Skip to main content

ITF zero road deaths study wins International Road Safety Award

A new report, Zero Road Deaths and Serious Injuries: Leading a Paradigm Shift in Road Safety, setting out a new approach to road safety has won the 2017 Special Award of the prestigious Prince Michael of Kent International Road Safety Awards. The study by a group of 30 international road safety experts from 24 countries, led by the International Transport Forum at the OECD, reviews the experiences of countries that have made it their long-term objective to eliminate fatal road crashes. Originating i
December 14, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
A new report, Zero Road Deaths and Serious Injuries: Leading a Paradigm Shift in Road Safety, setting out a new approach to road safety has won the 2017 Special Award of the prestigious Prince Michael of Kent International Road Safety Awards.

The study by a group of 30 international road safety experts from 24 countries, led by the International Transport Forum at the OECD, reviews the experiences of countries that have made it their long-term objective to eliminate fatal road crashes.

Originating in Sweden, the report indicates that 88 European cities with a population above 100,000 have had no road fatalities over the course of a whole year. The biggest among them are Nottingham in the UK, Aachen, Germany and Espoo, Finland.

Sixteen European towns, nine in the United Kingdom, six in Germany and one in Norway, experienced no road deaths for five years running. In Sweden, not a single child died as result of a bicycle crash in Sweden in 2008.

According to the World Health Organisation, 1.25 million people are killed by traffic every year.  Road crashes are the leading cause of death worldwide for young people aged 15 to 29. Traffic is the ninth leading cause of death overall, killing more people than malaria, while 90 per cent of road deaths occur in low-income countries, where rapid motorisation drives up fatalities. In many developed countries, the progress made over the past decades has stalled.

The ITF says new thinking is required if the target set by the international community of halving road deaths by 2020 is to be met

The report offers guidance for leaders that want to drastically reduce the road deaths in their communities and sets out how a ‘safe system’ approach to road safety can underpin this goal.

Related Content

  • October 17, 2014
    Speed cameras - road safety benefits
    The 2014 speed camera review by the New South Wales Centre for Road Safety shows that speed cameras continue to deliver positive road safety benefits. A total of 95 fixed speed camera locations were reviewed, with 93 locations shown to be effective from the initial analysis. This positive result shows the review, now in its third year, has systematically identified ineffective fixed speed cameras for decommissioning. Overall at these fixed speed camera locations, there was a 42 per cent reduction in the
  • May 21, 2012
    India's terrifying road fatality rate
    The fatality rate from road accidents in India continues to be of major concern to the country’s Government, highway authorities and safety campaigners. A report from India’s National Crime Records Bureau has highlighted the scale of the problem. Called “Accidental Deaths in India", this official report reveals that reported road accidents caused on average 56 injuries/hour and 14 deaths/hour during 2009. The fatal accident rate also increased from the previous year according to the report, which says that
  • January 24, 2012
    In-vehicle automation of safety compliance and other traffic violations
    David Crawford explores new initiatives in enforcement. Achieving the EU’s new road safety target of reducing road traffic deaths by 50 per cent by 2020 depends on removing legal and institutional barriers to the deployment of new enforcement technologies, stresses Jan Malenstein. The senior ITS Adviser to Dutch National Police Agency the KLPD, and a European-level spokesperson on road and traffic safety, points to the importance of, among other requirements, an effective EUwide type approval process for fr
  • August 3, 2015
    Electric buses: more billion dollar orders
    China will spend up to one trillion dollars on electric buses over the coming 15 years according to analysts IDTechEx. This will reduce the impact of over 22.5 trillion dollars from air pollution over that time, at least one percent of GDP. More insurrection will occur if corrective action is insufficient because hundreds of thousands are dying from traffic pollution and far more are suffering resultant serious disease. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), outdoor air pollution caused 3.7 m