Traffic safety science: research agenda for the way forward

Today, half the world, primarily the lowand middleincome countries, is grappling with the increasing burden of traffic crashes, while the other half seems to have succeeded in arresting them. Road traffic injuries are predictable and preventable. Despite the growing burden of RTIs globally, multiple intervention strategies and projects have contributed to a significant reduction in the burden of road traffic injuries in many high-income countries (Auerbach-Hafen et al., 2007). Elvik (2017) discusses how efforts have gone into making cars safer and has helped establish the fact that a science-based approach can lead to large improvements in road safety. Elvik further notes that, ‘the development of road design and traffic control is stark. Although it is probably correct to attribute part of the improvement in road safety in many OECD countries after about 1970, to improvements of roads and traffic control devices (Elvik, Kolbenstvedt, Elvebakk, Hervik, & Bræin, 2009; Evans, 2004), these developments have not been instigated by research to the same extent as recent developments in vehicle safety. ’ In view of this, I would like to draw the attention of researchers and readers of this journal to the complexities involved in safety science. The research community is required to invest more efforts in creating evidence to understand the impact of various strategies which often can lead to counterintuitive results. This requires defending the science-based results on the one hand, and formulating strategies to convince the policy-makers of the uncertainties created by counterintuitive outcomes, on the other hand. This volume presents a mix of research articles addressing the issue of road users’ perceptions, road design, built environment features and the impact of enforcement. The study by Sarah A. Richmond et al., from Canada based on a quasi-experimental design used to compare the rates of singleand two-vehicle collisions before and after the installation of pedestrian countdown signals in Toronto. This study shows that such a move has unintended consequences like an increase in motor vehicle collisions and as such, caution is advised while considering such an installation in an urban setting. Chinara Orsi et al. from Europe have made a submission on road accidents involving bicycles. In Europe, cyclists make up 8% of road fatalities. There are, of course, vast differences in the number of such fatalities between the various countries of the EU: Denmark 17% and the Netherlands 24%. Despite several decades of efforts in making the roads safe for bicyclists in Europe, the authors note that the modern traffic system on the road is designed for car use; therefore, cyclists, pedestrians and even motorised two wheelers must suffer the consequences of this lop-sided development. This particular essay is based on data from Germany. From Guwahati in India, Mallikarjuna Chunchu et al. have made a presentation on speed-profile-based road segmentation for accident occurrence modelling for hilly terrains. In hilly terrains, road segmentation makes for very small sections. Since speed profile depends on both, road geometry as well as the road side environment, a new methodology was devised that made a comparative analysis of the constant length segmentation approach, and the new method produced statistically better results. Richard Amoh-Gyimah et al. from Ghana have studied the effects of natural and built environments on pedestrian–vehicle crash severity. These finding indicate pedestrian–vehicle crashes in Ghana account for the highest percentage of fatalities. This essay is based on a dataset obtained from the Building and Road Research Institute. Several factors are likely contributors to such crashes: bad weather, bad lighting at night, weekends, curved, untarred and sloping roads, etc.; corrections in these factors could increase the safety. Mehdi FallaTafti et al. from Iran have sent in a study of the development of crash frequency models for safety promotion of urban collector streets in Yazd, a city in the middle of Iran. Six models were developed to predict crash frequency along each street section. This study concentrated on 5 collector streets comprising 31 street sections. They concluded that of all the models, the developed hybrid artificial neural networks model provided the best performance in terms of accuracy and the number of input variables. Jessica Phillips et al. from the USA have examined trends in helmet use by motorcycle riders in the 1900s and the 2000s after the repeal of the mandatory helmet laws. They maintain that their study shows that trends in helmet use vary by multiple demographic factors. Enforcement of legislation requires support of other strategies. Kenneth Amaechi Agu et al. from Nigeria have presented a paper on seat-belt use among drivers in an urban setting from Enugu, the capital city of Enugu State in the south-east of Nigeria. Direct observation of seat-belt compliance in drivers was studied by gender, vehicle type and time of day. It was found that compliance on seat-belt use