On behalf of the Swedish Institute for Transport and Communications Analysis (SIKA) the effect on traffic safety has been estimated regarding a complete obser¬vance of the laws concerning existing speed limits, the use of seat belt and to be sober as a car driver. The observance of the law varies among the three measures. The observance of the speed limits is low and the observance of soberness is high. Less observance of the speed limits result a little change for the worse of the traffic safety situation but if intoxicated means a dramatic risk increase. The traffic safety situation is due to the low observance of the speed limits the largest problem which results in 150–200 fatalities annually. The other two observance problems concern 50–100 fatalities annually. The report does not show how to increase the observance of the laws. There exists, however, interlock systems for the measures as complement to increased surveillance by the police and/or increased sanctions. The risk of being killed is more than doubled through the lack of observance of the laws compared with the drivers who observe the laws. A very high observance of the three laws means at least half the number of fatalities in traffic. Interesting is that the observance of law is not randomly distributed on the three measures. Both drivers who observe all three laws and drivers who do not observe any of the laws are over-represented in traffic. It is also important that decreased speeds strengthen the two other traffic safety measures. The estimation of the effect of alcohol on safety is very uncertain as the alcohol limit is different in different countries. (Author/publisher) This document is also available electronically via Internet at URL: http://www.vti.se/EPiBrowser/Publikationer%20-%20English/M951A.pdf
Abstract