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SUNflower

The three SUNflower countries Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands are the safest countries in Europe. With EU financial support, a comparative study on road safety developments was carried out by the Swedish VTI, TRL in the United Kingdom, and SWOV in the Netherlands. It was called the SUNflower project. The study tried to find out which of the policy elements and measures in these countries had contributed to their relatively safe position. This information could then be used to make recommendations that would lead to a further traffic casualty decrease in both the SUN countries and other European countries.

The project was closed off with the publication of a final report that contained conclusions and recommendations.

Koornstra, M.; Lynam, D.; Nilsson, G.; Noordzij, P.; Petterson, H.-E.; Wegman, F.; Wouters, P (2003). SUNflower: a comparative study of the development of road safety in Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.

The project showed that Sweden, the United Kindom, and the Netherlands have been dealing with the same issues but that they implemented their policies in different ways. During the last 20 years all three took measures aimed at drink-driving, speeding, seatbelt wearing, and safer roads. The three countries also used quantitative targets: the number of traffic casualties must decrease in by a certain percentage within a particular period.

The report makes recommendations to further improve road safety in the SUN countries. For the Netherlands the recommendations refered to:

• 80 and 60 km/h roads: on these roads there are more casualties in the Netherlands than in Sweden and the United Kingdom.
• Moped casualties: in the Netherlands mopeds have a higher crash rate than in the other two SUN countries. Its causes must be known in order to reduce it.
• Seatbelt wearing: the wearing percentage in cars should be increased; it was about 80% in the period studied, but has increased in the meantime.

In the report VTI, TRL, and SWOV also recommended the EU to take measures to improve European road safety. The EU has also set a quantitative target: by 2010 the number of road deaths must have decreased to 50% of that in 2001. The SUN institutes believe that this will only be possible if additional measures are taken. Their recommendations to the EU are:

• EU guidelines for intensifying national road safety policy in the individual EU Member States should be drawn up.
• There should be an EU fund to finance large scale measures like making the infrastructure safer and increasing police capacity for enforcement of drink-driving, speeding, and seatbelt wearing.
• EU guidelines should be drawn up to improve vehicle safety for both the occupants and the collision opponents.
• A new project comparable to the SUNflower project should be carried out in EU countries in various regions.

This new project started in 2004 and is entitled SUNflower+6 (sunflower.swov.nl). In addition to the three SUNflower countries there were three countries from Southern Europe and three from Central Europe. The final report was published in 2006:

Wegman, F.C.M.; Eksler, V.; Hayes, S.; Lynam, D.; Morsink, P. & Oppe, S. (eds.) (2006). SUNflower+6: a comparative study of the development of road safety in the SUNflower+6 countries.