Road Safety Vision 2010 (RSV 2010) was Canada’s second generation national road safety plan that guided road safety stakeholder efforts during the 2002-2010-period. RSV 2010 was championed by the Ministers and supported by all levels of government as well as instrumental public and private sector partners. The plan was officially endorsed by all ministers of transportation and highway safety in the fall of 2000. This report summarizes the progress that occurred in the key areas identified for improvement under RSV 2010 during its nine-year tenure. In Canada, road safety is a responsibility that is shared among the federal, provincial/territorial and municipal levels of government. The federal government is responsible for developing and enforcing new motor vehicle safety standards and regulations pertaining to tires and child restraints as well as interprovincial commercial vehicle safety fitness. The provinces, territories and municipalities are responsible for building and maintaining roads, commercial vehicle operations, driver and vehicle licencing and the development and implementation of road safety strategies. The levelling-off of road safety progress in the mid-1990s and the desire for improved cooperation among Canada’s road safety stakeholders led experts from various levels of government, non-governmental organizations and other key road safety stakeholders to participate in a national forum on road safety. The forum culminated in the creation of Canada’s first national road safety plan, called Road Safety Vision 2001, in 1996. The two most identifiable attributes of Road Safety Vision 2001 were its vision and its strategic objectives. Canadian road safety stakeholders’ vision was to eventually have the safest roads in the world. The four strategic objectives that were identified to help achieve this goal included: (a) raising public awareness of road safety issues; (b) improving communication, cooperation and collaboration among road safety agencies; (c) enhancing enforcement measures; and (d) improving national road safety data quality and collection. The principal focus of Canada’s inaugural road safety plan was on getting both road safety practitioners and the public to buy into the vision and its strategic goals. Two major areas of focus under Road Safety Vision 2001 were on the development of strategies to get motorists to buckle up more and to drink and drive less. The National Occupant Restraint Program 2001 had a goal to get 95% of motorists to wear seat belts and properly restrain their children by 2001. The Strategy to Reduce Impaired Driving 2001 aimed to have 20% fewer road users killed or seriously injured in alcohol related crashes in 2001 than the comparable annual average figure during the 1990-1995-period. During the time frame of Canada’s first national road safety plan, fatalities and serious injuries decreased by 9.4% and 18.4%, respectively. While no assessments were undertaken to determine if the existence of Road Safety Vision 2001 played a significant role in the casualty reductions that took place between 1996 and 2001, the notable decrease in serious casualties that occurred during this period led Canadian road safety experts to agree to the development and implementation of a more focused and measurable successor plan. Analyses of serious crash data highlighted the need to bring focus to longstanding road safety challenges through the creation of targets for casualty reductions. The new plan — Road Safety Vision (RSV) 2010 — retained the vision and the four strategic objectives of the inaugural plan and added an overall national target and several quantitative sub-targets for fatality and serious injury reductions in order to help Canadian road safety experts achieve their national goal of having the safest roads in the world. Prior to the launch of RSV 2010, quantitative targets supported by strategies were already in place or being developed to address some of the road safety challenges that were identified for improvement under the RSV 2010 initiative. These targets, whose goals were to increase seat belt use, decrease serious casualties resulting from crashes that occurred at intersections as well as those that involved speeding, non-use of occupant restraints and drinking drivers, were incorporated into the RSV 2010 framework. In addition, new targets were identified that called for decreases in fatalities and serious injuries in crashes involving commercial vehicles, vulnerable road users, young drivers/riders and victims of crashes on undivided rural roads. The new and existing quantitative targets were developed and vetted through consultations among CCMTA standing committees, task forces, associate members and other interested stakeholders. The overall national target for RSV 2010 called for an overall 30% decrease in the average number of road users killed or seriously injured during the 2008-2010 period when compared with 1996-2001 figures. The proposed reductions in serious casualties (fatalities and serious injuries) for the sub-targets ranged from 20% to 40% during the same comparison periods. The national target and sub-targets were intended to be ambitious but achievable and sufficiently broad based to enable all jurisdictions to identify at least some road safety challenges as priorities for the development and implementation of focused interventions. During the term of RSV 2010, existing and newly created national task forces comprised of government members and key road safety partners guided the development and implementation of strategies and monitored progress toward the achievement of target objectives. The task forces included the National Occupant Restraint Program 2010 (NORP 2010) Task Force, the Strategy to Reduce Impaired Driving 2010 (STRID 2010) Task Force, the Speed and Intersection Safety Management Task Force, the Vulnerable Road Users Task Force, the Rural Road Safety Task Force and CCMTA’s Standing Committee on Compliance and Regulatory Affairs. RSV 2010 had an overall objective of achieving a 30% or greater decrease in the average number of road users killed or seriously injured in traffic collisions during the final three years of the initiative (2008-2010) when compared with average deaths and serious injuries that occurred during the timeframe of the inaugural national road safety plan (i.e., RSV2001). Although the ultimate objective was not attained, substantial reductions in the number of serious casualties nevertheless occurred. Fatalities and serious injuries were 22.4% and 26.3% lower, respectively, during the 2008-2010-period than during the 1996-2001 baseline-period as can be seen in Figure1. The average number of road users killed in crashes during the final three years of RSV 2010 was the lowest on record in 60 years. These improvements occurred as use of the road transportation network continually increased. Canada’s population (2), licenced drivers and motor vehicles registered (3) all increased by double digit figures between the two comparison periods - by 11.7%, 13.3% and 21.1%, respectively-, while vehicle kilometres travelled (4) increased by approximately eight percent during the same period. It is worth mentioning that progress, in terms of serious casualty reductions, had been slow during the first several years of the RSV 2010 initiative but accelerated during the final years of the plan. The findings of a mid-term review (5) of RSV 2010 in 2007 highlighted a need to increase efforts in order to be able to reach the intended targets. The authors of the review cited concerns about the level of support, resources, responsibility and accountability for the initiative and indicated that RSV 2010 was not meeting its overall target for serious casualty reductions. The authors provided a number of recommendations based on successful approaches used in some of the safest countries in the world. The recommendations included suggestions for more effective coordination and management arrangements, increased multi-sectoral involvement, more evaluation and monitoring programs and increased resources for infrastructure programs, enforcement, and vehicle safety promotion. In response to the report findings, most jurisdictions developed and implemented three-year action plans to 2010 that resulted in heightened intervention efforts on their most critical road safety concerns. The focus of these strategies and action plans in most jurisdictions was on curbing the incidence of drinking and driving and speeding and on increasing occupant restraint use. As RSV 2010 drew to a close, the combination of renewed efforts in most jurisdictions to diminish these longstanding road safety challenges and the economic downturn that occurred throughout North America were regarded as the main reasons for the considerably improved road safety picture. While the downturn in economic activity may have contributed in part to the impressive decreases in serious casualties that occurred during the final three years of RSV 2010, it is worth noting that Canada’s gross domestic product in constant 2002 dollars grew by more than 27% between the two comparison periods. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting