Chronicle, Accidents | We know what saves lives in traffic

Chronicle This is a chronicle, written by an external contributor. The chronicle expresses the writer’s attitudes.

Norway is best in the world on road safety. Nevertheless, too many people die on Norwegian roads. Fourteen people died on Norwegian roads in March and eight in April. In the first week of May, we have had several serious accidents. During the first four months of the year, 29 have lost their lives on the roads. This is disturbing.

Every accident with death or serious injury is a tragedy. Therefore we have the zero vision; no one should die or be seriously injured in traffic. Now we must tighten our grip further if we are to manage to achieve the ambition in the National Transport Plan for 2022 to 2033. It says that we shall have a maximum of 350 seriously injured and killed in traffic in 2030, of which a maximum of 50 will be killed.

Figures from 2022 show that the behavior of road users played a role in 102 out of 105 fatal accidents. Inattention behind the wheel is a contributing factor in almost every third fatal accident. In 2020, we fell below 100 traffic fatalities for the first time. In 2021, the figure was even lower, with 80 traffic fatalities. The pandemic contributed to the low number, and unfortunately we saw an increase to 116 deaths in 2022 and 111 in 2023.

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We know that road design and measures on the road network are important – this is the responsibility of the road authorities and road owners. The police’s controls on speed, intoxication and “unreasonable driving” are both preventive and weed out the worst offenders. The same applies to the automatic traffic controls (photo booths/ATK), where stretch monitoring has a particularly good effect.

Control of vehicles – and especially the heavy vehicles, lowers the risk of accidents. Campaigns aimed at road users have an effect on people’s knowledge and attitudes. We can prove that “everyone else is doing it” is not true. “Everyone else” does not drive a little too fast and “everyone else” does not drive drunk. “Everyone else” also doesn’t fiddle with “duppets” while driving. The vast majority do what they should behind the wheel – they drive a car. The responsibility for saving lives is shared between the authorities, the control bodies, everyone who works with road safety and road users.

The zero vision has three foundation pillars; ethics, responsibility and knowledge.

Ethics: Every single one Man is unique, and everyone is equally valuable. Therefore, we must and must have as a long-term ambition that no one should be killed in traffic. Anything else will be pointless.

Responsibility: The road authorities must ensure that the road systems make it as easy and safe as possible to be a road user, and must protect against serious consequences if road users nevertheless make mistakes. Road users are responsible for their own behaviour. They must do their best, follow the rules and be careful. This is about common courtesy, respect, consideration for others and ethics and morals; no one has the right to knowingly put other people’s – or their own – lives in danger.

Knowledge: We know a lot about where and why accidents happen. We know how intoxication affects the driving characteristics and the ability to react, we know that shifting attention from the road creates dangerous situations and we know the effect speed has in a collision or a skid. We also know a lot about what a person can withstand in a collision. It is therefore important that everyone respects the speed limit, drives without drugs, keeps their concentration on driving and wears a seat belt.

The Zero Vision: Maximum 350 severely injured and killed in 2030 We are significantly behind. In just six years, we will together reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured and killed from around 650 per year to a maximum of 350. We will reduce the number of people killed from 113 to 50. The Norwegian Road Administration takes this very seriously. We have over 4,500 employees who work every day to ensure that you arrive safely on Norwegian roads. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that our behavior as road users is a contributing factor to the vast majority of serious accidents occurring and what is the outcome of the accidents.

The zero vision was adopted by the Storting in 2001. This is a common vision for everyone who works with road safety. But the zero vision applies to all of us. It obliges us to do everything we can to avoid injuries and lost lives in traffic in Norway. We all have a responsibility to make the right choices and to be aware every time we move out into traffic – on foot, on a bicycle or behind the wheel.

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