This paper describes the process and methods through which Chile's first National Road Safety Policy was formulated in the mid-1990s and provides an explanation for its success. This policy saved several thousand people from death or injuries and established strong bases for continued, multi-agency and multi-disciplinary work on road safety. Such bases did survive a period with no political interest in road safety and reduced support to it. For any leader in a developing country ministry who decides to undertake a serious policy making process on road safety, the first shock comes from the high complexity of the task ahead. Transport, health, police, justice, urban, education, public works and other authorities must be involved. Medicine, law, engineering, psychology, journalism, police sciences, management, pedagogy and other disciplines are needed to understand the issues and to define what is to be done. Transport companies, newspapers, television, municipalities, universities, schools, bus drivers unions and a host of additional actors should be attracted to contribute and to perform new activities. The measures that could be taken are technically known, from international experience, but every design situation and implementation process is unique. And the prevailing culture is never helpful since it explains traffic-related deaths and injuries as deeds of fate. Where could the leader start from? This paper makes known the foundations, concepts, methods and concrete steps that were used for the formulation of Chile's Policy, which started from the situation just described. As shown in the title, it was a public policy process based on participation. We must add that it was deliberate and systematic, with well-specified theory, methods and managerial tools. Theory corresponds to the Complexity-Participation Principle and the methodology is called Participatory Innovation; both belong to social systems thinking and have been developed by the current author through research and applications in many fields, over a number of years. The same methodology is currently being used for updating the Chilean Policy to the needs and realities of 2007. (A). For the covering abstractof the conference see E216632.
Abstract