The Safe System approach is about acknowledging that:
- human beings make mistakes and crashes are inevitable
- the human body has a limited ability to withstand crash forces
- system designers and system users must all share responsibility for managing crash forces to a level that does not result in death or serious injury
- it will take a whole-of-system approach to implement the Safe System in New Zealand.
Who is a system designer?
System designers include planners, engineers, policy makers, educators, enforcement officers, vehicle importers, suppliers, utility providers, insurers, etc.
Who is a system (road) user?
System users include drivers, vehicle passengers, motorcyclists, cyclists, pedestrians, etc.
What do Safe System designers have shared responsibility for?
Under a Safe System, designers create and operate a transport system where people are protected from death and serious injury.
To get to a Safe System, we need to achieve:
- safe roads and roadsides that are predictable and forgiving of mistakes – their design should encourage appropriate road user behaviour and safe speeds
- safe speeds that suit the function and level of safety of the road – road users understand and comply with speed limits and drive to the conditions
- safe vehicles that help prevent crashes and protect road users from crash forces that cause death or serious injury
- safe road use, ensuring that road users are skilled and competent, alert and unimpaired, and that people comply with road rules, choose safer vehicles, take steps to improve safety and demand safety improvements.
A Safe System is greater than the sum of its parts. Even slight improvements across roads, speeds, vehicles and users will lead to proportionally greater safety outcomes. System designers need to investigate and understand the connections between the above components if we are to achieve the Safe System.
How is the Safe System approach different?
When the driver of a vehicle travelling on a 100km/h rural road in wet weather loses control on a bend, a crash into a solid roadside object such as a power pole is likely to result in death.
Under a Safe System:
The road user has a much lower risk of dying or suffering serious injury because, to the greatest extent possible:
- vehicles will increasingly have advanced safety features, including electronic stability control (ESC), front and side airbags and head restraints
- road surfaces will be improved and roadside objects removed or barriers installed
- speed is managed to safe levels through more appropriate limits and self-explaining roads that encourage safer speeds
- road users are alert and aware of the risks and drive to the conditions.
Under the Safe System, a road user who is alert and compliant shouldn’t die or be seriously injured while using our roads.
Our current road transport system is not as safe as it could be
Scandinavian research indicates that, even if all road users complied with road rules, fatalities would only fall by around 50 percent and injuries by 30 percent. So, applying this to New Zealand, if everybody obeyed the road rules, we would still have around 200 deaths on the road each year.
As challenging as it sounds, the Safe System approach works on the principle that it is not acceptable for a road user to be killed or seriously injured if they make a mistake.
What about the ‘3 Es’?
The traditional 3 Es of road safety – engineering, education and enforcement – have served as useful tools to get us to this point and remain important.
However, as an approach, the 3 Es are heavily focused on correcting the road user and will be insufficient to achieve the desired gains in road safety in New Zealand. A Safe System approach is required to protect road users from death and serious injury.
Does the Safe System approach just shift the blame from road users?
No, the Safe System approach doesn’t take the road user out of the picture or ignore their responsibilities. Instead of simply apportioning the majority of blame to the road user, the Safe System approach recognises the need for shared responsibility between system designers and road users.
What does the Safe System mean for system designers?
Implementation of Safer Journeys and the Safe System has begun. Every system designer will need to understand what the Safe System approach means in their day-to-day work if we are to achieve a safe road system increasingly free of death and serious injury.
What would a Safe System free of death and serious injury look like?
We would enjoy a transport system where everyone expects a zero road toll. Roads and roadsides would encourage safe behaviour and be forgiving of human error by providing safety cues to users and protecting them from hazards.
Vehicle technology would communicate with the road environment and automatically adjust to appropriate speeds that respond to real-time road conditions.
Road users would understand and play their part in the system, with licensing dependent on a high level of skill. Alertness and compliance would, if necessary, be reinforced by in-vehicle technology (including alcohol and safety belt interlocks, and fatigue and speed monitoring).
Automated enforcement, including point-to-point (average speed) cameras and remote vehicle power down, could be used for high-risk road users.
Crash risk would be further reduced by advanced vehicle-to-vehicle warning systems (such as vehicle/pedestrian proximity warnings) and automatic collision avoidance technologies (including lane containment and emergency override features in the event a driver fails or is unable to respond to warnings).
If a crash is unavoidable, advanced airbags, crumple zones and head restraints would manage crash forces to levels the human body can tolerate.
For more information:
- Download our Safe System leaflet which contains this overview for system designers.
- To learn more about the Safer Journeys strategy and the first actions to be implemented go to www.saferjourneys.govt.nz.
