National Road Safety Week 2022

A day I will never forget

My life changed shortly after 3pm on Wednesday 12th April 1995. I found myself being the first responder to a traffic crash on the A128 in Orsett, Essex, UK. I was only 20 at the time and what I faced has sat with me ever since.

I was fortunate enough to be with my cousin Paul Faughnan as we ran towards the damaged vehicle. He was an off-duty fireman for The London Fire Brigade at the time and ten years older than me. Nothing ever prepares you for what you see. But instinct kicked in.

My cousin performed a heart massage and I held the victim’s hand and spoke to him. He was about 45 and I remember his hands being big, his fingers were thick and covered in calluses and plaster from the days’ work.

He was in severe shock, very calm and still and took about 15 minutes to pass away.

My cousin later told me that it was very important to continue to speak to someone who was at end of life to afford the most dignified end as the last sense to go is your hearing.

That day shook me up and had an immediate impact. I suffered many sleepless nights, had bouts of stress and anxiety, was convinced I too was going to be a victim of crash and drove defensively and super cautiously. I was no longer an immortal 20-year old with no care in the world about death.

I have often wondered who he was and who were the many people also impacted by this event. The driver of the other vehicle, the paramedics who arrived on the scene, the police officer who had to deliver the devastating news to the man’s house, his family, his partner, his children….

I am now about the same age as the man who died on the A128 that day and wonder if the family ever knew that despite his injuries, his final moments were very peaceful.

Globally, about 1.35 million people are killed on our roads every year, but a more sobering number is the 20 - 50 million people that are seriously injured per year. That's about 100,000 people entering our hospital system every day.

In addition to this is the trauma associated with first responders, the burden on paramedics and medical staff and finally the emotional impact to family and friends of those who have had their life cut short or changed significantly. This number is unquantifiable.

Road Safety Week

This month, we celebrate Road Safety Week. For one week every May, the road community in Australia and New Zealand comes together to raise public awareness of road safety by highlighting the impact of road trauma and ways to reduce this.

Road Safety Week is an initiative run by Safer Australian Roads?and Highways (SARAH) Group in Australia and Brake in New Zealand.

In my role as a highway practitioner, we seek to reduce the burden of trauma on society and have been steadily improving since the peak accident days of the mid-1970s to 2019. This has involved a number of?initiatives such as improved legislation and compliance, seat belt laws, driver training, vehicle safety, technology and finally better road design with more forgiving roadsides as mistakes do happen.

The COVID skew to statistics

Most countries have withheld crash data for 2020 and 2021, but those that have been released have shown an anomaly associated with the events around COVID-19. In the USA, NHTSA reported a 7.2% increase in fatalities in 2020 compared to 2019 with a net travel distance decreased by 13.2%. The fatality rate for 2020 was 1.37 fatalities per 100 million VMT, up from 1.11 fatalities per 100 million VMT in 2019.

NHTSA’s research implies that during lockdowns and restrictions, driving behaviour changed significantly, and that drivers took more risk including speeding, non-use of seat belts and drink/drug driving.

In early March 2020, I went on a personal journey to introduce temporary legislation called DRIVE-10 to reduce the posted speeds (via legislation only) to counter the behaviour that would occur during the pandemic. I predicted that as traffic reduced, the average speeds would increase. Combine this with the underlying stress and anxiety in society, an increase in the percentage of vulnerable road users as people avoided public transport and turned to other modes such as walking, cycling and motorcycles - and you have a recipe for an increase in fatalities and injuries. The main aim was to avoid the burden on ICU beds that were desperately needed to fight COVID-19.

The phenomenon applied across the world despite the efforts of other organisations including pressure on the WHO to call for similar action. As far as I know, only one government, the world’s oldest, temporarily lowered its speed limits with positive outcomes – The Isle of Man.

Understanding human behaviour is pivotal in modern road and vehicle design, as humans, we need to be trained and as humans we make mistakes. Understanding how we make mistakes has been the cornerstone of investment into products and technologies that have graced our vehicles and roads over the years. From the star safety ratings we see on cars that shape manufacturing and consumer behaviour , to the iRAP star ratings we see on roads to drive government investment in road improvements.

Road Safety Week is an extremely important week for us all in the road industry. It provides an important time to reflect on how we can positively influence Road Safety for ALL road users as designers and practitioners.

Putting the past two years to one side, since the mid-1970s, each year has seen a slight improvement on the human toll caused by road crashes.?I am excited about the future and the advancement of low-cost tech to improving road safety as we mobilise and share the streets and highways together.

How to get involved

You can also get involved with the week by:

• Purchasing ribbons and stickers in support of the SARAH campaign
• Undertaking a pledge for Road Safety Week Australia and sharing it on social media
• Donating to Road Safety Week New Zealand