Citation

Smith G. J. Australas. Coll. Road Saf. 2015; 26(3): 47-52.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Australasian College of Road Safety)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

The world is poised to adopt a Sustainable Development Goal committing to halve road deaths by 2030. Achieving that goal means that all countries will need to apply known solutions much more systematically than previously to achieve safer roads, vehicles and behaviour. This is especially the case in developing countries that are now investing heavily to overcome a lack of basic infrastructure, including providing for the nearly one billion people in rural areas that lack access to all-weather roads. Consistent with the 'safe system' approach, countries leading in road safety are increasingly examining ways to ensure that people do not come to serious harm on their networks. The use of star rating targets is becoming more prevalent as a mechanism for managing safety on major roads and guiding investment. Highways England, a newly established government corporation for national roads, has a goal that 90% of travel on its network will be at 3-star or above by 2020. The Netherlands is now within 25km of achieving its 3-star target for national roads. Sweden's administration aims for better than 75% by 2020 and near 100% by 2025. New Zealand has completed a review of design standards to ensure that Roads of National Significance (RoNS) will be implemented with a minimum 4-star KiwiRAP rating. In Australia, the Australian and Tasmanian Governments have released a 10-year, $500 million action plan to improve the Midland Highway to at least 3-stars. There is good evidence that better star ratings are associated with lower crash costs. Most recently, the Road Safety Foundation reported that re-surfacing, improvement of road markings, lowering the speed limit, and improvement of pedestrian crossings on a stretch where pedestrians were especially vulnerable allowed a section of the A404 in Buckinghamshire, UK, to rise from 2-stars to 3-stars overall and this helped cut crashes by 90% [2]. A study on the Bruce Highway in Queensland, found that: crash costs on 2-star roads are 40% lower than on 1-star roads; crash costs on 3-star roads are 61% lower than on 2-star roads; and crash costs on 4-star roads are 43% lower than on 3-star roads

Language: en