Finland received the 2024 European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) prize for outstanding progress in … [+] road safety.
ETSC
Over the last ten years, Finland reduced road deaths by a sizable 29%. The average decline in the European Union was 16%.
Finland’s progress was due to a range of measures, from lowering speed limits in most urban areas and installing automatic speed cameras on nearly 3,000 km (1864 miles) of main roads, to constructing pedestrian and bicycle paths and 400 km (nearly 250 miles) of motorways.
To honor Finland’s accomplishment, the country received the 2024 Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) prize for outstanding progress in road safety. News of the award was announced earlier this summer by the European Transport Safety Council, a Brussels-based independent non-profit organization.
“In Finland, they say ‘vahinko ei tule kello kaulassa’ which roughly translates as ‘accidents don’t come with a bell around their necks,’” Antonio Avenoso, executive director of the European Transport Safety Council, said in a statement. “That may explain why the Finnish take such a comprehensive and strategic approach that seeks to cover many different aspects of road danger.”
Finland’s current traffic safety strategy is guided by the Vision Zero or Safe System approach to road safety and design that takes human error into account, first put into effect in Sweden in the 1990s.
The goal of the initiative is to eliminate all road deaths and serious injuries by creating multiple layers of protection, so if one fails, the others will create a safety net to lessen the impact of a crash. Improvements are designed to result in: safer people, safer roads, safer vehicles, safer speeds and better post-crash care.
In addition to lowering speed and implementing infrastructural improvements and speed cameras, researchers said, Finland’s broad national traffic safety strategy aims to cover a range of measures. These include:
Improving the traffic skills of different road users in a spectrum of age groups, like examining the proportion of schools that have traffic education for school children and the number of collisions involving a child or young person.
Considering mental health as part of the country’s approach to traffic safety. Finland and Estonia are the only two EU countries to include suicides on the road in road death statistics.
Supporting motorcycle and moped helmet-wearing. Rates are between 99-100%.
Allowing the police to make random alcohol and drug tests for drivers.
In Finland, self-reported drunk-driving is much lower than the EU average and acceptance towards this risky behavior is generally very low, the safety group said. Alcohol interlocks must be fitted in all school coaches and school taxis in Finland, and are installed in the vehicles of convicted drunk-drivers as part of a long-running rehabilitation program used as an alternative to a driving ban.
“The effort doesn’t end when crashes happen either; Finland is the only country in Europe that does an in-depth investigation of every single fatal collision, ” Avenoso added.
Finland’s award coincides with a new report published by the ETSC that shows there were 20,418 deaths on EU roads last year, which represents a decrease of only 1% compared to 2022, a stagnation compared to previous years recently across Europe.
To address the disparity between Finland’s success and the EU’s overall lack of it, the ETSC is calling for the establishment of an EU road safety agency that would have widespread oversight to: monitor the roll-out of automated vehicles; carry out crash investigations; revise vehicle safety regulations to account for rapidly advancing safety technologies; and improve inspections to ensure that these technologies are maintained.
The group said that while the other main transport modes in Europe (aviation, maritime and rail) have dedicated EU agencies responsible for safety, there is no such agency for road transport.
“Road safety needs to be a priority once again,” Avenoso said. “100,000 people died on EU roads over the last five years, and 100,000 more will die over the next five if nothing changes.”
To read the full report, including maps and charts, click here.
Source link : https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2024/08/31/why-cant-all-countries-be-like-finland-when-it-comes-to-road-safety/
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Publish date : 2024-09-01 07:00:00
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