Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety Queensland

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Reflections On Some Behavioural Measures
Adelaide 2003 Presented by Professor Mary
Sheehan
CRICOS No. 00213J
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Community Ownership of Road Safety

• So that
• Vision Zero becomes part of the expectation and
  experience of the road user.

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Policy Maker Challenges to Achieving Community
Ownership are

• The unspoken economic trade off between mobility
  and freight transport and human life and quality
  of life
• The tyranny of distance and the (probably
  unacceptable) cost of making our vast network of
  roads protective for people
• An administrative vision of a structure where
  things can be done correctly, a kind of orderly
  perfection achieved (McKnight (1987)

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The Road User Challenge is the

• ROAD DEATH PARADOX
• The familiarity of the event of a road crash
  should lead to heightened relevance and concern.
  If we havent all been in a crash we
  certainly know someone who has been seriously
  injured in one.
• However
• An apparent lower value placed on mortality and
  morbidity due to road trauma than that due to
  other causes.

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• Just as night follows day there are floods and
• droughts and fires and road crashes
• LEADING TO
• A perceived inevitability of the human loss due
  to crashes
• possibly caused by
• A perceived lack of personal behavioural control
  over road crash related events and actions
  (Bandura, 1977)

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Key Principles For Change

• A need to understand this paradox and find a
  solution for it
• Recognise the diversity in community
  understanding and experience of safe and unsafe
  situations
• Tailor and support solutions to fit specific
  behaviours, modes of transport and communities

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Community Ownership of Road Safety Comes in a
Variety of Ways

• It is building change for the long term not
  always change that can be measured in the short
  term
• The power for changes comes from a broader
  advocacy that has widespread community support
  (Wallack et. al 1993)

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Descending hill, left hand corner, vision
obscured. Note impact damage to tree.
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(No Transcript)
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Facilitating Community Change

• Localise the problem and its solution
• Provide locally relevant information
• Increase the personal and local relevance of the
  problem
• Increase the personal and local relevance of
  solutions
• Establish mechanisms that enable local solutions
• Acknowledge and publicise safety promoting
  actions

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Stimulation of Local Ownership

• Road safety can only be achieved by an informed
  community who believe they have control over
  their lives
• Digging deeper in the detail (Allan Krosch,
  2003). Provide more specific and localised
  understanding of crashes and provide this
  information to local professionals through
  with them to the local community

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A Case Study

• The success of the School Transport Safety
  Taskforce linked with
• The SafeST program
• CARRS-Q Road Safety Awards

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• School Transport Safety Task Force
• Task Force set up by Government in March 2001
• Driven by media and community pressure
• Response to National School Bus Safety Action
  Plan 2001
• Intersectoral membership
• Brief to review and provide recommendations
  within six months to improve school transport
  safety in Queensland

CRICOS No. 00213J
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Task Force Process
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SafeST (Safe School Travel) Package

• SafeST Subsidy Scheme
• Funding for road safety infrastructure around
  schools. Projects such as the provision of
  pick-up/set-down areas, bike paths, footpaths,
  pedestrian crossings and refuges, and parking
  areas.
• Safe Walking and Pedalling Program
• Minor infrastructure works and road safety
  programs which increase the safety of children
  walking and cycling to school, and encourage
  these modes of transport

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Taskforce SafeST

• Issues raised by Taskforce provided a focus for
  SafeST applicants
• Safer bus fleets
• Findings of Taskforce included in SafeST
  initiatives
• Management strategies for young school
  pedestrians pedestrian licences

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Growing Ownership and Confidence

• Queensland Road Safety Awards
• School Applications
• 2003 23 nominations
• 2002 10 nominations
• 2001 1 nomination

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Community Solutions

• Must take account of

• the people
• the problem
• the situation

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And My Big Five
3 Problem areas 2 Process solutions
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(1) Young Drivers

• Early career drivers

of driver fatalities by age (Australia
2001) 0-16 17-25 26-39
40-59 60 All Males
1.2 31.1 24.3
22.6 20.9 100 Females
1.6 18.2 25.1
34.2 20.8 100 Persons
1.3 28.0 24.5
25.4 20.9 100
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Young Drivers cont.

• High risk takers

Injury Hospitalisation (20-25
yrs) Self-reported Not hospitalised
Hospitalised Risk taking N N
Low 1165 91 115
9 Medium 1827 90
200 10 High 1036
85 187 15 X2 30.7,
plt0.001
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(2) Road users in Rural and Remote Regions
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(3) Alcohol and Driving

• Make maximum use of current attitudes to
  implement national response.
• Systematic management of offenders
• First offender programs
• Recidivist programs to include interlocks
• Alcohol free fleets

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If I had 10M

• (4) A research and policy centre funded to solve
  one (and only one) of the problem areas. A
  Manhattan Project of centralized and
  concentrated specialization.
• AND/OR
• (5) Decentralized specialization leading to an
  additive solution. The key research teams
  throughout the country funded to concentrate on
  the related area of their particular strengths.
  e.g. IPCA, European Community initiative on drugs
  and driving.