The Safe System

Traditional road safety strategies primarily focused on modifying road-user behaviour to prevent human error. While emphasising individual responsibility through awareness campaigns and penalties yielded some results, this approach has inherent limitations in significantly reducing fatalities and serious injuries.

Recognising these limitations, Sweden pioneered the 'Vision Zero' concept in the 1990s, fundamentally shifting the perspective. This led to the development of the Safe System Approach (SSA), which views road trauma not merely as the result of individual error, but as a systemic failure the transport system itself must be designed to prevent or mitigate. Now adopted globally, the SSA underpins the UN's Global Plan for the Decade of Action on Road Safety 2021-2030 and the targets set by the Stockholm Declaration.

The Safe System Approach accepts that humans inevitably make mistakes. Therefore, it places the responsibility on system designers and managers—encompassing planners, engineers, policymakers, enforcement agencies, and vehicle manufacturers—to create a road transport system that anticipates these errors and protects users from death or serious injury when crashes occur. The focus shifts from solely correcting user behaviour to identifying and rectifying systemic risks and implementing effective, layered countermeasures.

In essence, this approach abandons the unrealistic goal of creating infallible road users. Instead, it aims to create a forgiving system that minimises the consequences of predictable human error.