Improving Road Safety
in the OIC Member States
20
Report findings and provide a management framework to guide the implementation of its
recommendations. Further updates are planned, based on the experience gained with their
application in low, middle and high-income countries.
Road safety management systems have evolved in high-income countries over the last fifty years
and the challenge for low and middle-income countries will be to benefit from the lessons
learned, to avoid the unnecessary and unacceptably high level of fatalities and injuries
experienced in high-income countries. This system requires low and middle-income countries
to shift rapidly and directly to a Safe System with a results focus which aims to eliminate road
deaths and serious injuries, rather than chart a fatalistic pathway that accepts these impacts as
an inevitable price of economic progress.
The Safe System approach is also well attuned to the global, regional and country development
goals of sustainability, harmonisation and inclusiveness. The Safe System approach is dedicated
to the elimination of deaths and injuries that undermine the sustainability of road transport
networks and the communities they serve. It focuses on safer and reduced speeds, and also
harmonizes with other efforts to reduce local air pollution, greenhouse gases and energy
consumption. Its priority to afford protection to all road users is inclusive of the most vulnerable
at-risk groups such as pedestrians, young and old, cyclists and motorcyclists. These co-benefits
of shifting to a Safe System further strengthen the business case for its implementation.
The long term goal for the Safe Systems Approach is the elimination of fatal and serious injury
crashes. It is a long term goal requiring a comprehensive and integrated set of coordinated
interventions that cannot be achieved in the short to medium term. Such a long term goal is best
supported by traditional interventions which target specific road safety problems, often on the
short to medium term. The Dutch Sustainable Safety programme was the result of an integrated
and coordinated approach combining both short term interventions aimed at immediate
problems and longer term interventions requiring a fundamental change in which road
infrastructure was provided and operated (Schermers & Vliet, 2001; Wegman & Aarts, 2006;
Weijermars & van Schagen, 2009).
3.3 Road Safety Management System
Effective road safety programmes rely on effective road safety management. The effectiveness
of road safety management is dependent on the institutional capacity available for developing
and implementing effective strategies and interventions. An effective road safety management
system is focussed on achieving results and there must be a clear focus on achieving stated
targets. In this road safety management model (based on that developed by the Land Transport
Safety Authority in New Zealand) there are three layers; results at the highest level which
depends on interventions on the middle level which in turn depends on the institutional
management functions at the lowest level. This pyramid model distinguishes itself from most
other traditional road safety management approaches in that it does not only focus on
interventions. It provides a holistic framework which assigns responsibility for road safety