The ACT enjoys the best road safety record of all Australian jurisdictions. To maintain and continuously improve on this good record the ACT needs to consistently devise, promote, deliver and evaluate its activities. Part of this process must include seeking out new initiatives to address road safety issues and to anticipate, assess and address any changes to the variables within the road safety framework (users, roads, vehicles and systems) that may impact on our safety. One pair of factors, which is currently foremost in awareness among road safety specialists, is that our population is ageing rapidly and older people are particularly vulnerable as road users. In brief, road safety activities and initiatives in the ACT are on par with those in other Australian jurisdictions. Quality programs, publications and on-line information are available and promoted to older road users. Generally the mix of programs reflects the areas of highest casualties among older ACT road users — drivers and their passengers. The ACT accident and fatality statistics for older pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists are low. If taken in isolation they would not indicate the need for additional targeted road safety initiatives. Nevertheless the potential for shifts in the popularity of and consequential changes in transport needs, especially as older people retire from driving, suggests a broad and strategic approach to road safety for this group. The latest research on older driver behaviours and safety reveals new insights into the causal factors for high road casualties among this group. Whilst many current programs and projects are valuable, a revision of their content is needed as these programs and projects do not fully reflect the causal factors in casualties among this group. Further questions have emerged from this analysis about whether current initiatives are sufficiently visible and appropriate to their audience to be influential in changing behaviours and having positive effect on outcomes. These findings and “gaps” in our knowledge have been explored, confirmed and developed through the extensive consultation process. The ACT has undertaken a significant number of projects relating to road safety and older drivers. The NRMA-ACT Road Safety Trust has funded many of these and some have been undertaken by a variety of organisations. While there is little doubt that these projects have collectively and individually met a wide range of the needs of the older community and contributed to the ACT’s excellent road safety record, there has been no way of ensuring that these individual projects truly met the overall needs of the older community. Furthermore, while the ACT does have a Road Safety Strategy, in which older road users are named as a vulnerable road user group, a specific and detailed strategy that directly addresses the road safety needs of older road users has not been developed. Given that the ACT’s population is ageing faster than any other Australian jurisdiction, it was considered timely to analyse what has been done within recent years and to consult widely with the older community and road safety experts, identifying the driving (and other transport usage) patterns of older people, the transport needs of older people, to determine the level of awareness and impacts of road safety initiatives and to produce clear indications of the on-going road safety development needs of older people in the ACT. It is hoped that this project will benefit the ACT community by better targeting road safety expenditure, increasing the community’s awareness of the road safety needs of older people, reducing road trauma, reducing the impact of the ageing ACT community on road safety, and encourage the ACT to develop an older person’s Road Safety Strategic Plan. This project, conducted by COTA (ACT) and supported by funding from the NRMAACT Road Safety Trust, is designed to scope current road safety issues as they pertain to older road users in the ACT. It consists of three distinct phases: Phase 1: The review phase comprised analysis of the various road safety projects relating to older people. This phase has two elements. One reviewed projects within the ACT undertaken during the last 5 years. The second aspect covers a literature review of material relating to older people and road safety, both in the ACT and other Australian jurisdictions. Phase 2: The consultative and survey phase included wide consultation with the ACT community and road safety experts. This focused on road safety needs for older people in the ACT. It included a survey of approximately 5% of the population aged 65 and over, focus groups and individual consultations as appropriate. Phase 3: In the analytical phase, the outcomes of the previous two phases were analysed and the gaps and needs of the older community identified. A wide-ranging set of discussion points and recommendations were developed for carrying road safety forward for this group in the next 5 years. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting