A Safe System is a road network where the opportunity for death and serious injury has been systematically and proactively removed. If you take the Safe System view that road users are inherently likely to make ‘mistakes’ either by not giving the driving task their full attention or because of normal processing limitations, then the requirement is to make sure that crashes that will happen are not fatal or serious in outcome.
It is clear that rural roads are a problem when it comes to road safety and safe system implementation. A newly-published report from the ETSC shows that half of road deaths in the Europe occur on rural roads (see the full report here). Similarly, a 2023 report from the National Farmers’ Union highlighted the disparity in safety between urban and rural roads in the UK. With a new THINK! campaign launched this month, targeting rural roads to prevent deaths and injuries among young drivers, the government is also shedding some light on the evident dangers of rural road driving. “Road safety is our priority,”, says Road Safety Minister Richard Holden. “We want to accelerate our efforts to tackle unsafe driving habits and create some of the safest roads in the world.”
Speed limits on single carriageway rural roads are a difficult problem for safe system implementation. If you look at in-depth crash investigation research, right-angle crashes that typically occur at T junctions or crossroads and head-on crashes have low survivable speeds. Speeds much lower than typical single carriageway speed limits or operating speeds. Mix in walking, cycling and equestrianism into the mix on our rural single carriageway roads and we have the conditions necessary for death and serious injury.
We can ask drivers to drive to conditions. However, that would require drivers to appreciate the inherent risk they face and that those around them face. Would the average driver know that if they had a head on crash at 31mph there would be a 10% chance that they would be severely injured (that’s the worst of serious injuries that are life changing)? Given we know road users think of themselves as ‘above average’ as a driver and that they have the view that ‘it won’t happen to me’ would we really expect them to change their behaviour even if they did know this?
This is why speed limits should ideally reflect inherent risk. The challenge is that to meet the demands of the safe system we would have to set speed limits much much lower than they are now. Drivers wouldn’t find this credible. This is why moving towards a safe system would be such a good idea – taking those first steps, changing speed limits and operating speeds so we are closer to those survivable speeds. We would undoubtedly see casualty numbers reduce. And, in time, we should see some additional benefits coming from in vehicle systems that may mean that in due course we can meet somewhere in the middle.