The Ultimate Safe System: Redefining the Safe System Approach for Road Safety

The Safe System approach to road safety has been adopted in many countries, but it has been adopted pervasively to a substantially constrained extent. This paper argues that effective adoption is hampered by two weaknesses in strategies for the implementation of Safe System: (1) interpretations of the shared responsibility principle and (2) Safe System adoption presented as simply requiring the use of multiple pillars of action. The typical description of shared responsibility includes responsibility by road users to obey the rules. This absolves accountability for road safety by the system owners and operators, facilitating victim blaming and reliance on road users who are acknowledged to be fallible. Thus, the system cannot be fully safe, and the vision of zero road trauma cannot be achieved. The extent to which road users are responsible for road safety via their actions is precisely the extent to which those responsible for the system have failed to deliver a safe road system. The assessment of road safety plans as Safe System because it includes multiple pillars of action fails to distinguish a system approach from a Safe System approach. Through these inclusions and interpretations, road safety advocates inadvertently obviate the responsibility of system owners and operators to provide a safe road system and prevent the achievement of zero road trauma, which nonetheless remains the vision described in Safe System strategies and plans. The Ultimate Safe System approach is proposed with a definition that genuinely drives the delivery of a truly Safe System and thus zero road trauma. Practical implications are considered.

Automated summary

This paper argues that the widespread adoption of the Safe System approach to road safety is hindered by interpretations of shared responsibility and the oversimplification of using multiple pillars of action. The typical interpretation of shared responsibility places the blame on road users, absolving system owners and operators of accountability. This prevents the achievement of zero road trauma. The Ultimate Safe System approach is proposed to drive the delivery of a truly Safe System and zero road trauma.