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THEME 5 WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM OTHERS?

Practice and experience in other countries can provide useful insights and may be helpful in suggesting possible initiatives for implementation in Scotland.

Examples of international initiatives are shown below - there are, of course, many others.

Vision Zero - Sweden

In 1997, the Swedish Parliament introduced a Vision Zero policy that requires that fatalities and serious injurious are reduced to zero by 2020. Within Vision Zero, there is considerable focus on engineering and behavioural solutions to road safety. Its four key principles are:

• ethics: human life and health are paramount and take priority over mobility and other objectives of the road traffic system
• responsibility: providers and regulators of the road traffic system share responsibility with users
• safety: road traffic systems should take account of human fallibility and minimize both the opportunities for errors and the harm done when they occur
• mechanisms for change: providers and regulators must do their utmost to guarantee the safety of all citizens; they must cooperate with road users; and all three must be ready to change to achieve safety

Vision Zero accepts that preventing all accidents is unattainable and unrealistic. The goal is to manage them so that they do not cause serious health impairments. Examples of measures implemented include the introduction of a 30 km/h speed limit in built-up areas, the separation of opposing lanes of traffic on single carriageway rural roads, and greater use of roundabouts at junctions.

Goals for Driver Education ( GDE) model - Finland

This initiative in Finland centres on identifying, in a broad way, the specific skills needed to drive safely, including attitudinal/psychological skills. Broadly, the existing approaches to training and testing in the UK are believed to be similar to levels 3 and 4 of the Finnish model. The wider Finnish approach - under Levels 1 and 2 of Goals for Driver Education - are 'Goals for life and skills for living' and 'Goals and context of driving' respectively.

Sustainable Safety - Netherlands

The Dutch 'Sustainable Safety' concept has five main principles relating to:

• the functionality of the road network
• the need for physical separation of vehicles with largely differing mass, speed and direction
• the need for uniform road design to encourage predictable and consistent road user behaviour
• the role of forgiving road design to minimize the effects of accidents
• the capacity of the road user to estimate accurately his own fitness to drive

It aims to prevent crashes and minimize the risk of serious injury, by ensuring that the infrastructure is designed with human capabilities and limitations in mind, that vehicles support driver performance and provide protection in the event of a crash, that road users are well informed and trained, and that appropriate controls are in place.

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