Vision Zero--a road safety policy innovation.

The aim of this paper is to examine Sweden's Vision Zero road safety policy. In particular, the paper focuses on how safety issues were framed, which decisions were made, and what are the distinctive features of Vision Zero. The analysis reveals that the decision by the Swedish Parliament to adopt Vision Zero as Sweden's road safety policy was a radical innovation. The policy is different in kind from traditional traffic safety policy with regard to problem formulation, its view on responsibility, its requirements for the safety of road users, and the ultimate objective of road safety work. The paper briefly examines the implications of these findings for national and global road safety efforts that aspire to achieving innovative road safety policies in line with the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020, declared by the United Nations General Assembly in March 2010.

Speed cameras in Sweden and Victoria, Australia--a case study.

In this article, the ideas behind two different speed camera systems in Australia, Victoria, and Sweden are explored and compared. The study shows that even if the both systems technically have the same aim--to reduce speeding--the ideas of how that should be achieved differ substantially. The approach adopted in Victoria is based on the concept that speeding is a deliberate offence in which a rational individual wants to drive as fast as possible and is prepared to calculate the costs and benefits of his behaviour. Therefore, the underlying aim of the intervention is to increase the perceived cost of committing an offence whilst at the same time decrease the perceived benefits, so that the former outweigh the latter. The Swedish approach, on the other hand, appears to be based on a belief that road safety is an important priority for the road users and one of the reasons to why road users drive too fast is lack of information and social support. In order to evaluate road safety interventions and how their effects are created together with the ambition to transfer technology, there is a need for a comprehensive understanding of the systems and their modi operandi in their specific contexts. This study has shown that there are major differences between the ideas behind the two speed camera programs in Victoria, Australia and Sweden and that these ideas have an impact on the actual design of the different systems and how these are intended to create road safety effects.