Sharing responsibility for implementation
Road safety is a multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral subject which cannot be delivered by one agency alone. In practice, road safety is a shared responsibility at international, national, regional, state, and local levels. It requires long-term Government leadership and action on the part of different levels of government and the legislature to provide adequate funding, set targets, introduce and secure compliance with system-wide interventions and programmes, foster effective delivery partnerships with all key stakeholders and ensure effective implementation and monitoring arrangements. The challenges for road safety in Europe are summed up by two European Union institutions:
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“Meeting the challenge of increasing road safety will necessitate a shift in thinking amongst those with responsibility for the traffic system and users about how people use the roads how they can be used safely.”
Commission Of The European Communities, Brussels COM(2003) 311 final, European Road Safety Action Programme Halving the number of road accident victims in the European Union by 2010: A shared responsibility
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“At political level we must decide that we do not accept that road transport takes more lives than other modes; at professional level the high risks must be seen as an unacceptable quality problem of the product, the roads, cars etc.; at individual level we must follow the rules in the system and also place demands on society and manufacturers for safer roads and cars”
Ewa Hedkvist Petersen MEP, Road Safety Rapporteur, European Parliament, 19.6.2001
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As the chart illustrates, shared responsibility involves the commitment of a wide range of actors who combine to deliver and receive appropriate resource and set up effective partnerships within the framework of the national system wide road safety plan. The experience over the years allows identification of good practice in each of these areas. The role of each actor and examples of funding, delivery partnerships in which they are engaged and how their performance is assessed are outlined in the shapes below with examples and links to external websites. Police and health sectors are included separately given the different
types of national, regional or local organization found across Europe.
Of prime importance is effective shared responsibility for implementation within individual organisations, whether governmental or non-governmental. In the chart below an outline is given of the different responsibilities within an organization, which together should ensure that policymaking decision lead to the intended policy performance [27].
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