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Abstract
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The first recorded automobile fatality occurred in Ireland, in 1869 (Fallon & O'Neill, 2005). The event was described as a "public scourge and a private tragedy." The coroner was moved to say, "This must never happen again." But then in 1899, Henry Bliss was killed when struck by a taxi in the United States while alighting from a streetcar.
Key Findings:
• Globally, road and traffi c systems are providing the conditions to allow some 1.25 million people to die every year.
• The application of root cause analysis methods can identify systemic factors in road injury.
• Some road authorities are not embracing a safe system approach to road safety.
• People are generally complacent about the continuing road trauma crisis.
• A louder community voice is the key missing element in the struggle to eliminate road deaths and injuries.
Conclusions: Despite all the technical knowledge we have amassed about road safety, Australian road authorities continue to treat safety - at best - as one of a number of competing corporate objectives. Instead of embracing the primacy of road safety, they carry out improvements to road safety only to the extent that budgetary allocations allow. We need to question the values that underpin those budgetary decisions. Until we begin to hear loudly voiced demands for making roads survivable, Australia will continue to fail to meet its Safe System objectives.
Keywords Safe system, systemic injury causation analysis, community demand
Language: en |