30,000 suffering life-changing injuries. Brake advocates that every road traffic collision is preventable and that safe vehicles would significantly reduce these figures.
What is the Safe System Approach?
In our Road Safety Week series, we will explain what the Safe System Approach is and examine in further detail the five key pillars.
The Safe System Approach is a best practice model, adopted in numerous countries across the globe. It was first adopted in Sweden and the Netherlands. It is an approach to road safety management based on the simple principle that our need to travel should not compromise our lives or health. The system is designed to shift responsibility from individual road users to create a system which prevents crashes when possible, or when they do occur, they are less likely to result in fatal or life-altering injuries. It does this by creating a road network which can accommodate human error and vulnerability, designing more effective road infrastructure, managing speed, developing safe vehicles, promoting safe road user behaviours and improving post-crash response. The Safe System Approach is considered to be international best practice in road safety by the World Health Organization (WHO).
At the heart of the Safe System Approach is a shift in responsibility for road safety being with the individual road user to a shared responsibility. This includes policymakers, road planners, vehicle manufacturers, engineers, educators and the media, to name a few. Whilst individual road users also bear responsibility for compliance with the rules, the approach is also based upon an acknowledgement that people make mistakes and the system should accommodate these inevitable human errors. A further key principle is that people are vulnerable to being killed or seriously injured when travelling at certain speeds and certainly those in excess of 30mph.
Essentially, the approach is designed with the aim of ensuring that all aspects of the road structure work together to minimise the chances of a crash and, if a crash does occur, to prevent serious injuries or death occurring.
What are the five key pillars of the Safe System Approach?
The approach is built on five key pillars:
- Safe Roads: Designing infrastructure that protects all road users. This includes segregated cycle lanes, safe pedestrian crossings and road layouts that reduce risks in the event of a collision.
- Safe Speeds: Ensuring speed limits both match the road environment and are enforced. Lower speeds significantly reduce the risk and severity of crashes, particularly in areas with high pedestrian activity.
- Safe Vehicles: Promoting the use of vehicles with advanced safety features such as automatic emergency braking, lane departure warnings and better crash protection for both those travelling inside the vehicle and other road users. This pillar is the focus of this year's Road Safety Week campaign.
- Safe Road Users: Encouraging responsible behaviour by tackling drink and drug driving, distractions, fatigue and encouraging the use of seat belts through education and enforcement.
- Post-Crash Care: Improving emergency response systems and access to trauma care to minimise the long-term impacts of road traffic injuries.
How is the Safe System Approach used in Scotland?
In February 2021, the Scottish Government published The Road Safety Framework to 2030, setting targets to reduce road deaths and serious injuries by 2030. To achieve this, the Framework aims to deliver a road safety environment based upon the five pillars of the Safe System Approach. The Government considers it necessary to embed this approach to achieve its long-term vision of zero fatalities and serious injuries on Scotland's roads by 2050.
MFMac and Brake
MFMac is proud to be on Brake's Scottish legal panel and support their aim of providing excellent post-crash care by taking a trauma-informed approach to advising individuals of their rights to make a claim for compensation, whilst assisting and supporting them throughout the legal process.
