CRICOS No. 00213J Copyright Notice: These materials are subject to Copyright and their use is permitted for individual study purposes. They may not be reproduced in any other manner for any other purpose without the express permission of the Lecturer. Road Safety in Australia Professor Simon Washington (adapted from slides by Dr. Mark King, CARRS-Q)
Will learn: •What is safety and risk •How humans contribute to crashes •Which users are most vulnerable to risk •Interactions between road users and the road environment •How to consider human limitations in road design •Behavioural principles for understanding road user behaviour
What is safety? Risk? •How would you define road safety? •How do you think we measure road safety? •Is fixing road safety problems an easy or difficult task?
Safety •From a personal perspective •From a transport system perspective
Risk •How do we measure risk in transport? •What are possible measures of exposure?
Major challenges •Largely unpredictable human good intentioned behaviour •Distraction •Intentional bad behaviour •Poor measurement •Large random fluctuations •Under-reporting
Elements of the Traffic System Traffic Environment Characteristics including: •road conditions •road side hazards •traffic volumes •cycling & pedestrian facilities Road Users Characteristics including: •alcohol & drug impairment •speed •perceptual & cognitive skills •motivational factors •attitudes, values & perceptions Vehicles Characteristics include: •safety standards •occupant protection features (seat belts, child restraints, airbags) •vehicle handling & braking systems Performance of the road system -safety -mobility
Crash Causes •Rarely a single cause, but a ‘causal chain’ of events •90% road user error •30% road conditions •10% vehicular defect or failure Source: Shinar, 1978 Road user error Road conditions Vehicular defect
Contributing Factors to Crashes in Queensland: 2004 Source: Department of Transport and Main Roads, 2009a, p.40…