11 major issues affecting road safety
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I am Daniel Fădur, jurist and road safety expert, I have created and/or managed organizations with large fleets of cars, I have driven more than 2 million kilometers in almost half the countries of the world and I am still learning and looking for answers why a model is good, why another is stupid and I always look for the logical solutions.
I am one of the road safety experts who sees things differently. So differently that I see problems everywhere, especially in traffic laws, which are then transposed into road architecture. When everyone thought the earth was flat, a guy came along and said the earth was round.
Do you know how many errors the 1968 Vienna Convention, which represents the basis of traffic law in over 138 states, has?
Some of these errors are fatal, and many people or officials take the Convention as the Bible of traffic regulations.
In road safety it is not enough to ask HOW, but more importantly WHY?
Road signage are responsible for more than 50% of road accidents, although this is not recognized statistically, considering that only road users are to blame.
The road signage mean communication. Communication between the road administrator and traffic participants, drivers and pedestrians, as well as communication between traffic participants.
The road administrator transmits through the markings and road signs installed, messages that you must follow so that all traffic participants can move safely, without conflicts or risks.
Lack of communication, faulty communication, contradictory communication, or too subtle communication, leads to conflicts and most often to accidents, due to the fact that many of the traffic participants will not understand, or will not perceive in time the message and this is equivalent to the lack of communication. Communication must be firm, clear, easily understood by anyone, regardless of level of training and/or education, individual skills and abilities, speed of reaction, degree of attention and concentration which may differ from individual to individual to another and which can be affected both by psychological factors such as the disposition, family, social or professional problems of the individual, as well as by natural factors such as weather, climate, time of day, etc.
Road signage must take into account the human factor, because man is not perfect, we all make mistakes, and with correct road signage we must be able to eliminate human errors.
If the signals are correct, we will know the obligations and intentions of the other road users and act accordingly, so that the traffic flows harmoniously, without risks and without accidents.
If you take a survey you will find that every driver thinks they can be a traffic cop and every traffic cop thinks they are an expert on road safety.
According to this theory, there are as many road safety experts as there are drivers, or traffic policemen. I’m not talking about the specialists from relevant ministries, town halls, or road administrators, who, although they design or approve solutions with serious deficiencies, consider themselves experts in road safety.
Road signage are responsible for more than 50% of road accidents.
Road safety affects absolutely the entire population of the world, not just one social or professional category or class. From the newborn moving from the maternity at home, to those who leave us, walking on the last road, we are all exposed to road safety rules.
Defective road signage is responsible for half of road accidents, and often this is done based on norms, standards and solutions contrary to logic, or mathematical or physical laws, with fatal consequences. WHO data says that approximately 1.3 million people die and 20-50 million are seriously injured annually, with effective costs of ~3% of GDP, but also with other unquantified costs.
World Health Organization
In many states there are no road safety departments, and where there are pseudo-specialists, there are no budgets, tools, strategies or objectives, procedures or competent people to check new road construction projects, or to control compliance with the application of appropriate markings, or their restoration due to wear and tear.
Road construction is first done on the drawing board by architects and engineers. Unfortunately, I found course papers signed by professors PhDs in engineering, professors PhDs in architecture, lecturers, lecturers and assistants, who teach solutions that defy logic, and I also saw completed road projects, real road safety bombs, which were signed by these people from whom you expect to get correct solutions.
In theory, the road administrator is liable contraventionally, civilly or criminally for the accidents caused due to the bad condition of the roads, or the road signnalization, but in practice this happens only exceptionally, and those responsible for traffic safety seem to be in complicity with the road administrators, because I have not heard of the latter being penalized, or held accountable for the quality of the roads or deficient road signage.
Only drivers and road users pay for the damage caused. They are the guilty without guilt, versus the responsibles without guilt.
If some norms and road architecture defy logic, the human factor is almost completely ignored in many cases when road architecture is established. To build the future, it is essential that we first fix the present. Artificial intelligence will of course be an important factor in the development of road safety topics, but unfortunately, we humans are able to block or break artificial intelligence through our actions, or inactions. We need to learn to communicate better when it comes to road safety, but above all, we need to better understand the psychological aspects and human behaviours. When we achieve this, we will have safer traffic.
What’s sadder is that we all contribute taxes and fees to road infrastructure and signage and we don’t always get the safety conditions promised or set by the rules (if any). Often people with responsibility do not understand anything about road safety. I already have a lot of experience in communicating with the responsible authorities, and in many of the stupid answers received, these people denote gross incompetence.
Don’t look up!
Look at the road signage!
States are inert and hardly adopt changes in road laws, either because the procedures are complicated or because the officials in charge do not understand traffic safety matters well enough. Resistance to change is the invisible barrier that blocks evolution.
Road safety must be a science and not just political, democratic, or lobbying decision.
Next, I will present to you on this website some problems that affect road safety all over the world and some logical solutions.
Evolution means change. Who can’t change anything, can’t evolve.