Traffic safety

The term traffic safety refers to the risk of a person being killed or seriously injured while using the traffic network as a pedestrian, cyclist or user of public or private transport.

How to improve traffic safety

Safety can be improved by reducing the chances of a driver making an error, or by designing vehicles to reduce the severity of crashes that do occur.

It is potentially easier to inflict damage to a situation with a low traffic safety. Therefore (and also for security issues) it is important to create preconditions for a high traffic safety situation. This can be done in two ways, firstly to create a safe road network, and secondly to use safe vehicles. The urban planner can help to create a safe road network, however, has no influence on the safety of vehicles.

Vulnerable road users safety

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Road safety

Best practice road safety strategies focus upon the prevention of serious injury and death crashes in spite of human fallibility (which is contrasted with the old road safety paradigm of simply reducing crashes assuming road user compliance with traffic regulations). Safe road design is now about providing a road environment which ensures vehicle speeds will be within the human tolerances for serious injury and death wherever conflict points exist.The two internationally most well-known ˜safe system approaches" are the Swedish "Vision Zero" and the Dutch program "Duurzaam Veilig", or 'Sustainable Safety' in English.

Over the years, the Sustainable Safety vision has become a household concept, not only in the Netherlands but also internationally. The Sustainable Safety vision was updated in 2005 and published in Advancing Sustainable Safety. The five principles of Sustainable Safety are the essence of sustainably safe traffic, and are summarized in the table below:

Table 1: Principles of the Dutch program Sustainable Safety

Sustainable Safety Principle	Description
Functionality of roads	Monofunctionality of roads as either through roads, distributor roads, or access roads in a hierarchically structured road network
Homogeneity of mass and/or speed and direction	Equality of speed, direction, and mass at moderate and high speeds
Predictability of road course and road user behaviour by a recognizable road design	Road environment and road user behaviour that support road user expectations through consistency and continuity of road design
Forgivingness of the environment and of road users	Injury limitation through a forgiving road environment and anticipation of road user behaviour
State awareness by the road user	Ability to assess one's capacity to handle the driving task

An entire website is devoted to this version of Sustainable Safety. On this website you can find the integral version of the book, the brochure containing a summary, and all kinds of background information.

Vehicle safety

Most industrialized countries have comprehensive requirements and specifications for safety-related vehicle devices, systems, design, and construction. These may include:* Passenger restraints such as seat belts — often in conjunction with laws requiring their use — and airbags* Crash avoidance equipment such as lights and reflectors* Driver assistance systems such as Electronic Stability Control* Crash survivability design including fire-retardant interior materials, standards for fuel system integrity, and the use of safety glass* Sobriety detectors: These interlocks prevent the ignition key from working if the driver breathes into one and it detects significant quantities of alcohol. They have been used by some commercial transport companies, or suggested for use with persistent drunk-driving offenders on a voluntary basis