In parallel with the measures described under the focus areas, there are important ongoing initiatives which contribute to an improvement in road safety. These may be official activities which do not attract the same attention from day to day but are nevertheless essential for road safety. Police controls, the work of the highway authorities and training in primary schools are examples of this. Police controls benefit road safety because targeted and effective policing helps make road users respect the rules of the road. At the same time the controls operate in conjunction with national campaigns, typically as follow-up to a campaign. The aim of police controls is not to maximise the number of convictions but to have a significant impact on changing driver behaviour.
Training, from lessons for children in the youngest school classes up to actual driving lessons in Danish driving schools, is crucial to ensuring that the road users of the future will be able to travel safely and responsibly in traffic. The Danish Road Safety Council works closely with the local police, municipalities and schools to make road safety interesting and relevant to children in school. This involves things like walking tests for the youngest pupils, cycling tests in the 3rd and 6th grade and school patrols. For the oldest pupils, who are about to leave school, one important task is to raise awareness of the risks that inappropriate behaviour on the roads can entail.
Finally, the basic operation and maintenance of the road network by the highway authorities is a precondition for sustaining current levels of road safety. The highway authorities can usefully apply road safety parameters in their choice of roadside fittings and invest in road safety equipment.
The Road Safety Commission advises the country’s highway authorities to use a number of methods and activities to target and tailor their road engineering efforts in particular. Because these activities are not actually technical measures, they are not tied to a specific focus area, just as there are no actual calculations of the potential for road safety and the expected effect.
The Road Safety Commission advises the country’s highway authorities to prioritise the following suggested measures:
• road safety audits • road safety inspections
• systematic accident reduction through road safety engineering measures • local road safety and speed limit plans
A road safety audit is a systematic and independent safety review of highway
projects. The aim is to make new and improved roads as safe as possible. The systematic process increases the likelihood of unsuitable road designs etc. being detected in time so that they can be changed before the construction work takes place. This will reduce the risk of accidents and the need for subsequent costly rebuilding of the finished facility.
A road safety inspection is a systematic and independent safety assessment
of existing roads, basically following the same procedure as a road safety audit. A road safety inspection is used to identify and rank possible hazards on existing roads. Suggested solutions are also proposed, which can then be prioritised. Road safety inspections can also play a major role in operations carried out for reasons other than pure road safety, as they may provide a good opportunity to make road safety improvements where resources are to be used anyway for renewal and maintenance.
Accident prevention with the aid of systematic identification and subsequent
rectification of black spots is generally recognised as one of the most effective and profitable road safety measures. A black spot is a junction or a stretch of road where there are more accidents than would be expected from the volume of traffic and the nature of the road. The method is intended to target actions at the places in the road network where there is the greatest chance of preventing accidents. A number of black spots are identified at regular intervals. These are then analysed in detail to determine ways of improving road safety. When a number of proposed solutions have been submitted, they are prioritised by comparing the expected reduction in accidents and injuries with the expected cost of construction.
Local road safety and speed limit plans are a particularly useful tool for the
local authorities. Road safety plans can focus on measures to promote safety on the roads and activities to change road users’ behaviour within a defined period. A road safety plan may contain a speed limit plan as a starting point, or this may be drawn up independently of the road safety plan. Speed limit plans provide a basis for working with the local police to set local speed limits, and will help in the longer term to match the design of the roads to the speed limits and the
In parallel with these activities, the Road Safety Commission recommends that work should continue in each road sector to establish and develop roads that are self-explanatory – both in planning rules and in practice. We should strive for simple, clear road design which helps to regulate priorities at junctions, makes it easier to read the course of the road and helps drivers choose the right safe speed for the road. In this connection, we should also work to ensure that only the necessary information is provided, so that road users can focus on the essentials.