It has long been believed that accidents were haphazard, resulted from misfortune, and were consequently unavoidable. Hence a low level of public demand for better road safety. But although "bad luck" may indeed plays a part, there are recognizable items of behaviour and features of the road environment or the vehicles that create favourable conditions for accidents to occur. Recent scientific approaches now converge on a multi-factorial concept, according to which accidents are indicators of malfunctions of the road and transport system, whose components are roads and their environment, vehicles, and road-users. In order to be able to prevent accidents, it is necessary to understand their nature and the processes that lead to their occurrence. The chapter primarily aims at showing that accidents, product of a system, are complex phenomena, and that only a comprehensive systems approach can render such complexity. Safety action, which consists in trying to reduce the numbers of future accidents and victims, is itself a complicated process, if carried out rationally on a knowledge basis. However, decision-makers or professionals in charge of road safety matters often tend to oversimplify both the description of the accident phenomenon that they use and, as a consequence, the design of safety measures or programmes. Their approach, observable through the safety policies implemented, is compared to the comprehensive one, in order to show what may be lost by not taking into account all aspects of the accident problem. (A)
Samenvatting