For more than a decade, efforts to improve mobility and road infrastructure have been central to the transportation policy in the United States. However, less attention has been devoted to improve road safety. Compared to the reduction rate in road fatality of high-income European nations (50 percent) during last decade, the U.S. still lags 19 percent behind. This shows a potential to reduce road collisions by applying the lessons of best performing European cases. This study reviews the cases of France and Sweden, and examines the backgrounds and policy implementation processes. The study found that public officials in model nations shared or held main responsibility for road safety and undertook rigorous interventions to improve road safety awareness of the whole society. In France, the primary responsibility for road crashes was on "everyone", which includes road users, policy-makers, road designers, and all other groups. On the other hand, in Sweden, system designers have all causal responsibility for injuries and deaths on roads. (Author/publisher)
Abstract