When zero is better!
Roads, sidewalks, signage and even vehicles must be designed and built so that human error will not put lives at risk.
In 2017 according to the SAAQ road safety record, 359[1] people were killed on our roads. Can you guess what the stats will be in 2019: 300? 200? Honestly, how many deaths would you tolerate in your own family? Zero, of course! So why resign ourselves to hundreds of people dying each year on our roads?
“Enough is enough,” say Vision Zero supporters. Serious traffic injuries and deaths are avoidable and we should aim for zero victims. It’s clearly a high and perhaps even utopian bar to set. On the other hand, should we encourage students to set their sights on a 60-percent exam score or, rather, a 100-percent score?
Nothing mysterious
I know you’re saying to yourself, “It’s a good thing that they’re going to lower the speed limit to 50 kilometres an hour on highways.” But that’s not what Vision Zero means. The approach is straightforward and concrete – there’s nothing mysterious about it. So kudos to Montreal – as well as to Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver and Sweden, where the movement first took root – for adopting Vision Zero.
In fact, it was in this Scandinavian country in 1959 that Volvo introduced the three-point seat belt as we know it today. It wasn’t called Vision Zero back then, but the principle was the same: We needed to remove our rose-coloured spectacles and admit frankly that human beings are not infallible. Roads, sidewalks, signage and even vehicles must be designed and built so that human error will not put lives at risk.
In other words, humans can err, but not so our roads or the planning and management of our infrastructure. This implies taking the needs of all road users – pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and motorists – into account in order to guarantee safety for everyone. That’s what Vision Zero demands: greater multidisciplinary collaboration and better planning for everyone’s benefit.
Road signs alone are not enough
Amid pedestrian traffic, motorists must obviously slow down. But too frequently a mere 30-kilometre-perhour sign is all there is to compel them to do so. With Vision Zero, roads are planned so that they naturally reduce vehicle speed to minimize collisions. Add a good dose of awareness raising and police presence to the mix and you can guarantee the success of this approach.
CAA-Quebec subscribes to this vision with the daily efforts of the CAA-Quebec Foundation. True, we won’t be able to eliminate all fatal accidents anytime soon. But we will have taken a giant step forward by admitting to ourselves that the only ethically acceptable number – the goal to achieve – is zero.
[1] 2017 SAAQ’s Road Safety Record