ABSTRACT
Safety action needs a lot of basic understanding of what safety is and how it can be treated. The problem is that everybody is a road user for more than 60 minutes per day, thus implying that everybody quickly becomes “an expert”. One of the consequences of this – presented in
Planning and
this chapter – is that there is a clear tendency for speed to become one of the most important qualities of traffic today. Roads – even city streets – are built in a way allowing very high speeds. Another element is the car, which today most often can do speeds (well) over 200 km/h. Speed management has not been a very succesful area. Compliance rates are around 50%. A scenario is checked with absolute speeds below 30 km/h. The result indicates strong positive effects on safety, interaction, noise, retail etc. However, this can not be achieved unless systematic traffic calming is introduced, specifically with humps and similar “vertical” measures and roundabouts. It is also necessary to introduce effective “vehicle calming”. The ISA-systems of today are producing small changes, and need to be complemented with authority-driven systems that will force drivers to pay more respect to speed limits. The effects of traditional traffic calming and “vehicle calming” have a very great potential in making cities more attractive and useful in an inclusive way to all citizens.
