ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the types of government actions that are being taken to influence the market for safe vehicles and how the public strategies have changed over time. It focuses primarily on the role the state can play in promoting adoption of road vehicle safety technology. Road safety research tends to focus on the effectiveness of specific measures such as helmets, seat belts and speed cameras. The state carries out its role in road safety through a number of policy instruments. Regulations (sticks) are coercive for the target group subjected to government. Economic instruments (carrots) involve either distributing or taking away material resources. In the case of information (sermon), the state disseminates knowledge, arguments, advice, encouraging talk and other immaterial (symbolic) assets to the target group. Vehicle safety is an area that is garnering more attention in countries with a low share of traffic fatalities and there are high ambitions for it in the field of road traffic safety.
