How to start the Safe System journey

Most entities with responsibilities for road safety operate in an environment where there is little knowledge of the Safe System. Often, they face the challenge of initiating even the first moves towards it.

Even when they have reached the "emerging" stage, steps to integrate the various early interventions are still outstanding. In such a "pre-emerging" stage, road safety actors tend to react rather than be proactive in their interventions, and co-ordination between authorities is low. To break out of the status quo, road safety actors should consider a range of initiatives:

• Consult and communicate with the public on the scale of traffic deaths and injuries, and on the successes where integrated safety interventions are implemented.
• Position road safety as a health issue. Highlight the burden on health budgets and loss of economic productivity to seek allies in health and finance authorities.
• Leverage political leadership. Make use of the opportunity when a political leader focuses on tackling road trauma. Propose a system for interministerial action with regular reporting to the highest level of government.
• Seek support from international NGOs and organisations. Include explicit Safe System components in projects financed by development banks and in technical assistance programmes.
• Work with road construction agencies and engineers to incorporate UN Sustainable Development Goal safety targets in design and operation of roads, particularly when financed by development banks and international development assistance.

Speed management is an exemplary area where a Safe System approach can make a major positive impact. Modifying road and junction layouts in combination with reduced speed limits and improved enforcement is highly effective in saving lives. Redesign of the road network in agreement with different road functions can be even more effective. Including communication and community consultation can address hostility among the pubic to controlling speed, especially where penalties are automated, and can unlock demand from the community for interventions.

Collaboration between authorities is equally important where the only intervention available is the introduction of speed humps to slow traffic. In the absence of formal interventions, communities could take matters into their own hands and build unauthorised speed humps. Rather than removal and prosecution by police or traffic authorities there needs to be concertation between authorities to address safety effectively with the financial and labour resources available.

Mechanisms to establish a more systematic adoption of the Safe System approach are also available. Among them are well-established methodologies for road assessments, road safety audits and road safety management capacity reviews. The World Bank's Road Safety Management Capacity Reviews and Safe System Projects Guidelines, in particular, offer a pragmatic approach to overcoming institutional capacity barriers.

Individual Safe System projects can serve as pilots. They can help to build capacity and confidence among stakeholders, and test the readiness of government agencies to adapt policies and scale up programmes towards a Safe System.