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Positive Thinking

Can we make road deaths a thing of the past?

Duration: 28 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LW

Available for over a year

Sangita Myska meets Dr Matts-Åke Belin, a pioneer of the Vision Zero road safety project that aims to eradicate all traffic fatalities.

The ground breaking Vision Zero policy was first put into place in the 1990s. By this time, Sweden was already the world leader in road safety, but it wanted to go further. In the 25 years since Vision Zero rolled out, fatalities have dropped from 7 to 2 per 100,000 - or 250 deaths per year.

At the heart of the policy is the idea of removing human error from the cause of crashes. This means that road designers, car manufacturers, policy-makers – all the players in a planned transport system – share the responsibility for road fatalities.

Could Vision Zero eliminate the deaths of an estimated 1,700 people in UK traffic collisions every year?

Contributors include:

Dr Matts-Åke Belin, Director of the Swedish Transport Administration.

Stuart Reid, Head of Insights and Development at Transport for London and the lead on TfL's Vision Zero action plan.

Mary Williams, CEO of the road safety charity Brake, which campaigns for safer roads and supports people bereaved by road deaths.

Neil Greig, Director of Policy and Research at the Institute of Advanced Motorists or IAM RoadSmart, a road safety and driver education charity.

Producer: Dom Byrne
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4 Show less

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