This briefing attempts to summarise how perceived and real responsibilities for road safety have changed over the last 30 years. In the 1970s a strong emphasis was placed on the individual road user to behave correctly at all times. Now there is recognition that accidents and injuries result from a combination of factors, road user error being only one of many. This has led to a systems approach, recognising that combinations of factors come together to cause accidents and injuries. Countermeasures, similarly, may well have to be applied in combinations and the hierarchy of effectiveness of countermeasures is quite separate and different from the analysis of causation. In parallel with that development has been the spread of responsibilities from Ministries of Transport to many other agencies and organisations at local, national, regional and EU levels. Initiatives in several Member States where responsibilities have been shared vertically from national to local levels, and horizontally across private and public sectors and professional groups, illustrate how new divisions of responsibilities can create new and effective strategies for road accident reduction, illustrated by the Sustainable Road Safety programme in the Netherlands and Vision Zero in Sweden. Some suggestions are put forward for building on those developments elsewhere in the EU, in terms of encouraging best practices and creating more rational, science based strategies. (A)
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