Lecture (.pdf format)

In the 43,000 transport deaths which occur annually in the European Union, 99 per cent are on the roads. Per distance travelled, the fatality risks on the roads are much higher than travelling by rail, ferry or air and per hour of exposure, road and air travel have about the same fatality risks. Motorcycling carries the highest risk of all around 20 times more dangerous than car travel and 400 times more dangerous than rail travel over distance. Compared by either means with other activities, motorcycling is over 10 times more dangerous than most perceived risky recreational activities or sports.

Accident data in the EU are inadequate to satisfactorily document the extent of transport-related injuries and fatality and injury risk. This is mainly because of gross under-reporting of certain classes of casualties and the absence of adequate control data to assess exposure. More fundamentally, there is no structure for the majority of modes for reconciling national data sets to produce a coherent picture at EU level.

Across the 15 Member States of the EU, road fatality rates vary from around 8 in the UK and Sweden up to 38 in Spain, 44 in Portugal and 53 in Greece with an EU mean of 16 (deaths per billion veh. km).

The history of crash investigation in the four modes of travel illustrates a transition from simplistic conclusions that the cause of an accident was human error towards a greater understanding of system failures in which the operator is just one component. This has lead to the design of benign and failsafe systems, but that approach for road transport has yet to be widely understood or implemented.

New technologies are becoming available which offer pre-crash and crash recording of many parameters. The extension of recorders used in aviation for many years, adapted to the other modes of travel, will increase the objectivity and completeness of future crash investigations. Encouraging the development and use of such devices, especially for road transport is a priority for EU action.

The administrative structures which control accident investigation and regulate safety vary within Member States and by mode of travel. There is a good case to be made for separating the accident investigation function from both the regulatory and operating aspects. A separate and independent accident investigation agency is proposed for each mode of travel within each Member State, with international collaboration, especially for aviation, marine and rail sectors.

In furthering transport safety in the EU, the underlying tools for decision making are discussed. The fundamental building block is a recognition that all transport accidents can be diminished in numbers by the application of known, science-based strategies. Data is fundamental to this approach and that leads to the development of a strategy of:

• exposure control
• system design
• behavioural change
• injury investigation
• post-crash rescue and medical care

Evaluation of the effects using performance indicators is implicit and the adoption of explicit performance indicators across the EU is proposed.

Specific areas for EU actions are:

• improved data systems throughout the Member States and the development of databases for all modes at the EU level (as initiated with the CARE database and the STAIRS protocol);
• target setting for death and casualty reductions especially in road crashes, for both Member States and the EU as a whole;
• establish performance indicators for Member States and the EU so that comparisons can be made and changes over time monitored;
• encourage the establishment of independent crash investigation agencies in all modes;
• promulgate new EU Directives in those areas where the EU has exclusive responsibilities notably in vehicle safety design or where EU action can add value;
• encourage knowledge transfer and best practices to level the great variations in transport injury risks across Member States;
• specifically encourage the new technologies of Vehicle Data Recorders;
• seek to encourage national science-based strategic thinking for transport safety programmes in all modes of travel by making transport injury reduction a major priority. This can only be done by applying resources commensurate to the problems and thus closing the gap between what is known to be good and effective and what is actually accepted and tolerated. The political will to make such changes will follow from a comprehensive science-based common transport safety policy for the EU.

ETSC is grateful for the financial support provided for this event by

European Commission
Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (UK)
Swedish National Roads Administration
BP Amoco
Ford of Europe
KeyMed
Railtrack
Scania
Shell International