Wanted: New thinking for road safety
Starting with a blank sheet of paper to write a national road safety strategy for Scotland might on the face of it sound ideal. You could rub out everything that’s gone before. Forget the failures and write a piece fit for the 2020s and beyond.
As tempting as this sounds the Transport Scotland Road Safety Framework to 2030 consultation, isn’t a piece of creative writing, it is an opportunity to collaborate and build a better transport system. The tram lines have been established through a process of whole system thinking and adopting a life-course approach to road safety challenges both current and emerging.
Some questions to consider
Whether you are a pedestrian, cyclist, motorcyclist, or someone who drives or rides for work, there is often little or no room for mistakes on the road. But what if we could engineer our roads to be more forgiving?
What are your thoughts about:
- The impact of climate emergency and emerging technologies?
- The links between enforcement and deterrence
- Increasing the visibility of road policing enforcement
- The consequences of road users not travelling at appropriate speeds and its effect on road casualties?
It is important to ‘humanise’ road safety and visualise the people and families behind the statistics we use to assess performance improvement. By this I mean, fewer people killed or seriously injured on Scotland’s roads must surely be a shared vision for people across Scotland and the wider world.
Every day my focus is on those who drive or ride for work, workplace culture and its effect on road casualties…but none of these topics can be looked at in isolation. There can be no missing pieces in Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2030 jigsaw, the interconnectedness between the various components makes each indivisible from the other in our quest for Scotland to have the best road safety performance in the world.
Your opportunity to save lives
So, take time to reflect on your connection to road safety, how important is staying safe on the road for you and your family -it’s not every day you get the chance to save lives.
If you let this opportunity pass you by there may be a time in the future when you have a burning issue about road safety, most likely relating to the themes in the consultation document, and reflect that you should have taken the time to have your voice heard.
The consultation is open until 1st December at midnight. Take ownership of road safety issues that affect you and yours every day and share your thoughts.
We need new thinking for the future of road safety.
We need you.
You can respond to Transport Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2030 here