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

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