Research Papers (2009 – 2013)

Abstract

In 2011, the United Nations General Assembly introduced The Decade of Action, with the goal of saving five million lives, preventing millions of injuries and saving trillions of dollars in treatment and economic losses, through road safety initiatives by 2020. The goals and initiatives introduced by The Decade of Action prompted this survey of Canadian urban and rural jurisdictions to assess road safety engineering practices in Canada. Reoccurring answers included a commitment from local governments to continue to improve road safety, constrained budgets and scarce resources for program evaluation. Overall, jurisdictions described declining trends in fatal collisions, increasing overall collisions and increased vehicle kilometers travelled in recent years. Countermeasures most often employed in Canada are: rumble strips, signage upgrades and roundabouts. Less than 60% of responding jurisdictions reported having an annual fixed budget for road safety engineering. Road safety engineers report being aware of the Decade of Action, and having similar goals as the first pillar of the program, but largely report not purposefully tailoring their road safety programs to align with the initiative.

Colleen Flather, Jeannette Montufar