The article, authored by Pauline Houbben, Legal Coordinator and Whistleblowing Officer at the COB Secretariat, underlines that the Vision Zero approach marks a major shift from traditional road-safety policies by recognizing that human mistakes are inevitable and that transport systems must therefore be designed to prevent such errors from becoming fatal.
Originally developed in Sweden and adopted in 1997, the Vision Zero strategy has since been embraced by the United Nations and the European Union, becoming a cornerstone of European road safety policy. The EU has set an intermediate target of reducing road deaths and serious injuries by 50% by 2030, with the longer-term objective of virtually eliminating fatalities by mid-century.
According to the COB article, the strategy is built around four key pillars: safer infrastructure, safer vehicles, safer road-user behavior, and effective post-crash care. Measures promoted under the framework include improved road design, lower urban speed limits, the wider adoption of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), stronger enforcement against risky behavior, and faster emergency response systems.
The analysis also stresses the economic and social benefits of reducing road accidents, noting that fewer severe crashes would lower healthcare and emergency-response costs while improving long-term public health outcomes.
In its concluding remarks, the COB emphasizes that Vision Zero is not simply a road-safety program, but “an ethical and systemic transformation” that places the protection of human life at the center of mobility policies.
Read mor details at https://www.cobx.org/node/11146.
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