Highway accidents claim a lot of lives and destroy billions of dollars of property each year that they have become a major concern worldwide. Vision zero refers to a project that was initiated globally to assist in achieving road safety. The abbreviation VZ will be used in this article. The major goal of this highway project is the achievement of highway systems that lack serious injuries or fatalities due to road traffic.
The project operates under several principles that govern the construction and other aspects of the highway system. The four main principles are ethics, responsibility, safety, and mechanisms. Under the principle of ethics, human life is given priority over all other objectives of road traffic systems such as mobility.
Shared responsibility if emphasized a lot in the responsibility principle in that road traffic system providers and regulators must accept responsibility in achieving the goal. Human fallibility is taken in to account under the safety principle to keep chances of error down. Even if errors are made, the injury caused should not be fatal. The achievement of the objectives also calls for change, which is emphasized under the mechanism for change principle.
In order to achieve the objectives of the project, certain limits have been suggested on speed. Suggested speed limits are based on the limits of human being and vehicles. For example, if an accident occurs in which a car knocks a person, if the car is well designed, the person can effectively stand a hit at a speed of 30 km/h. Frontal impact between cars on the other hand can be withstood to speeds not more than 70 km/h in well-designed cars. For side impact, one will be safe in a well-designed vehicle at up to 50 km/h.
If there is need for more speed in areas with high levels of pedestrian traffic, it is suggested that pedestrian crossings should be separated from vehicular traffic. Otherwise, vehicles should only travel at speeds less than 30 km/h when moving through urban areas. In areas where the road is designed to prevent any form of frontal or side impacts, the initiative suggests that car can move at speeds above 100 km/h.
Many ways can be used to ensure that there is no frontal and side impacts. For starters, opposing traffic could be separated by constructing crash barriers on the roads. Another method involves keeping vulnerable and slow-moving road users from high-speed sections of the road system. Additional techniques are use of grade separation and limiting access.
VZ has been adopted differently by countries. The adoption has been done to all road systems in some countries while some countries have limited the adoption to certain areas and roads. For example, in Canada, Edmonton City adopted the initiative in 2015 way before other cities followed suit.
The impact of the project has been seen to be highest in developed countries where it has reduced the number of traffic fatalities significantly. In poor countries however, the adoption has been slow and non-uniform and traffic fatalities seem to continue rising. So far, the project is very promising and there is hope for achieving zero fatalities on highway road systems around the world.
The project operates under several principles that govern the construction and other aspects of the highway system. The four main principles are ethics, responsibility, safety, and mechanisms. Under the principle of ethics, human life is given priority over all other objectives of road traffic systems such as mobility.
Shared responsibility if emphasized a lot in the responsibility principle in that road traffic system providers and regulators must accept responsibility in achieving the goal. Human fallibility is taken in to account under the safety principle to keep chances of error down. Even if errors are made, the injury caused should not be fatal. The achievement of the objectives also calls for change, which is emphasized under the mechanism for change principle.
In order to achieve the objectives of the project, certain limits have been suggested on speed. Suggested speed limits are based on the limits of human being and vehicles. For example, if an accident occurs in which a car knocks a person, if the car is well designed, the person can effectively stand a hit at a speed of 30 km/h. Frontal impact between cars on the other hand can be withstood to speeds not more than 70 km/h in well-designed cars. For side impact, one will be safe in a well-designed vehicle at up to 50 km/h.
If there is need for more speed in areas with high levels of pedestrian traffic, it is suggested that pedestrian crossings should be separated from vehicular traffic. Otherwise, vehicles should only travel at speeds less than 30 km/h when moving through urban areas. In areas where the road is designed to prevent any form of frontal or side impacts, the initiative suggests that car can move at speeds above 100 km/h.
Many ways can be used to ensure that there is no frontal and side impacts. For starters, opposing traffic could be separated by constructing crash barriers on the roads. Another method involves keeping vulnerable and slow-moving road users from high-speed sections of the road system. Additional techniques are use of grade separation and limiting access.
VZ has been adopted differently by countries. The adoption has been done to all road systems in some countries while some countries have limited the adoption to certain areas and roads. For example, in Canada, Edmonton City adopted the initiative in 2015 way before other cities followed suit.
The impact of the project has been seen to be highest in developed countries where it has reduced the number of traffic fatalities significantly. In poor countries however, the adoption has been slow and non-uniform and traffic fatalities seem to continue rising. So far, the project is very promising and there is hope for achieving zero fatalities on highway road systems around the world.
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