32-35 Wegman Feature

ITE JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2001 ALL OVER THE WORLD, ROAD safety appears to be considered a problem with many (social) consequences. Everywhere in the world people are trying to improve road safety. Yet, relevant literature contains many indications that road safety improvements are moving slowly. Several causes for this are given. First, the political priority is relatively low. Second, it is not well-known exactly how road safety should and could be improved and which measures are most effective. Furthermore, policy instruments and possible countermeasures are often debated. However, road safety problems have proved not to be unsolvable.1 In fact, considerable improvements are possible by investing in the quality of the road network system. Road safety is for sale. In theory, many policy instruments and imaginable measures are available, which are also practically applicable. It is important to realize that road safety problems and casualties are, to a large extent, avoidable. Road safety professionals all over the world aim to achieve road safety. They report progress that has been made, the effects of specific projects and the nature of road safety policy in general in research reports, policy documents, scientific magazines and journals, and at international congresses, meetings and working visits. These forms of communication seem to be guided by the assumption that effective examples from one country can also be effective in another country with the necessary local adjustments. The specific cultural and institutional context within which measures have been developed and carried out hardly receive any attention. But it is precisely this context that determines the generalization of knowledge and the answer to the question whether particular policies that were successful in one context will also be successful in a different context. Can countries learn road safety improvement from each other? If so, how? These are the central questions of this feature that relate to road safety policy in general, as well as the choice of (counter)measures to be taken. A study was carried out by the Permanent International Association of Road Congress (PIARC) Committee on Road Safety and was presented and discussed during the XXIst World Road Congress, October 1999, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The following research method was chosen. In the first place, a theory of road safety policy, the choice process concerning policy instruments with the relevant road safety measures, was developed. The question now is whether it is feasible to apply this theory to road safety and whether it is consistent with the observed road safety practice in different countries. An attempt was made to test this in a qualitative way. The results may be regarded as indicative and are based on short essays that were written by those countries represented in PIARC C13 Working Group 1. They were invited to describe the history of road safety policy in their country. Ten countries— Brazil, Cuba, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Norway and Slovenia—provided information.